RESTRICTED  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  WT/GC/M/119 
23 June 2009 
 (09-3081) 
General Council 
29-30 April 2009  
 
 
 
MINUTES OF MEETING 
 
Held in the Centre William Rappard  
on 29-30 April 2009  
 
Chairman:  Mr. Mario Matus (Chile)  
 
  
Subject discussed
: Appointment of the next Director-General 
 1. The Chairman
 recalled that the meeting had been convened in accordance with paragraph 14 
of the Procedures for the Appointment of Director s-General (WT/L/509), and that its purpose was to 
enable Members to meet formally with Mr. Pascale Lamy, the sole candidate who had been 
nominated for the post of the next Director-Gen eral.  He recalled briefly the modalities for the 
conduct of the meeting which he had communicated  in a fax to all delegations on 25 March: 
 - First , the meeting would start with a presentation by Mr. Pascal Lamy. 
  - Second
, following Mr. Lamy's presentation ther e would be a question-and-answer 
period, at the end of which Mr. Lamy would have the opportunity to make a 
concluding statement if he so wished. 
  - Third
, as had been done in the past, names of  speakers for the question-and-answer 
period would be drawn at random from a box at the podium containing the names of all delegations wishing to put questions to Mr. Lamy.  Members wishing to put 
questions had been invited to place their names in this box, which had been made 
available for this purpose the previous day an d again in the meeting room just prior to 
the start of the meeting. 
  - Fourth
, in order to make the fairest possible use of the time, each Member whose 
name was drawn from the box would be a llowed to ask one question, with one 
additional follow-up question allowed.  Th is would be followed by responses from the 
candidate, followed by the drawing of the next speaker, and so on. 
  - Fifth
, Members had been asked to keep their questions as brief as possible, and had 
been urged to assist the process by not aski ng questions that might already have been 
asked.  Similarly, Mr. Lamy could choose to  move on to another question if he felt 
that one asked had already been touched on in a previous response. 
 WT/GC/M/119 
Page 2  
 
  2. Following the Chairman's introductory remarks, Members met with Mr. Lamy.
1 
3. At the resumed meeting of the General Council on 30 April, the Chairman  recalled that, under 
the Procedures for the Appointment of Directors- General agreed in 2002 (WT/L/509), the process for 
the appointment of the next Director-General had begun on 1 December 2008 with a notification from the then General Council Chair to the membership to  the effect that Members had until 31 December 
to nominate candidates.  In keeping with the procedures, Members had been informed in a 
communication from the Council Chair dated 4 Novemb er 2008 of the candidature of Mr. Lamy, the 
current Director-General, who had notified the Chair be fore the start of the process of his intention to 
seek reappointment for a further term.  As Member s were aware, by the close of the nomination 
period of 31 December, no further candidatures had been received.  Under the procedures, candidates 
were normally to be provided three months follo wing the end of the nomination period to make 
themselves known to Members and to engage in di scussions on the issues facing the organization.  
The following two months were then to be devote d to narrowing the field of candidates through a 
process of consultations and ultimately arriving at  a choice for appointment.  The process was to 
conclude with a meeting of the General Council convened not later th an three months prior to the 
expiry of the incumbent's term, at which a decision to  appoint a new Director-General had to be taken.  
In the present case, a decision on the appointment of the next Director-General therefore had to be 
taken not later than 31 May. 
4. The several stages of this process had clearly been designed for a situation where Members 
were faced with an initial field of more than one candidate.  In the consultations undertaken by his 
predecessor as General Council Chair, it had become  apparent that, while respecting the agreed 
procedures, Members acknowledged the unique nature of the situation, where there was only one, 
unopposed candidate who was the incu mbent Director-General.  In his statement on this matter at the 
February General Council, his predecessor had reporte d that it was clear from his consultations that 
there was no opposition to Mr Lamy's reappointment, a nd in fact widespread support for it.  Members 
had told him they looked forward to an opportunity to hear, in accordance with paragraphs 8 and 14 of 
the procedures, a presentation from the Director-Gen eral on his vision for the WTO, followed by a 
question-and-answer session and an opportunity for discussion with Members.  It had also been noted that this exchange would itself have no legal effect. 
5. In the light of this, his predecessor had annou nced that a special meeting of the General 
Council would be convened at a suitably early date, noting that Members had indicated their 
willingness to expedite the process so that the re appointment of the Director-General could be 
confirmed before 31 May.  The prev ious day, Members had had the oppor tunity to meet formally with 
Mr. Lamy and to hear his presentation on his visi on for the WTO, which ha d been followed by a 
question-and-answer session.  In the contacts he ha d had with delegations since the February meeting 
of the Council, it was clear that there remained widespread support for Mr Lamy's reappointment.  
Accordingly, he recommended formally that the Ge neral Council agree to re-appoint Mr. Lamy as the 
Director-General of the WTO for a term of four years as from 1 September 2009. 
6. The General Council so agreed
. 
7. The Chairman  said he spoke for all delegations in warmly welcoming Mr. Lamy's 
reappointment and wishing him well for his next four years. 
8. The representative of Costa Rica,  speaking as the longest-serving ambassador at the WTO 
and on behalf of all delegati ons, said he wished to thank the Chairman and his predecessor, 
Mr Gosper, for the efforts both had made throughou t the process that had led to the appointment of 
                                                      
1 Mr. Lamy's presentation, as well as the questions put and the answers provide d, are reproduced in the 
Annex to the present records.  WT/GC/M/119 
 Page 3 
 
