WT/MIN(13)/ST/41  
5 December 2013  
(13-6687)  Page: 1/3  
Ministerial Conference 
Ninth Session 
Bali, 3-6 December 2013  Original: Spanish  
 
  STATEMENT BY MR WILLIAM CAÑAS 
VICE-MINISTER OF FOREIGN TRADE 
BOLIVARIAN  REPUBLIC  OF VENEZUELA  
This beautiful island of Bali is a good place to reflect on the unfair rules that govern multilateral 
trade. With the institutionalization of the Multilateral Trading System an attempt was made to convince people that by liberalizing trade it would be possible to achieve higher standards of living, full employment and sustainable human development. Years after the founding 
of the WTO, it is clear which countries ha ve been the winners and which the losers. 
 President Nicolás Maduro, like our remembered Commander President and Maximum Leader of the 
Bolivarian Revolution, Hugo Chávez Frías, has said that trade can be one of the key factors 
in achieving social justice within the framework of a global strategy that guarantees our peoples' fundamental rights, but is not everything. 
 
We believe that economic growth cannot be dissociated from development and social sustainability. Trade must be an instrument for social change and a tool not only for creating wealth but also for distributing it fairly and equitably. 
 
Ministers from more than 140 Member countries met in Doha, Qatar, in November 2001, to launch a round of negotiations intended to improve the conditions of market access for the countries 
of the South, by laying down rules to ensure that more trade is translated into more development . 
These manifestations of good will have , once again, become a dead letter. 
 
During the negotiations the developed countries reinterpreted the negotiating mandate emanating 
from Doha, introducing concepts such as " genuine market access " and " new trade flows" , 
nowhere to be found in the Doha Ministerial Declaration.  
We are firmly in favour of cutting back protectionist policies and the ruinous agricultural subsidies 
granted by the industrialized countries.  
In the course of the Doha Round an attempt has been made to make a possible agreement 
on agriculture conditional upon a significant reduction in the tariffs on industrial products on the part of the developing countries, in percentages greater than those which the developed countries 
would commit themselves to make, thereby circumventing the mandate laid down in paragraph 16 
of the Doha Declaration, according to which reduction commitments will not entail full reciprocity on the part of the developing countries.  
Special emphasis must be placed on the developm ent dimension in the multilateral trading system. 
Doha made it very clear what were the priorities and what and whose were the development needs that should receive attention. We are calling for the mandate to be fulfilled. Unfortunately, the 
domineering attitude of the developed countries has blocked the opportunities for the developing 
countries to consolidate their economic independence.  
It is possible to have a trade relationship differen t from the existing one; Venezuela, together with 
various progressive governments in Latin America and the Caribbean, has remodelled the institutional framework of economic and political integration in South America, with the creation of new organizations such as: the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), WT/MIN(13)/ST/41 
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  Petrocaribe, UNASUR, Banco del Sur, and CELAC. These integration and cooperation projects are 
governed by the principles of solida rity, complementarity and fair trade. 
 From the South we are showing the rest of the world that in the 21
st century there are economic 
and social alternatives to the developm ent model imposed by global capitalism. 
 The changes that have taken place in Venezuela are no sham. The Bolivarian Government has 
significantly improved the real living conditions of the Venezuelans, and these changes have been 
incorporated in a new model of socialist development called Twenty-First Century Socialism.  To achieve these goals, reliance has been placed on support from the ALBA and MERCOSUR 
countries and other partners around the world. It has been shown that it is possible to build other 
forms of economic and trade relationships by ta king into account the supreme interests of our 
peoples rather than the selfish interests of a few. 
 
I would like to take this opportunity to endorse President Nicolás Maduro's denunciation of the gigantic economic conspiracy directed from the North American Empire and intended to impose 
on Venezuela a politico-economic model by non-institutional means. The counter-revolution 
considered it the "right" moment to launch an economic war.  It should be recalled that in the year of the Oil Coup (2002) a different format was employed, 
when anti-democratic forces declared open war on the Venezuelan economy with acts of sabotage 
which were foiled by Commander Chávez. The Government of President Nicolás Maduro is foiling attempts at destabilization that rely on economic terrorism. The democratic will and peaceful 
intentions of the Venezuelan people will prevail. 
 To illustrate this for you more graphically, I would like to offer you this explanation of what 
is meant by Economic War: "Economic war is a means of political war aimed at changing the way 
an economy functions until it is destroyed. Its ultimate goal is to make the country ungovernable, destabilize political and social life by denying the population food and basic goods and services 
and, finally, produce a change in the political regime". 
 
