WT/MIN(13)/ST/61  
 
5 December 2013  
(13-6731)  Page: 1/2  
Ministerial Conference 
Ninth Session 
Bali, 3-6 December 2013  Original: Spanish  
 
STATEMENT BY H.E. MR CARLOS ROBELO RAFFONE 
AMBASSADOR, PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE 
NICARAGUA  
On behalf of the National Reconciliation and Unity Government of Nicaragua, I would like 
to express my sincere gratitude to the Republic of  Indonesia for hosting this Ninth WTO Ministerial 
Conference in which the developing and least developed countries have placed their confidence in the hope of obtaining balanced and fair results. 
 
Similarly, my delegation acknowledges and ap preciates the enormous efforts made by the 
WTO Director-General, Mr Roberto Azevêdo – the perseverance and the spirit of transparency 
and inclusiveness with which he conducted, in Geneva, the process of building a consensus 
in favour of moving forward with this Development Round. 
 
We also welcome the recent accession of the Republic of Yemen to the World Trade Organization, 
and wish it every success in making international trade a beneficial tool for its people.  Nicaragua associates itself with the statements of  Barbados on behalf of the small and vulnerable 
economies, of Indonesia on behalf of the G-33, and of the Dominican Republic on behalf of the 
informal group of developing countries.  
Mr Chairman, Nicaragua would like to reiterate once again its commitment to the multilateral 
trading system and the great importance it at taches to strengthening the regular bodies, 
to the monitoring and evaluation of trade po licies and practices and to the implementation 
of Members' Uruguay Round commitments. 
 As a small and predominantly agricultural country, Nicaragua has shown particular interest in the negotiations on agriculture, trade faci litation, and the subjects that are conducive 
to development, such as operational, precise an d effective special and differential treatment, 
and technical and financial assistance free of conditionalities.  
This would help the small economies to integrate more effectively into world trade in line with 
their economic development needs, and to achieve a better standard of living for their peoples.   
In Nicaragua's view, we have progressed considerably in the preparation of a package for this 
Conference, which we hope will produce fair and balanced results for us all. The developing countries must continue to show their true political will in eliminating the inequality gap that has been a feature of world trade, because while countries like Nicaragua take on new and binding 
commitments, the developed countries are still reluctant to listen to our requests and assume 
commitments themselves. Nicaragua is concerned that there should be no binding commitments for the developed countries in the different areas of the Bali Package, particularly in Agriculture. 
 
Nicaragua is confident that the results of this Conference will form a basis for continuing our work within the mandate of the Doha Ministerial Declaration as the one and only post-Bali work 
programme. This Conference must renew our comm itment to address the subject of development 
as a pivotal element of the negotiations.   WT/MIN(13)/ST/61 
 
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  In the framework of its economic transformation, Nicaragua is implementing a series 
of agricultural programmes aimed at eradicat ing poverty and hunger. Accordingly, Nicaragua 
favours the acquisition of food stocks for low-income producers and consumers in the developing countries. My delegation believes that the world trade rules should be reworked to promote fairer 
and more stable markets, particularly for the countries with enormous food security problems. 
 As regards trade facilitation, although Nicaragua is not a demandeur in that area, it has 
participated actively and constructively in reaching an agreement that takes account of the needs 
of the developing countries, of self-determination in taking on commitments, with technical and financial assistance as a prerequisite to such commitments.  
Mr Chairman, Nicaragua is not in favour of adopting new negotiating approaches that are contrary 
to the agreed mandates, since that would violate the principle of multilateralism, transparency, 
and inclusiveness of the system; nor does it favour the inclusion of new negotiating topics 
until those of the Doha Development Agenda have been resolved. 
 In conclusion, the developed countries cannot expe ct poor countries like Nicaragua to reduce 
hunger and poverty among its population if in th ese negotiations they set conditions on our 
participation in international markets while refusing to undertake genuine commitments that take account of the asymmetries between the develo ped economies and the developing economies. 
We need to conclude the negotiations to create fairer and more equitable markets without 
distortions, in line with the multilateral trading system we would all like to build.  
 
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