WT/MIN(13)/11  
 
3 December 2013  
(13-6602)  Page: 1/2  
Ministerial Conference 
Ninth Session 
Bali, 3-6 December 2013  Original: English  
 
 G-331 MINISTERIAL COMMUNIQUE2 
BALI, 2 DECEMBER 2013 
The following communication, dated 2 December 2013,  is being circulated at the request of the 
Delegation of Indonesia on behalf of the G-33. 
 
_______________ 
 
 
We, Ministers and Representatives of the G-33 Member Countries met in Bali, Indonesia, on 2 December 2013, on the occasion of the 9
th WTO Ministerial Conference to assess the current 
state of play of the agriculture talks including on food security and exchange views on future 
course of actions for completing th e Doha Development Agenda (DDA).  
 
We welcome the 9th WTO Ministerial Conference as an important opportunity to renew the 
collective commitment of all WTO members to a robust, fair, and predictable rules-based and multilateral trading system. We express our sincer e appreciation to the Government and people of 
Indonesia for their hospitality and excellent work in hosting this Conference.   
 
We reiterate the importance of food security, livelihood security, and rural development in developing members including small, vulnerable economies (SVEs) and least-developed countries 
(LDCs) as enshrined in Doha and Hong Kong mandates. We emphasize the importance of 
delivering on the on-going reform in agriculture and the completion of the DDA including the elimination of global production and trade distortions that hinder productivity and competitiveness 
of hundreds of millions of poor farmers in the developing world.  
 In the face of increased volatility of food produc tions and prices on the global market since the 
food and financial crises in 2008, we underline the importance of public stockholding for food 
security purposes in the developing countries’ food security, livelihood security and rural 
development strategy.  We also urge Members to remain cognizant on the subsistence nature of 
agriculture in most developing countries including SVEs and LDCs.  
 
Bali Deliverables  
 
We recognize the members’ collective resolve to advance negotiations where concrete progress 
can be achieved including focusing on elements of  the DDA and with a view to achieve an outcome 
that would among others rectify some of the gross imbalances in the subsisting WTO rules on agriculture. To this end, the G-33 submitted a pr oposal on some elements of the Draft Modalities 
for early agreement to address food security, livelihood security, and rural development 
imperatives.  
                                               
1 Members of the G-33 are Antigua and Barb uda, Barbados, Belize , Benin, Botswana, 
Plurinational State of Bolivia, China, Côte d’Ivoire, Congo, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, El 
Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya, 
Republic of Korea, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, the Philippines, Peru, Saint Kitts & Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, 
Senegal, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Tanzania, Trin idad and Tobago, Turkey, Uganda, Bolivarian 
Republic of Venezuela, Zambia and Zimbabwe. 
2 Egypt subscribes to this Communique. WT/MIN(13)/11 
 
- 2 - 
 
  We expect member’s engagement to work on the G-33 proposal to achieve the “permanent 
solution”.   We recognize the members’ engagement in discussing “interim solution” for MC9 as well as other 
issues of negotiation for MC9.  While we fully respect each member rights and negotiating 
positions in the negotiation, we express our deep disappointment that in the Geneva process members failed to find convergence, despite all th e efforts and flexibilities that has been shown by 
the G-33 and other members.  We, thus, strongly urge members to find ways to address the 
impasse considering the negative impact of failure to deliver concrete outcomes in Bali on the credibility of the WTO as the negotiating forum for multilateral trade rules, on the reinvigoration of the DDA-agriculture negotiation as well as to our constituents, specifically to the most vulnerable 
members of population. 
 We note with deep disappointment that the deadline to implement export subsidies elimination in 
2013 as stipulated in the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration was missed, and that a legally binding 
outcome to eliminate export subsidies and all export measures with equivalent effect could not be realized in Bali. We reiterate the importance of maintaining special and differential treatment in 
the areas of export competition as well as in the TRQ administration deliverable.  
 Post Bali and the G-33  
We note that intensive and inclusive engagements on package for MC9 in Geneva have brought 
much progress in a large number of difficult and sensitive areas. We should build on existing efforts for further negotiations post Bali  in order to achieve balanced outcome. 
 
We are of the view that having the ‘permanent solution’ for the Public Stockholding for Food Security Purposes in Developing Countries contained in JOB/AG/22 of 13 November 2012 is a 
critical tool for achieving our broader food security, livelihood security and rural development 
concerns. We, therefore, call for immediate engagement to jump-start work for the permanent solution after Bali MC9 so as to conclude it during the currency of the interim solution
3. 
 
We also commit ourselves and strongly urge other WTO Members to continue delivering the Doha 
Development Agenda based on the Draft Agricultur e Modalities of December 2008.  We also urge 
WTO Members to complete the Doha Round at earliest.  
 
In the broader Doha agricultural reform, we under score the need to secure Special Products (SPs) 
and Special Safeguards Mechanism (SSM).  We underline that the special and differential 
treatment for developing countries including SVEs and LDCs in the agriculture negotiations must 
be operationally effective to enable developing countries to effectively take account of their 
development needs.    
The G-33 shall remain resilient and a dynamic group representing the evolving needs of the 
hundreds of millions of farmers in the developing world. Thus, we reaffirm our critical and complementary role in facilitating and ensuring that the global agricultural reform are attuned to 
needs of all developing countries as well as in establishing a strong, fair, and market oriented 
rules-based multilateral trading framework through meaningful and effective special and differential treatment for the food security, li velihood security and rural development of the 
developing world.  
 Finally, we renew our commitment to engage actively and constructively in the negotiations, with the aim of addressing the remaining DDA issue. In doing so, we will continue to respect the Doha 
mandate and its development dimension. 
 
Bali, 2 December 2013 
 
__________  
                                               
3 In case Ministerial Conference IX does not lead to an interim solution, the last part of this sentence 
should read “on the basis of the above re ferred document as soon as possible”.