Faced with this silent war, the Venezuelan State is fighting bravely, determined to free itself for ever from any form of neo-colonial yoke. The revelation of the acts of telephone espionage 
perpetrated by the United States against various leaders of sovereign nations are just one small 
example of the arrogance of a moribund power which, in the case of Venezuela, is trying to lay siege to our country's economic and social peace. 
 
Venezuela is one of the countries of the world most blessed with natural resources, the jewel 
in the crown, with its reserves of oil ("the biggest on the planet"), not to mention its reserves of timber, gas and fresh water, so that it is "not at all surprising" that it should be the object 
of espionage, "any country or empire that s ees its oil reserves and production and energy 
capacities gradually declining will see in Venezuela a tempting area for it to control".  
We have come to Bali on the understanding that we were not coming to negotiate but rather 
to evaluate a set of issues which form part of  the Doha Development Agenda. However, we are 
concerned that the approach has changed and an a ttempt is being made to push for negotiations 
against the clock, using unknown and non-transparent procedures. 
 We wish to stress that we want no surprises in Bali. How can there be an agreement when the package we have is unbalanced? 
 
The package proposal we have before us mainly satisfies the demands of the developed countries, freeing them from real commitments and relegating the demands of the developing countries 
to the background. Moreover, it feigns to meet the concerns of some Members in order to commit 
them to a package without that package actually  responding to the development needs of most 
of the membership. 
 
Trade facilitation is favoured through a binding agreement, but the developing countries are fobbed off with political declarations and limited solutions. Some Members would be emerging from 
this Ministerial as "free riders". 
 WT/MIN(13)/ST/41 
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  Where trade facilitation is concerned, we would forcefully draw attention to the fact that only one 
of the 159 Members of this Organization o pposes the removal of the square brackets 
in Article 12.4, relating to freedom of transit. And we all know we are talking of the situation with regard to Cuba. The article in question does not constitute a bilateral dispute, but a multilateral 
situation that is being dealt with in numerous forums including the United Nations. And all the 
multilateral and regional entities have called for the lifting of the criminal blockade against that 
heroic Caribbean nation. 
 
We consider it necessary for some Members to show real political will and commit themselves to reducing their trade-distorting export subsidies and to establishing clear, flexible and permanent 
measures with regard to public stock-building for food security purposes. States should have 
permanent policies for combating hunger and poverty, in fulfilment of their obligations 
as guarantors of the human rights of their peoples.  
Venezuela supports with absolute determination the demands of the least developed countries, 
since these are historical claims of countries that have been subjected to colonialism, neo-colonialism and plunder. We therefore support the proposals made by Cuba, Bolivia 
and Argentina, insofar as they incorporate issues of interest to the least developed countries 
during this Ministerial.  Every time that situations like this arise, with the emergence of critical positions, there is talk 
of the end of multilateralism and the WTO. It wo uld appear that the only way of avoiding that 
catastrophe is to accept – without challenge and without consideration of the consequences – the rules of the game imposed by the developed countri es, with the intention of putting the developing 
countries on the spot. 
 Bali should be a meeting for giving the multilateral trading system some breathing space, 
but to agree on what we have on the table would be to undermine the Doha Round, since the 
results would open up prospects of the Doha mandate disappearing and an attempt being made to impose on the WTO new agendas that deviate from  the interests and demands of the developing 
world. We consider that there should be no new agendas, and priority should be given to the 
outstanding challenges of the Doha Round. Let us be clear: we will not accept new approaches or 
negotiating modalities, such as plurilateral ones.  
The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela rejects the use of non-transparent and exclusive negotiating 
mechanisms to impose results – at any cost – ev en if they are unbalanced and detrimental to the 
developing countries. 
 
Venezuela proposes that the work be resumed in Geneva, with time available for a horizontal examination of the package proposal and its real relationship with the Doha Development Agenda. 
 
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