 
  the Director-General.  It was an honour for him to take the floor on behalf of the membership and to 
be able to do so in such special circumstan ces.  Pascal Lamy had informed Members in 
November 2008 of his decision to seek a new term as Director-General.  Members had taken that 
decision as that of someone who knew that this was not the time to leave, as the decision of someone 
who knew that he could not abandon the ship that he had kept afloat a nd steered through troubled 
waters and who was confident of being able to make  a decisive contribution in ensuring that the ship 
reached its destination, together with all the valuable  cargo it contained.  Over the past four years, the 
multilateral trading system had grown stronger in its  regular mode of operati on, and the Doha Round 
negotiations had made significant headway.  One had seen the emergence of a more transparent WTO 
in which Members participated more directly in its day-to-day proceedings and in the negotiations 
relating to the Doha Development Agenda.  One ha d seen a WTO moving closer to civil society, and 
civil society moving closer to the WTO, as well as an Organization that had become closer to other 
international organizations and ha d assumed a very important role in the face of the global economic 
crisis. 
9. Pascal Lamy had played a key role in achieving these outcomes, a role that was recognized by 
the membership.  His decision in November to offer to continue to serve as Director-General had been 
a responsible one, but it had come as no surprise,  because perseverance was one of his inherent 
qualities.  He knew that despite the progress achieved in those four years and the fact that he had 
never been so close to bringing the Doha Round to  a successful conclusion, there were major tasks 
that yet remained to be completed, and he knew th at his leadership, technical skills and infectious 
positive energy would help Members achieve that go al.  The previous day Mr Lamy had presented the 
Council with a detailed account of his views of the fu ture for the WTO over the next four years.  He 
had responded to Members' questions in clear, sinc ere and explicit terms.  Appreciation was due for 
Mr Lamy's earnest participation in this exer cise.  The General Council had now decided, by 
acclamation, to reappoint Mr Lamy as Director-Gener al of the World Trade Organization for a further 
term, and he was convinced that Pascal Lamy, version 2, would prove even more effective.  On behalf 
of the Members, he expressed sincere congratul ations, best wishes for every success, and their 
commitment to accompany the Director-General throughout his new term with their firmest support. 
10. The Director-General  thanked the representative of Costa Rica.  His wish was that the 
numerous contacts he had had with the latter on bananas would bear fru it before he started his second 
mandate.  On a more general note, he wished to wholeheartedly thank Members for this expression of 
trust, which he saw as the most precious part of hi s relationship with the Members.  This trust was 
what bound him together with them, and this was wh at he needed to keep the energy to serve the 
organization.  He also wished to share this e xpression of trust with the DDGs, his Cabinet and the 
Secretariat as a whole.  He had not always made their lives easy in the last four years, and they deserved to share in his gratitude.  As he had said th e previous day, he intended to carry out his duties 
very much in the same spirit in which he had done th is for the past four years, and the joint endeavour 
would be as it had been – to strengthen the WTO as the global trade body.  He was certain the next 
four years would be tough and that the various p illars of the system would be tested, but he was 
confident that the organization would be able to  steer through these troubled waters stronger.  His 
wish, as was no doubt that of Members, was that these difficult times would end as soon as possible.  
Finally, since the previous day, he had started l ooking for the rabbit he hoped would come out of the 
hat, hopefully in the coming year. 
11. The General Council took note
 of the statements. 
 
_______________ 
 
 
 WT/GC/M/119 
Page 4  
 
  ANNEX 
 
 
A. Presentation by the Candidate
1 
  Thank you very much for the opportunity to express my views and for providing an occasion 
for a dialogue with all Members about the next four  years.  I hope that this process allows us to 
distance ourselves, albeit briefly, from our day-to-day concerns, and to look at the bigger picture.  As the poet Carl Sandburg once said: "a politician should ha ve three hats. One for throwing into the ring, 
one for talking through and one for pulling rabbits out of if elected." The good news is that I have the 
hat. But the bad news is that we do not yet have a rabbit to pull out of  the hat!  Jokes aside, I approach 
this exercise very much in the same spirit that I di d in 2005; that is, remaining at the service of all 
WTO Members and contributing to the strengthening of this Organization.     Let me start by reiterating my deep belief in the primary purpose of the WTO, which is to 
open trade for the benefit of all.  The pursuit of  openness, the guarantee of the most-favoured-nation 
principle and non-discriminatory treatment by and among Members, and a commitment to transparency in the conduct of its activities, remain  our founding political values.  I remain convinced 
that the gradual opening of domestic markets to intern ational trade, with justifiable exceptions or with 
adequate flexibilities, allows the achievement of su stainable development, raising people's welfare, 
reducing poverty, and fostering peace and stability.  Bu t this does not mean that the benefits of rules-
based trade opening accrue automatically to everyo ne. Hence the notion of a "Geneva consensus", 
which I enunciated in this same room in 2005. It is about trade opening but it is also about proper 
domestic and international policies, which help tran slate more open trade in to real, increased and 
perceived benefits for our citizens.   
 We are living in a time of crisis. Its full soci al impact, unfortunately, is still to come and it 
will inevitably create political pressures. And it is precisely now, when protectionist temptations 
abound, that the value of the multilateral trading system is all the more apparent to us. The 
GATT-WTO system of global trade rules patiently constructed over the last 60 years is first and 
foremost a provider of confidence for economic operators. And, as the crisis has shown, confidence is 
today the missing link to bring the world back onto a path of growth.  Therefore, our main objective 
for the years to come, as I see it, is to strengthen the role of the WTO as the global trade body. This 
means making the WTO more development-friendly, more  "user-friendly", so that its benefits are felt 
by all, large and small, rich and poor, strong and weak.  Our core business is opening markets and 
designing trade rules.  This is and will remain our unfinished business. Our task is far from over.  If 
we agree on this overall objective, which I believe  we all do, how can we increase our chances of 
achieving it?  
  Based on the experience of the last four years and on the consultations I have had with many 
of you in recent weeks, there are four areas which,  in  my view, we should work to improve. These 
four areas are: negotiations;  implementation; coherence; and  outreach.  Contrary to conventional wisdom, the WTO is more than its negotiations. But delivering on the negotiating mandate of the 
Doha Round remains the litmus test of our collec tive ability to strengthen the global trading system. 
This is why I believe that concluding the Doha  Development Round is and should remain our number 
one priority.  Beyond the trade-offs required to c onclude the Doha Round and also beyond the market 
access that it will bring, lies its hugely important systemic value. The biggest prize in the Doha Round is the certainty, predictability and stability it will bring to global trade. It is in a moment of crisis, such 
as the one we are witnessing today, that the value of this insurance policy increases.  
 
                                                     
 
1 The statement was subsequently ci rculated in document JOB(09)/39.  WT/GC/M/119 
 Page 5 
 
 
   The hard fact is that concluding the Doha Round is difficult precisely because its results will 
be meaningful: this Round is two or three times gr eater than previous ones, in terms of cuts and 
commitments.  Also, this is a Round focused on bene fits for developing countries – this is a true 
Development Round. If measured in terms of duties fo regone, two-thirds of th e potential benefits of 
tariff and subsidies cuts resulting from this Round wi ll accrue to developing countries' exports.  What 
we need to do as of now is to r eset the process at a political level, building on where we left it last 
year.  We have walked along the Doha Round path for seven years now and we are 80% of the way 
there. We have done it together, with a bottom-up, inclusive process. A lot has been achieved – if you 
look back from where we started, there is a fairly  long list of issues where views have converged. I 
believe the time is ripe to start ta king the negotiations to the last phase; i.e. to run the last  mile. 
 
