WT/MIN(15)/ST/41  
18 December 2015  
(15-6765)  Page: 1/2  
Ministerial Conference 
Tenth Session 
Nairobi, 15-18 December 2015  Original: Spanish  
 
STATEMENT BY H.E. MR LUIS MANUEL PIANTINI 
AMBASSADOR 
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC  
I am delivering this statement on behalf of the Government of the Dominican Republic. First, we 
wish to express our heartfelt gratitude to the Government and people of this beautiful country, Kenya, for their warm hospitality and their excellent organization of this Conference.  
It is worth highlighting that we are celebrating the 20
th anniversary of the WTO precisely on the 
African continent, where our Ministers approved the Uruguay Round at Marrakesh. Since then we have come a long way in strengthening the mu ltilateral trading system. We the WTO Member 
countries must continue to work to buttress this system and to ensure that the WTO continues to 
be the main global forum for trade negotiations.  
It is the Dominican Republic's understanding that if we are to attain this goal, we the Members of 
the WTO must continue our efforts to conclude the Doha Development Round negotiations in keeping with its original mandate and in the fram ework of the agreements reached by Ministers in 
July 2004, in Hong Kong in 2005 and in Bali in 2013, all of which must be complied with. 
 
To strengthen the multilateral trading system, ou r post-MC10 endeavours must aim to fulfil the 
hope and promises engendered by the Doha Deve lopment Agenda, without forgetting any of its 
components and firmly anchored in the princi ples that guided the launch of this Round. 
 Similarly, we would like this Ministerial Conf erence to produce a substantive pro-development 
package that entails adopting the G-90 proposals on special and differential treatment, a special 
safeguard mechanism for developing countries, a permanent solution for public stockholding programmes for food security purposes covering all current and future programmes in developing 
countries and, in the realm of the agricultural negotiations, the elimination of agricultural export 
subsidies. 
 Furthermore, it is important to be mindful of the needs of the weakest Members of this 
Organization, and we therefore support a substant ive package in favour of the least developed 
countries and the continuation of the work progra mme on small and vulnerable economies. In this 
regard, it is of vital importance to our delegation that the flexibilities already granted to small and 
vulnerable economies in the framework of the negotiations, mainly on agriculture and NAMA, are 
preserved in the continuation and conclusion of those negotiations. The slowing growth of trade 
flows and the adverse impacts of climate change  are hampering these small economies in their 
endeavours to achieve progress. 
 
We recognize the important contribution made  by the WTO dispute settlement system, which 
continues to be of immense value to Members as one of the key underpinnings of the system. 
The Dispute Settlement Body must meet its objectives by functioning properly for all, including the 
poorest and smallest Members. It is therefore important for the WTO to continue its efforts to review the Dispute Settlement Body so as to make it more efficient and more user-friendly for 
developing countries. 
 We acknowledge the crucial role that WTO technical assistance has been playing in building the capacities of Member States, especially developing  ones, to enable them successfully to adapt it 
for the purposes of meeting the challenges pose d by ever more open and competitive trade. WT/MIN(15)/ST/41 
 
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  We congratulate Liberia and Afghanistan on their considerable efforts to reform their trade rules in 
order to become new Members of this Orga nization at this Ministerial Conference. 
 We recognize that the WTO has achieved much in its brief history. It has grown and is now a 
central pillar of the global economic architecture. Yet its Members need to do more to harness the 
potential of trade as a generator of integrat ed growth, sustainable development and as a 
contribution to realizing the 2030 Development Agenda. 
 
Over the past 20 years, the Dominican Republic's total goods trade has increased threefold, from US$8,356 million in 1994 to US$27,207 million in 2014, and its services exports have grown fourfold, generating income worth US$7,044 million last year. This strong trade momentum has 
been instrumental in generating wealth and permanent jobs and in driving real GDP growth 
averaging 5.3% annually over this 20-year period; for this year, real growth is expected to surpass 6.5%, with inflation remaining below 2%. 
 
Finally, the Trade Facilitation Agreement is now before our Congress for ratification.  
The Dominican Republic reiterates its commitment,  as a Member of the World Trade Organization, 
to strengthening the multilateral trading system.  
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