WT/MIN(17)/ST/27  
 
13 December 2017  
(17-6910) Page: 1/2 
Ministerial Conference  
Eleventh Session  
Buenos Aires, 10 -13 December 2017  Original: English  
 
STATEMENT BY H.E. MR  OCTAVIAN CALM AC 
DEPUTY PRIME MINISTE R, MINISTER OF ECONO MY AND INFRAST RUCTURE  
THE REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA  
From the outset, I would like to extend my profound appreciation to the Government of Argentina 
for the hospitality and sincere gratitude to the WTO Secretariat for their efforts in organizing the 
11th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization.  
 
The delegation of the Republic of Moldova is hono ured to participate and to continue contributing 
in our endeavour of achieving a successful Ministerial for the benefit of the multilateral trading 
system.  
 
The value of this traditional Ministerial Conference resides in what the WTO family is able to deli ver 
to the worlds’ nations – this is the reason why all of us are here in this beautiful city of Buenos 
Aires. I do express my hope that the Buenos Aires Ministerial will remain in peoples’ minds as an 
acknowledgement that peace, commerce, and honest frien dship should guide us in our common 
desire to develop our countries and to offer multilateral opportunities for job creation and poverty 
alleviation.  
 
The Republic of Moldova has a pragmatic, holistic and multilateral approach in the liberalization of 
the international trading  system. Being de facto a developing country, the Republic of Moldova has 
undertaken extensive commitments of a developed country, in the course of 16 years of its 
membership to the WTO family and my country has duly implemented all of  the legal provisions 
stipulated in Bali and Nairobi Ministerial Declarations.  
 
Following the above, let me briefly share with you Moldova’s experience that resulted from our 
participation in the multilateral trading system and the implementation of WTO Ag reements. 
Emphasizing our recent achievements, I am very pleased to announce that the Republic of 
Moldova has achieved considerable progress in the last year on reducing trade barriers and 
facilitating trade through the implementation of the Trade Facilita tion Agreement and Government 
Procurement Agreement.  
 
Today, I strongly encourage all WTO members to consolidate the sectorial approach and to find 
convergence on certain trade issues, such as agriculture sector, hoping to obtain an outcome for 
domestic s upport and public stockholding for food security, fisheries subsidies rules, special and 
differential treatment, trade remedies tools, domestic regulations on services, gender and trade, 
MSMEs, investment facilitation and to offer a perspective for the reg ulation of Electronic commerce 
services in order to narrow the gap between developed, developing and least developed countries.  
 
We can therefore encourage members to start by digging deeper into each of these issues in order 
to find ways in which facilita tion solutions could be found at the international level with a 
multilateral outcome.  
 
I believe that there is a need for more flexibility in following the needs of the small and vulnerable 
countries by reinforcing the role of the SMEs and MSMEs in the glo bal value chains.  
 
The Republic of Moldova fully supports the efforts of Belarus and Bosnia and Herzegovina to join 
the WTO. We strongly believe that WTO accession process contributes further to the achievement WT/MIN(17)/ST/27  
 
- 2 - 
 
  of universality and higher trade liberalization, which represent strategic priorities for this member 
driven organization.  
 
Concluding, I would like to state that the Republic of Moldova is  committed to work with other 
WTO Members towards a successful 11th Minis terial Conference , and we  strongly encourage all 
delegations at  this Conference  to give the clearest p ossible directions for our future work in further 
liberalizing trade and strengthening the multilateral trade system, especially in the 
post-Buenos  Aires period, which may represe nt a new era for the WTO disciplines and platforms of 
negotiations.  
 
On this note, allow me to wish all of us fruitful discussions and a flexible approach in addressing 
the existent issues.  
 
__________