 Looking beyond Doha, there are many new ideas floating around on potential areas for future work. Many of these have also come up in my cons ultations with you. Take climate change, where I 
am convinced that the first step should be a mu ltilateral agreement embracing all major emitters that 
we all hope to see emerge at Copenhagen. Issues relating to food security, energy, labour, 
competition, investment or financial protectionism, however defined, are also in the air.  My own 
sense is that our capacity to project ourselves into  the future depends on our capacity to make the 
present happen.  These issues do not belong in the current agenda. Obviously nothing prevents us 
from thinking about the future but I believe serious  work on any future topic should commence when 
the finish line of the Doha Round is firmly in sight .  Let me mention two area s which are part of our 
current mandate and which, in my view, deserve mo re of our attention: Regional Trade Agreements 
and Rules of Origin.  On RTAs, it is difficult to  see why such deep concessions and commitments are 
undertaken today in the context of preferentia l agreements, without any consequences in the 
multilateral context.  We all know this is a complex issue and that there are differences between RTAs 
aiming at deep regional integration and other free tr ade agreements. But, if we are serious about the 
prevalence of the Most-Favoured-Nation principle, we should collectively think about some way of 
gradually "multilateralizing" concessions made in  free trade agreements.  Food for thought for 
Article XXIV negotiators.  On Rules of Origin, th e proliferation of different regimes – multilateral, 
regional, bilateral or even unilateral – needs, in my  view, to be addressed head-on, in order to simplify 
the lives of trade and economic operators.   These two examples – RTAs and Rules of Origin – show that the WTO's current agenda is 
anything but old-fashioned. A lot of what we do today was already in the agenda of the Uruguay 
Round, even in the Tokyo Round to be more precise! Bu t the fact is that they  remain as relevant, if 
not more so, for economic operators today.  There are also a number of ideas being floated as far as 
the negotiating processes are concerned. Many have b een explored in the Sutherland Report as well as 
in the Report of the Warwick Commission.  We curre ntly operate within three constraints: decision-
making by consensus, all negotiating items bundled into a single undertaking and a bottom-up 
negotiating process.  I do not think the "consensus about consensus" should be reopened.  Taking 
decisions by consensus increases the legitimacy of ag reements reached in an international forum, 
which is necessary and welcome, as the degree of  legitimacy decreases with distance from domestic 
political processes.  The question then is how to  build consensus. Resorting to the well-known 
concentric circles' approach is probably the only efficient method available. But it demands a rigorous 
transparency commitment by all: everyone must do hi s/her part.  We must recognize that there is not 
yet enough transparency in the way we currently work – hence, there is room for improvement. 
  We also need to find ways to move faster to  the centre of gravity on the negotiating topics, to 
increase efficiency. Here, in my view, there is so mething to be learnt from the negotiating processes 
of other international forums.  Sect oral and plurilateral agreements or concepts such as "critical mass" 
have already been tested. But again, I believe this s hould not be the focus of our work at this stage.  
The second area of future focus should be improving  implementation of existing agreements. When 
one looks at the functions of the WTO, there is a striking contrast between the sophistication of the 
negotiations, the solidity of the Dispute Settlement  Mechanism and the frag ility of surveillance and WT/GC/M/119 
Page 6  
 
  transparency, which is nevertheless one of the pilla rs of the multilateral trading system.  The mandates 
for notifications and peer review are there, but in my view not enough attention and resources have 
been given to their implementation. A certain la ck of overall vision and of analytical capacity 
handicaps the surveillance function of the WTO.  Th ere are, however, some bright spots.  Progress 
has been made in transparency in Regional Trade Agreements, for example. And with the monitoring 
of the measures taken in response to the crisis we have shown that we can collectively make a more 
muscular use of these mechanisms. But many committ ees register a poor record of notifications and – 
most importantly – of their quality and examination. As one of you told me the other day, we have 
been collectively a bit lazy on this field.   
 The challenge is how to improve this. We coul d make better use of technical assistance, focus 
more on the capacity of Members to comply with their notification obligations and better prepare 
them for a more effective peer review. We could better operationalize Trade Policy Reviews. We could also redesign notification formats so that they become multipurpose and more "user-friendly".  An improved surveillance process would surely incr ease trust in the system and avoid jamming the 
dispute settlement mechanism, through a sort of "ear ly warning" system.  As for dispute settlement, 
my sense is that overall it is working well.  In add ition to what is being negotiated in the DSU review 
process, there are some areas for improvement, su ch as reducing the administrative costs for the 
Secretariat – the length of submissions and annexes to  be translated is one issue to be tackled – and 
addressing peaks of activity.  Compliance with dispute se ttlement decisions is also an area to be given 
attention. As is the participati on of developing countries in dispute settlement, where I believe that a 
boost to the Advisory Centre on WTO Law would sure ly be welcome. And also how to make better 
and more frequent use of good offices, mediation a nd arbitration, procedures which are provided for 
in our existing rules.   The third area I would alike to flag is how to ensure more cohere nce both internally and 
externally.  Starting with the Secretariat: my view is that, in spite of past progress,  there remains a 
need to further de-compartmentalize divisions, im prove internal communication, enhance mobility of 
staff, make use of task forces - such as the one we  have for crisis monitoring - or establish pools of 
experts, for activities such as Trade Policy Review s, technical assistance and accessions.  We should 
also have more informal sessions and seminars with Members, to look across areas covered by the WTO.  Externally, the WTO is one of the planet s in the global governance galaxy and its know-how 
can be leveraged even more to tackle global gove rnance challenges. The main ingredients of global 
governance are efficiency and legitim acy. The key to combine these tw o elements is coherence.  We 
have used our convening power to ensure a more coherent approach to different issues in the 
international trade and economic agenda. In the last  four years we have strengthened the functioning 
of  the explicit coherence mandate that the WTO h as with the World Bank and with the International 
Monetary Fund. But we have also worked to expa nd the WTO's coherence with other international 
and regional organisations.  I intend to continue  working along these lines.  Aid for Trade and the 
Enhanced Integrated Framework are clear examples of that. Monitoring of the measures taken in the 
context of the current crisis is another example.  Trade finance and the recent initiatives to convene 
stakeholders at the WTO to address this issue globa lly are also examples of our capacity to promote a 
coherent approach to global problems.  The same can be said of the Standards and Trade 
Development Facility (STDF).  We s hould build on this in the future , and pay more attention to the 
regional level, which is becoming more and more re levant, including for our trade-related technical 
assistance.    We are engaged in joint research with other in ternational organisations, such as the ILO, the 
OECD, UNCTAD and Regional Deve lopment Banks. A joint study on trade and climate change 
jointly produced by the WTO with UNEP will soon be published.  On a more macro level, the 
building of bridges with the UN system, with the trade being part of the Millennium Development 
Goals' endeavour and through my ow n involvement in the Chief Executives' Board should also help to 
improve coherence in our work with the United Nati ons family.  This is one area where, despite our  WT/GC/M/119 
 Page 7 
 
