. /.  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION   
WT/MIN(11)/ST/112 
16 December 2011 
 (11-6863) 
MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE 
Eighth Session Geneva, 15 - 17 December 2011 Original: Spanish 
 
  
PLURINATIONAL STATE OF BOLIVIA 
 
Statement by H.E. Ambassador  Angélica Navarro Llanos, 
Permanent Representative to the WTO 
 
 
First and foremost, we would like to acknow ledge and thank Nigeria for its efforts and 
excellent work as Chair of the Eighth Ministerial C onference.  On behalf of the Bolivian people and 
our President, Evo Morales, please receive our warm regards. 
  We also welcome the accession of Vanuatu, Sa moa, Montenegro and the Russian Federation 
to the World Trade Organization.  We wish th em every success in making international trade 
a beneficial tool for their people.  
 We are living in times of crisis, which began pr imarily with the international financial crisis 
caused by the unbridled ambition of internationa l banking and the excessive liberalization and 
deregulation of financial markets in  the developed countries, which led many countries to the brink of 
catastrophe and hit poor countries especially hard.  This  is not another passing crisis;  it is a systemic 
crisis, a crisis of capitalism that has been triggered by its own excesses. 
 
 We understand the growing indi gnation and frustration that has recently surfaced with the 
proliferation of camps occupying numerous cities throughout the world because we, too, are among 
the 99 per cent who suffer from an unjust and unbala nced system, as opposed to the one per cent who 
benefit from this system at the expense of the poorer populations.  This system needs to undergo a fundamental change. 
 
 We would therefore like to make it clear, Mr Chairman, that for Bolivia, trade and market opening are not ends in themselves but tools to fight poverty and achieve public policy objectives that serve the interests of all and not just a select few.  
 Let me explain, in a nutshell, what this Organization's three priorities should be over the 
short, medium and long term:  first, developmen t;  second, development;  and third, development.  
This should be the driving force behind all of this Organization's actions whether in the context of the 
negotiations or of its regular work.  
 The only way to achieve a positive outcome during the DDR is to fully respect all of our 
guiding principles, especially the "single undertaking" .  We would like to stress that, as provided for 
in paragraph 47 of the Doha Minist erial Declaration, any early harvest  in areas where consensus arises 
should be in areas of development only - otherwise we would simply be adding to the imbalances of 
an international trading system which already favours the developed countries.  WT/MIN(11)/ST/112 
Page 2  
 
   Our top priority should be the countries that are most in need - in other words, offering a real 
solution to the least developed countries' legitima te demands, including cotton.  Should we fail to do 
this, the Organization would lose even more credibility.   For Bolivia, however, development is not just c onfined to the Doha Round, but be an integral 
part of all of the Organization's work. 
  We believe, for example, that Special and Differential Treatment provisions in the WTO Agreements should be strengthe ned so that they are more opera tional, precise and effective, and 
that the monitoring mechanism should be implem ented.  Likewise, we should strengthen the 
Committee on Trade and Development and give effect  to the issues relating to "implementation" and 
Annex C of Cancún.   In short, the time has come for those have mo st benefitted from this system to begin sharing 
a little with the rest of us. 
 
 This Organization should not pursue new issues,  new approaches or plurilateral initiatives that 
divert us from our main objective, development, until we first have solved the development problem 
as a whole.   Bolivia does not support new negotiating approach es that are contrary to the agreed mandates 
and may compromise the Organization's structural principles.  These approaches should be avoided. 
  We are not in favour of plurilateral initiatives, not only because they would undermine the very foundation of this Organization - multilateralism - but also b ecause they would be in the interest 
of only a small group of developed countries. 
 
 Nor do we think that "new issues" or the so-called "21
st century" issues should be given 
priority until we have first resolved more pressi ng development issues.  The wealthiest countries' 
development debt cannot be side-lined by less urge nt issues for yet another century;  doing so would 
simply further tip the balance of international trad e rules in favour of countries that are not in need. 
 
Calls to freeze applied tariff rates (tariff stands till) are also at odds with development because 
developing countries would have to renounce the leg itimate and legal policy spaces available to them 
to meet their development objectives and reduce poverty.   Finally, we are concerned not only about the development dimension, but also about the way 
in which this Organization has historically made decisions.  Bolivia strongly reaffirms its support, 
inter alia , for the "single undertaking" principles, d ecision-making by consensus, transparency, 
inclusiveness, and bottom-up processes, which should guide this Organization's work at all times. 
  I would also like to reiterate our support for th e statement by the "Friends of Development" 
group and would ask, as other delegations have alread y done, that this document be included in the 
conclusions of our meeting.  We also ask that the report fully reflect the concerns expressed by 
a group of Latin American countries in document WT/MIN(11)/W/4, which includes some of our 
concerns.  
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