WT/MIN(15)/ST/66  
21 December 2015  
(15-6797)  Page: 1/1  
Ministerial Conference 
Tenth Session 
Nairobi, 15-18 December 2015  Original: Spanish  
 
  STATEMENT BY H.E. MR ALFREDO SUESCUM 
AMBASSADOR 
PANAMA  
On behalf of the Republic of Panama, we congratulate and thank the Government and people of 
Kenya, as well as Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed, for their generous hospitality and work in organizing the first conference of the World Trade Organization to be held in Africa - a continent with considerable potential for development and laden with economic promise. 
 
We also thank the Director-General and the Chairman of the General Council for their leadership and efforts in preparing this Tenth Ministerial Conference marking the twentieth anniversary of the 
WTO. We must acknowledge the WTO's contribution to the expansion of global trade in goods and 
services. The accession to the WTO of 34 countries, including Panama, since the inception of the Organization, bears witness to the latter's continuing importance for the economies of the world. 
We celebrate the adoption, at this Ministerial Conference, of the protocols of accession of 
Afghanistan and Liberia, and welcome Yemen, Kazakhstan and Seychelles, which have become new Members since our previous meeting.  
We should underscore the importance of other decisions to be taken at this meeting, on cases of 
non-violation under the TRIPS Agreement, electronic commerce, the Work Programme on Small Economies and preferential rules of origin for LDCs. We also highlight the importance of the 
amendment to the TRIPS Agreement concerning public health and the Trade Facilitation 
Agreement, both of which Panama has ratified and trusts will soon enter into force.  
These subjects, along with other important topics, are work in progress, however, which still needs 
to be completed if the Organization is to move with the times. We have not met the negotiating objectives of the built-in agenda. Nor have we delivered on the objectives agreed at the Doha Ministerial Conference, to whose principles Panama remains committed. By the close of this 
ministerial meeting, we will need to have affirmed our determination to maintain meaningful 
negotiations on the core issues, and to resume our work in order to secure a dynamic multilateral rules-based system that promotes development. 
 
In Panama's view, this implies seeing significant inroads in the negotiations on services and in the gradual reduction and eventual elimination of agricultural export subsidies; a reduction in and 
tighter disciplines for agricultural production-distorting subsidies; and new disciplines for the 
fisheries sector.  Panama has dynamic international logistics and services sectors, which we will protect from 
measures that are inconsistent with the multilateral rules and have been approved in order to 
undermine the success of countries such as Panama, on the pretext of defending fiscal, political and security interests. In this connection, we believe that the WTO dispute settlement system has 
demonstrated its full relevance and validity. We shall support the continued efforts of the 
Director-General and the Membership to reinforce and ensure the effective and efficient operation 
of the dispute settlement system. 
 
We are confident that this Ministerial Conference w ill deliver outcomes that will allow us rapidly to 
engage in productive post-Nairobi work to strengthen the multilateral trading system.  
__________