 
  efforts, a lot of work remains to be done.  There continues to be a disproportion between the activities 
we have amongst ourselves - over seven thousand meetings taking place in the Centre William 
Rappard every year - and the intensity of interac tion with our environment and the public.  Starting 
with our own circle: there is room for improvement  in the interaction with  small and non-resident 
delegations. A review of the proportion of training  resources offered to these Members should be 
done, so as to ensure that their needs are addressed .  Then, reaching out to non-Members, we have 
accessions, an area that many of you have pointed ou t as needing focus in the coming years. There is a 
certain malaise amongst acceding Members, as th ey feel that the bar for accession seems to 
continuously rise.  There are specific concerns on the part of LDCs on the use of the guidelines for 
their accession to the WTO. Accession is a complex process, necessitating both domestic ownership 
and capacity, which require hard work in many acced ing Members. However, I believe that there may 
be merit in devoting more focused efforts as well as ensuring greater political attention to accessions, 
in particular those of LDCs. I for my part also intend to do so when this is required. 
  Turning now to our external stakeholders – N GOs, parliaments, staffers, academics, business 
– there is also a need to strengthen networking and increase transparency.  In the past four years, we 
have worked to enhance our engagement with civi l society.  We have launched a pilot accreditation 
project of local NGOs to facilitate their access to the WTO premises during Ministerial Conferences, 
Trade Negotiation Committees, and General Councils.  We have devolved a greater portion of the 
organizational aspects of the WTO's Public Forum to civil society, allowing civil society to itself 
shape the Forum. I myself have regularly engage d NGOs both in Geneva and during my travels, 
acknowledging their input in our work.  We have ma de better use of our website and of electronic 
dissemination, through webcasts. We have strengthene d our outreach to academics, in particular those 
in developing countries. Just this week we  have launched the WTO Essay Award for young 
economists.  But there is more to do. In my consulta tions with civil society ahead of this meeting, a 
number of ideas were raised. For example, a greater opening of  our Trade Policy Reviews or greater 
engagement of civil society on the ground during  WTO Technical Assistance missions.  These ideas 
are worth exploring together.  Special attention, in  my view, should be given to parliamentarians and 
staffers, who hold the keys to deciding agreements at the end of the day and adopting legislation in a 
WTO-consistent manner.  Our most challenging out reach problem, though, remains with the general 
public. The WTO has very high notoriety – but low popul arity, even if this is changing, in particular 
in developing countries. The WTO is too comple x to be user-friendly. Communicating WTO is like 
telling people that Lord Jones has died when they di d not even know that Lord Jones was alive!  Its 
complexity is a handicap – something which deser ves serious thought. We need to think how we 
communicate in a friendlier way.  We have impr oved our WTO website, whic h is very well-rated 
amongst surfers of the web, but more can be done, us ing all three languages.  In sum, we need to 
change gear. The classic asymmetry in the politics of trade  - the many who benefit are silent, the few 
who suffer are vocal - means that the burden of proof is on us. It is for us to make the case for open 
markets and better regulation.  We need to have a better radar pict ure of media reporting on the WTO. 
Public perceptions continue to be too dotted, especi ally in the non- English speaking world.  There is 
a need for further engagement with domestic and regional media. And the WTO secretariat cannot do 
it alone; We need to work on this together.  
 Let me now turn to the Secretariat. It is sm all but beautiful. Comparatively small in size and 
therefore capable of rapidly adjusting to changes in  priorities, in workload  as in tasks. Beautiful 
because it is full of powerful intellects and effi cient professionals and support staff devoted to 
servicing you.  My overall objective, as the head of the Secretariat, is to enhance its capacity of providing support to Members.  For that, there is a need to keep modernising the Secretariat, while 
keeping it frugal.  Version.3 changes have increased  productivity – and will continue to do so.  As to 
recruitment, I will continue to adhere to the principl es of expertise, merit and diversity. In the last four 
years and even within the very limited overall staff turnover, we have increased the number of 
nationalities of our staff:  we have added 8 ne w nationalities from developing and Least Developed 
Countries. 60% of staff recruited at junior prof essional level have come from developing countries WT/GC/M/119 
Page 8  
 
  and LDCs. Half of them had gone  through one of our internship programmes. Two-thirds of our 
internships went to developing-country and LDCs young professionals.  But there is more to be 
achieved in terms of improving diversity, including on gender mainstreaming, as well as in improving 
our internships for young professionals, as suggested by some of you, in particular from developing and Least Developed countries. I will continue to advance this.  
 
 We have worked to make the WTO a greener organisation by developing a plan to cut down 
emissions. In this context I believe that we coul d work together to use more technology and reduce 
the paper flow to Delegations. As far as the Secret ariat is concerned, I intend to pursue the objective 
of achieving a paperless Secretariat by 2012.  On th e building, our aim is to keep the renovation costs 
within the envelope which has been agreed by Me mbers. The renovation works have already started 
in the South wing, with the date for the end of th e entire works being Autumn of 2012. By then, we 
will have renovated the Centre Willia m Rappard and built its extension in the current South parking – 
local political specificities permitting of course.  I count on the support and well-known lobbying 
skills of you all to engage in this important local campaign !  There will be the unavoidable 
disturbance during the works which we will strive  to keep to a minimum. There will also be 
difficulties with parking, even if the Secretariat h as vacated all but a handful of parking slots on site 
for your use. In advance I count on your unders tanding for the disturbances during the renovation and 
construction period.   Also on the Secretariat, I believe we have to increase its services, its support and its analytical 
capacity. The issue cuts across all areas of improve ment I have identified.  We cannot do our work 
better without seriously increasing our research, anal ytical and dissemination capacity.  We need to 
work further on our databases, in terms of accessib ility and interoperability. But simply producing and 
publishing data is not enough. We need  to be able to better analyse and share it.  The WTO needs to 
become more of a reference on trade knowledge, i.e.  on the analysis of global trade policy data and 
statistics. We need to move from production to inte rpretation, from raw numbers to trade intelligence.  
And again, this is key to all areas: negotiations, monitoring, dispute settlement, technical cooperation 
and outreach.  Also, we need to continue operating as a forward-looking radar on trade issues, but in a 
more systematic way. We need to be fully aware of new issues and examine potential future obstacles 
to trade, to be at the cutting edge of awareness of the shaping factors of world trade, to continue to 
better serve you.  This requires efficient networking – and hence a stronger base in the WTO, so as to 
be able to provide Members with simulations, qua ntifications, scenarios and options.  The changes 
introduced in the Secretariat so far have increased our efficiency , but we are working at near-full 
capacity.  To be able to further improve our servi ces to you, to be able to respond to requests for 
analytical work, we will need to increase our resources.  Staff will have to be strengthened with more 
economists, lawyers and communicati on specialists. There is scope for redeployment which I will 
continue to do. But my own sense is that this will not be enough.  
  My approach to our budget has been a si mple one: the budget is a forecast, not an 
authorization to spend. If there is money left, we give it back – which we have done. And the 
introduction of an activity-based budget will make us  more accountable to you. We will have an 
occasion to discuss this in our next bi-annual budget.  I count on your support for this.  One issue of 
particular concern is the current situation of the WTO staff pension plan.  The plan, as you are aware, 
is of the collective responsibility of WTO staff a nd Members. Apart from the negative impact of the 
crisis on the plan, it also suffers from an actuarial deficit, which should be addressed urgently. I trust 
that Members will give due attention to solving th is problem in the near future.  While on budgetary 
issues, I have a concern with the issue of arrears, in particular those of our poorest Members. Some 
thought must be given to how they could start from a clean slate. Another concern is the increase of 
trust funds, which implies costly administrative work . We should seriously consider whether there is 
scope for the integration of at least some of th e current activities provided by trust funds into the 
regular budget.   WT/GC/M/119 
 Page 9 
 
 
   Let me close by addressing the question of WT O Ministerial meetings, which many of you 
have raised during our consultations. We should de-dramatise Ministerial meetings, make them a 
more regular exercise, where WTO activities are revi ewed across the board, to ascertain the level of 
satisfaction of Members with the running of WTO activities and to address priorities at a political 
level. We have not had a Ministerial meeting sin ce 2005 and my own sense is that we should not close 
2009 without one.  A regular Ministerial meeting is one thing.  Ministerial involvement in 
negotiations is another.  We should not confuse the two.  In conclusion, no major surgery needed in 
the WTO. No major overhaul of the system is in my view required. But rather a long to-do list to 
strengthen the global trading system. I am ready to do my part and to assist Members in achieving the objectives of this Organization.  The WTO, as a living organism, should c ontinue to improve its 
capacity to rapidly react to global challenges, as we  are seeing in the current crisis, and to contribute 
to devising solutions to those challenges.  The re inforcement of the multilateral trading system, in 
particular through the conclusion of the Doha Rou nd, should be our guiding light. In the constellation 
of global governance, let's work together to see the WTO star shining ever brighter. 
 B. Questions and Answers
 
 
Q: I have one question.  One of the main fu ture challenges for the role and scope of the 
WTO is the relationship between trade policy and en vironmental policy, in particular policies to 
address climate change. With that in mind, ho w does the Director-General see the outcome of 
the Copenhagen climate change negotiations affecting the future work of the WTO?   (Malta) 
 
A: Well, climate change as part of a multiplicit y of environmental challenges is no stranger to 
the WTO.  The Marrakech Agreement states very cl early that opening trade has to serve sustainable 
development.  Many of our agre ements have environmental comp onents.  We have a Committee on 
Trade and Environment.  The Dispute Settlement Mechanism "jurisprudence" has brought a lot of 
clarity in the understanding of the sometimes comple x relationship between opening trade on one side 
and preserving the environment on the other side, and we  have seen lots of these complexities in areas 
like technical barriers to trade, for instance.  So the environment planet and the trade planet are not 
strangers.  If you look at the agenda of the Round, there is an important environmental component in 
negotiating specific tariff reductions on environm ental goods and in negotiating specific market 
access commitments in environmental services, in clarifying the relationship between the WTO 
agreements and multilateral environm ental agreements, and in tackling the huge issue of fisheries 
subsidies in order to address one of the reasons for the depletion of marine resources.  So again the 
world of the environment is not new to the WTO, nor is the political will which has been expressed in 
many quarters to build a post-Kyo to international regime where CO2 emissions would be disciplined 
through a multilateral agreement that would bind commitments taken by polluters to reduce CO2 
emissions.  That is the main challe nge for Copenhagen at the end of this  year.  We have to obtain an 
agreement between countries which emit 20 tonnes of CO2 per head per year, and countries which 
emit one ton of CO2 per head per year.  These are numbers of today.  Looking at the future these 
proportions may change.  We have  the adaptation challenge, we ha ve the mitigation challenge, we 
have the financial challenge and we  have the technology transfer challenge.  All these issues are in 
one remit, at this stage, which is not the WTO remi t, which is the place in the international system 
where an agreement has to take place.  It is not for me to say whether the odds of getting there in 
Copenhagen are there.  I am not enough of a specialis t, but what I can say is that I hope we will do it. 
  Now then, if there is an agreement of this kind, what will the implementation tool box be – 
trade systems, CO
2 tax systems?  If these implementation measures are put in place, will there be a 
trade component of these international systems?  Wh en I read the literature, when I look at the draft 
legislation here and there, yes I can see spots of br oader trade adjustment systems, ideas, suggestions, 
but nothing near implementation at this stage.  And rightly so, because this sort of measure can, in my 
view, only have value if taken within the context of  an overall international binding agreement.  My 
sense is that if there are trade con sequences, trade interfaces, we then will have to look at that.  When WT/GC/M/119 
Page 10  
 
  I say we, it is you, Members of this Organization, because it just happens that the members of a 
potential CO
2 reduction agreement are the same as the Members of the World Trade Organization.  So 
if this is an issue of coherence, it is one of the very good examples where coherence starts at home.  I 
am sure that Members putting together a post-Kyoto agreement will make sure that the trade side – 
knowing the role and principles of the WTO – can fit wh en the time comes.  By the way, there already 
is, as was in the Kyoto Protocol, a general prescription that implementation measures of any such 
agreement would fit with the principles of this Organization.   Finally, looking at past experience, we have  good reasons for being optimistic on this.  Look 
at what happened with CFCs.  There was an intern ational binding agreement.  There were domestic 
implementation measures.  Some of these implem entation measures had a broader problem, but we 
solved this issue because the purpose was clear and trade as an adjustment was on the order of 
implementation.  Take international agreements on en dangered species;  take international agreements 
on toxic waste;  take international agreements on chemical products – we have until now never had a 
serious problem of contradiction between these agreem ents and our system.  So my hope, and that is 
my final remark on this answer, is that (a) C openhagen works, and (b) the implementation of a 
Copenhagen agreement on the trade side can be done in  coherence with our principles.  But what I am 
certain about is that we should not bring this issue to the floor of this Organization as a substitute for 
something that could not be agreed in the proper international forum.  The WTO is not there to 
substitute for other agreements.  We are there to try and support in our trade remit more general 
agreements which, again, I hope  will take place in Copenhagen. 
 
Q: How does the Director-General think that  compliance with panel rulings could be 
improved within the framework of the Dispute Settlement Understanding, considering the negotiations on the subject and the difficulty that small countries have in ensuring that rulings 
are implemented when they apply to major developed countries?   (Dominican Republic)  
 
A: First, if we try to diagnose the situation, I th ink it is fair to say that the track record of 
implementation is a good one.  Of c ourse it all depends on what sort of benchmark you use, but if you 
use the rate of implementation of decisions in do mestic systems, the WTO rate of compliance looks 
extremely good.  True, it is not 100 per cent, which ma y be a problem, and true, if you look at the rate 
of compliance according to Members, one or two important Members of this Organization still have 
to comply with determinations of the Dispute Se ttlement Body, which have been made some time 
ago, and for some of them a reasonably long time ago.  I think we should look at this – when 
decisions have not been complied with after a certain number of years.  We all understand the 
viscosity of changing domestic legislation when this is necessitated following a dispute settlement 
case.  There remains a problem, again, with some important Members, who good sense might say 
should be more responsible, being bi gger, in complying with the dispute settlement system.  So there 
is an issue there.  It is not exclusive to some big Members.  Some smaller Members have also had 
problems of compliance which, by the way, for some of them have triggered new disputes.   Now what can be done?  I think the main el ement is peer pressure, which is why when 
disputes are regularly reviewed within the DSB, this sometimes looks a bit like a ritual.  I am not sure 
there is a lot of passion during some of these meetings , and that is a problem for you to address, but I 
think the main issue is peer pressure.  Now, I can , I have and I will sometimes take up these issues of 
compliance with some of my Ministerial or governmental interlocutors. I hope everybody will 
understand that if we are result-oriented, these initiativ es are more efficient if they are not public.  So 
those are the two avenues which I believe are open to us  in trying to improve the situation.  And if I 
look at some of the long-standing issues where Members have not complied with DSM 
determinations, there is negotiating activity in at l east two or three of them, some of which I have 
contributed to, and I am reasonably hopeful that in  the short term this rate of compliance could 
significantly improve on particularly difficult knots caused by definition.   WT/GC/M/119 
 Page 11 
 
 
  Q: I must say I am very lucky this morning to be given this early opportunity to pose a 
question.  The question I was going to ask was about the importance of implementation, which 
you mentioned as one of four areas where you want to see more improvement.  And indeed this is what I was going to ask.  You gave some ideas.   I very much agree, because the reality is that 
there seem to be many examples of Member s not fulfilling their obligations under the WTO 
agreements.  Now to improve that, you mentio ned a few ideas like technical assistance to 
developing countries, improving notifications, and so on, so you have answered the question I 
was going to ask.  But if you have some more ideas to make this happen better, I very much 
wish to be enlightened.  (Japan) 
 
A: Thanks for the question.  I could return the qu estion, given that I have made a few suggestions 
– what is your view about the s uggestions and do you have  more suggestions?  I think we will come 
back to that.  Overall, and I am talking to Amba ssadors here, I think your own personal involvement 
in the implementation activities of this Organizati on are very important.  Your bosses give you a few 
priorities and you give a few priorities to your troops.  Your own personal help in making the 
activities of this Organization something which yo u prioritize in your own work within your own 
missions is something which I would be very grat eful for you to enhance.  You mentioned three 
suggestions.  There may be more.  Yes, I believe trade-related technical assistance could and should 
be more focussed in helping a number of our deve loping-country Members to increase their capacity 
for compliance and for notification, including their cap acity to peer review what others do.  True, 
when we do training on intellectual property, on gov ernment procurement, on technical barriers to 
trade, we improve the capacity of our interlocutors to step into these peer review systems, but this 
could be more country-focussed.  If we have a pictur e that a certain Member has more of a problem 
than another with notifications for instance, or if a certain Member signals us that their participation in 
peer review is not significant because of lack of capacity, we should address this in a more laser-like 
manner. 
 
 Trade Policy Reviews could be used to enhance co mpliance.  There is a lot of benefit in this, 
as peer review comes upstream from the event of the re view itself, which is a sort of massaging that 
this process allows in capitals which helps your Mi nisters to peer pressure their colleagues on the 
occasion when the trade policy of your country is goi ng to be reviewed in an open forum.  This, by 
the way, could be even more open.  But what we try to do is provide benefits downstream from the 
trade policy review.  When a trade policy review ends , it ends, and there is no real follow up, at least 
none organized in this Organization.  There is no re al operational content of our trade policy reviews.  
This could be addressed in a more systematic way.  The notification formats is an idea that came from 
one of you, the rational being that we have plenty  of notification requirements in various bits and 
parts of the covered agreement, but that the task fo r you to ensure that they are complied with in terms 
of notification in capitals is sometimes very comple x, involving liaising with 10, 15, 20 administrative 
agencies or ministries.  With the technology we have  today, we probably could try to make the system 
more user-friendly.  So those things are of a more political nature, and while a lot of that has to do 
with your own input, others are of a more technical nature.  Ideas are welcome, as this is an issue 
which we need to look at across the board.    Q: I would like to thank Pascal for the presenta tion at the beginning of the meeting.  Our 
question is simply how will particular things that you learned in the first four years affect what 
you will do in the next four years.   (United States) 
 A: The general answer is speak less and listen mo re!  Second, as far as action is concerned, my 
first four years have not removed my taste for getting things done, although it may have been a bit 
eroded from time to time for reasons of psychological  comfort.  But fundamentally I believe that we 
have to make this Organization simp ler, and we have to show that we are able to produce results.  
What I have gained during these four years is cert ainly a better understanding of the viscosity of the 
system – why and how it is complex, cumbersome and heavy, but also how efficient it can be when it WT/GC/M/119 
Page 12  
 
  works.  So we have to try and keep the effici ency while removing a bit of the overhead, as IT 
specialists would say, that the system creates and wh ich is not conducive to ge tting things done.  So I 
think I understand better the complexities, but my pers onal determination to try to produce results is 
higher than it was a few years ago, not least becau se the system does not automatically do that.  The 
WTO remains a Member-driven Organization.  I k now this, and collective driving is certainly a 
specific science, but the system needs to be energi zed.  There needs to be momentum and impulsion, 
which is not my sole responsibility.  It is a shar ed responsibility, and some of you personally, or under 
instructions from your Ministers and Governments,  have from time to time produced impulsion which 
has been extremely fruitful.  
 On the running of the Secretariat, which is not the main task seen by the public or the media, 
but which takes quite a bit of my own resources and t hose of my team, I have learned that change in 
this system can only be gradual and permanent.  And in this respect the Secretariat is very similar to 
the Organization itself – there is a sort of similarity of culture, in that they are both heavy to move but 
willing to move, and when they move, capable of reaching an extremely good rate of target 
satisfaction.  I will keep doing this, and I think that after having hesitate d a bit between various 
options in terms of change of management, we have found, for the moment, the right mix between 
introducing doses of change while keep ing people's motivation and attachment to the system.  So that 
is a very general answer.  I am conscious of th is.  Again, to summarize – capturing more of the 
inevitable complexities of the system on the one si de, but on the other side trying to find the most 
efficient channels to stimulate the move forward which is, I believe, one of  the main responsibilities 
of the DG in this system. 
 
Q: I thank you for your presentation this morn ing.  I do agree with you that no major 
surgery is required in the WTO, but we do need to continue to evolve, to adapt ourselves to the 
changing environment.  In this context, durin g the past half-century or so, commodities and 
natural resources have rarely been constrained by  international trade.  They were seemingly 
abundant, so rules and disciplines regulating th e export side of these commodities were not 
particularly considered necessary.  Now we are experiencing some kind of paradigm shift.  Food 
and energy shortages, rising food and other commo dity prices, pose a new challenge to us.  In 
light of this, my question is whether you believe that the WTO should in the future venture into 
new pastures beyond the current ambit of trade liberalization on the import side.    (Korea) 
 
A: Well I certainly agree with your starting point,  which is that international trade is a very 
mixed bag and that, insofar as we in this organizatio n work to open trade in order for a more efficient 
international division of labour to produce welfare ga ins, it is quite logical that we do not focus too 
much attention on a part of international trade wh ich happens anyhow.  If you are an oil producer you 
generally have no other choice than to export a larg e part of your production.  And if you have no oil 
at all, there is not much choice – you have to im port a lot of oil, so whatever we do here will not 
change this basic reality.  What economists would call in French "du commerce fatal", which happens 
anyway, whatever one does.  Now, this is certainly true for many energy resources.  It is certainly true for many commodities.  If I have m ountains of iron ore I will try to u se a bit of that at home, but I will 
export it, and the other way around. 
 
 Now on food, it is a bit more complex, altho ugh a part of international trade is with raw 
commodities.  But if you look at the numbers, the proportion of international trade in food and food 
products, which is in raw numbers decreasing, (a) because consumption has moved to processed 
products, and (b) because international trade has mo ved more to processed products.  Now does this 
mean that there is no trade issue?  No.  Some issues have appeared, and you have mentioned them 
rapidly, export restrictions for instance.  This is an area where WTO agreements have stepped in, 
banning export bans but not export taxes, and we  have seen a bit of this problem in the present 
negotiations.  Should the WTO be more serious about focussing on the specific obstacle to trade posed by export restrictions, whatever way they happen?  That is a good question.  Should mandates  WT/GC/M/119 
 Page 13 
 
 
  be given in this direction, which, by the way, some suggest?  When I discuss with the boss of the 
World Food Programme, she does not understand at all why an organization called the World Trade 
Organization does not have serious prescriptions on e xport restrictions on food.  She is constantly 
making the case that export restrictions on food are just shooting oneself in the foot, because it is just 
putting more of the problem onto your neighbours.  So  there are strong views about this.  If one reads 
World Bank literature, there is at least, if not exp licit, an implicit criticism that this issue is not 
seriously addressed where it should be.  So that is ce rtainly a question, and food for thought in future 
new mandates of our Members.   On the energy side, there are a few issues which have already connected with our work, 
including in the present negotiation and in accession nego tiations.  And it is probably no surprise that 
in terms of membership, countries with a huge volume  of trade in energy have not been the first 
comers to the WTO or the GATT, which confirms  your initial diagnosis.  But there are issues like 
dual pricing, for instance, that have surfaced here and there, or issues like transit, which are on the 
table in a number of accession negotiations.  If you look at the negotiations on the accession of 
Ukraine, for instance, a difficult area was about  energy transit.  If you look at the accession 
negotiations of Russia, it is obviously an issue whic h is still on the table.  And I personally believe 
that as far as energy is concerned, if energy banalizes  itself as a sort of international trade issue, there 
will have to be questions for us, and the energy comm unity is working on that.  They already have a 
roadmap for what WTO should do in their field, recognizing that there is an issue which is not in our remit for the moment, which is competition, whic h is probably also an important component of 
dealing with opening markets in this field, becau se by definition the holders of these resources are 
usually few.  Their market power is extremely bi g, and there may be issues which have to do with 
international competition.  We all know that for the moment this is a hole in the system of economic 
global governance.  Some of you have extremel y sophisticated and detailed domestic competition 
systems, but there is nothing like a sort of internatio nal standard in this field which of course could 
also imply considerations for these commodities, natural resources, and raw material trade.  So that is 
the sort of general answer.  It is a complex i ssue, but certainly as globalization progresses, as the 
connections multiply, problems of this kind which were  not in our remit or which were not near us are 
probably becoming closer.  But again, this is food for thought for after the Round.  
Q: I too thank the Director-General for his statement.  Out of respect for my colleagues I 
shall not expatiate or comment upon that statement.   The only thing I would like to ask, in the 
light of the replies already received, is that the Director-General has designated four areas, that 
is, the negotiations, implementation, coherence an d outreach, to which I can already say I have 
no objection.  I think that he has put forward some important ideas regarding topics 2, 3, and 4;  the negotiations obviously already have their own structure and course of action.  Now my 
question is, how and when does the Director-Genera l intend to initiate a systemic exchange 
between himself and the Members, precisely in order to  define fields of action 2, 3 and 4, or has 
this been postponed indefinitely until the negotiations have been concluded?   (Argentina)  
 A: Among the suggestions, comments and observations  that I have tried to present to you this 
morning in order to give some meaning to this exercise and prevent it from being formal, there are 
clearly some things that we can do as of now.  There are suggestions on improving procedures and on 
increasing or improving a certain number of Secretariat activities, and calls to work with you more on communication matters and in a horizontal manner – all things that can be done as the Round 
progresses.  There are, however, a certain number of future considerations concerning both the possible subjects of our legislative or regulator y activities and the negotiating process which, as I 
believe I have clearly stated, I do not think should be tackled for the moment, since the priority must 
be to conclude the Round.  I do not think it would be good to leave or create any ambiguity in respect of the permeability of what we are doing to conc lude the Round by introducing these new subjects or 
new ideas on how we might negotiate a little differently  from the way we do now.  So, to answer your 
question, we are splitting what I put on the table this morning into two parts, not in an attempt to try WT/GC/M/119 
Page 14  
 
  your patience, but to arouse your interest.  So let us have two separate bask ets.  One contains the 
things that, in my view – although at the end of the day it is you who decide – should be given serious 
consideration when the end of the Round is certain , and I do not think that we need to wait until the 
Round is fully concluded to ask ourselves what is to  be done next:  I think the time will come when 
this question will have to be asked.  Looking back, th is is what happened in all the previous Rounds.  
In the last two or three months of a Round, we begin to ask ourselves seriously what we will do 
afterwards, but this is not until the last two or three months and unfortunately we have not quite 
reached that point yet.  So let us take that part and put it to one side until two or three months before 
the end of the Round.  
 As for the other part, however, I am quite read y to discuss it with you in formats which are 
not necessarily as formal as this one.  We could hold seminars or retreats, which is what my predecessor did with regard to the Sutherland Report for example, and I have read the minutes of the 
meeting held in June 2005, which was the last time this Organization organized such a retreat.  I am 
completely open to that idea.  Now, it just so happe ns that most of us, and most of you, have been 
very much absorbed in the negotiations, and the idea of spending two days together in workshops on 
various topics has seemed a bit far from the focus of our current concerns.  But I am completely open 
to such a possibility.  I just think that the discussi on in question should take place in a more informal 
setting than, for instance, a General Council meeting.  It must be possible to discuss these things in a 
very, very open "brainstorming" context, and if, with regard to topics two, three and four – let us leave 
one aside for the moment – you feel that the suggestions and ideas that I have put forward this 
morning deserve to be discussed furt her, in addition to what I can do  on my own authority with the 
Secretariat, I am perfectly willing to do that.  My  four Deputies here, as well as the staff from my 
Office, whose opinions, input and advice form the basi s for a lot of my work, will tell you in private, 
but not in public, that on a number of occasions I have expressed the desire to move on to phases that 
are a little more innovative and creative, to include a little more brainstorming in our activities, if only 
because I like this type of thing.  More often than not , their response has been "first things first;  try to 
slow down your imagination a bit and concentrate on what needs doing right now".  So, if you will allow me a little slack, I could tell them that it is the Members' collective wish and that, since this 
Organization is Member-driven – as everyone is aw are – this must be taken into account.  I am 
therefore very open on this matter.  We can discuss format, but with regard to topics two, three and 
four there are things that can be done as part of  our day-to-day business without distracting us from 
the main objective which must still be to conclude the negotiations. 
 
Q: You mentioned your concern and the fact that you wanted a regular Ministerial 
conference before the end of the year.  We would like to know whether you can give us any details as to the agenda you have in mind for th is conference, considering the useful distinction 
you made between this and a Ministerial meeting dealing with the Doha Agenda negotiations.  
Do you not think that the agenda might profitably include an invitation to Members to give thought to the future of the Organization's activities?  We received your message loud and clear this morning regarding the new topics, the topics fo r the future.  You told us that these could be 
addressed once the Round has been completed, but if the WTO is not to remain just a 
negotiating body – a wish that you have ex pressed – could the agenda of this Ministerial 
conference not also provide for the membership as a whole to give thought to the future or to a 
post-Doha agenda?   (France) 
 A: Regarding the need for a Ministerial Conference,  this is not simply an idea that I cooked up 
myself.  It derives from our rules, which we deci ded collectively, discreetly and silently to break, 
since we haven't had a Ministerial Conference since 2005.  It is, after all, disturbing, as a matter of 
principle, that an Organization which is supposed  to be producing rules and enforcing them, should 
issue rules for itself which it chooses simply to  ignore.  We must correct this anomaly. 
  WT/GC/M/119 
 Page 15 
 
 
   Second, experience tells me, and I am not the onl y one to have reflected on this experience – 
you need only read the Sutherland Report or the repo rt of the Warwick Commission, but let us take 
the Sutherland Report because it is the older of the two (2004-2005) – that there are considerations in 
this respect that tally entirely with what I am putting forward to you today.  There is the idea of reverting to a normal format for normal organizations, i.e. a Ministerial Conference every year in 
which the activities of the organization – where it ha s been, where it stands, and where it is heading – 
are examined at the political level by the representati ves, whether or not at Ministerial-level, which 
the members of these organizations decide to send to a politically open event once a year.  I recommend this formula because I think it produces more  for the Organization than those "jamborees" 
to which we have become accustomed since Seattle – all of which I have had th e privilege to attend in 
various capacities – that are costly to everyone, and in  particular to the Organization.  And when I am 
short of resources, quite frankly I don't think that is  where I should be spending them.  I apologize for 
this logistical consideration, but these are things that we must bear in mind, and in any case the overall result, for the Organization, has not been very  impressive.  So much for the preamble.  I have 
said, and I repeat this to respond to the concerns expressed by a certain number of delegations, that we 
have to draw a distinction between these regular m eetings and our current negotiating activities.  This 
does not mean that in a post-Round future, if we hold a Ministerial Conference every year – and let us suppose we decide to negotiate on a particular subject – that these Ministerial Conferences could not 
be an opportunity to take stock of or to conclude our work.  But as matters stand, given the enormous 
task facing us with the completion of the Round, I th ink we should disconnect the next – the first, so 
to speak – of these regular meetings , which I persist in saying should be held before the end of this 
year, from our regular negotiating activities, where we have reached a stage at which any negotiating 
Ministerial meeting would inevitably create considerab ly more drama than the regular meeting.  Let 
us draw a clear distinction between the two.   Regarding the regular meeting, I have my id eas, but the Chairman of the General Council is 
conducting consultations himself – a nd this is his responsibility and not  mine – regarding the agenda 
and the date.  I help him as much as I can, I contribute my own ideas, but once again, it is the responsibility of the Chairman of the General Coun cil to consult with you on these matters.  As 
regards my own ideas, I think that if we adopt th e "where have we been, where do we stand, where 
are we heading" approach to our activities as a whole, then I think there is room for reflection, looking 
ahead and preparing for what is to follow, as long as  this reflection is kept entirely separate from the 
negotiations under the Round.  And if what I have put on the table this morning can contribute to this 
effort, then all the better.  If other ideas can be ad ded, even if this means modifying, changing or 
cloning my ideas, no problem.  The suggestion made  by Argentina before the question by France 
could be a case in point.  As soon as we have a date , and I hope and believe th at this will soon be the 
case, the preparations can begin and seminars or pr eparatory work for the "WTO Tomorrow" part of 
the Ministerial discussions would be most welcome.  I am perfectly ready, and once again, as long as 
we maintain an airtight separation and ensure that  this exercise does not drain the energy needed for 
the negotiations under the Round, I am entirely favourab le to this approach and I am sure that it will 
be interesting to hear what the Ministers have to say on this matter.  During the consultations I held 
this morning in this connection, I learned a number of things from a number of you that I did not previously know concerning the interest of your countries with respect to specific subjects or 
procedures, and I think we should continue along those lines. 
 
Q: During the last informal meeting of the Trade Policy Review Body you received 
widespread support from Members for your repo rt on the Global Financial and Economic 
Crisis and Trade-related Developments.  It was described by most Members as helpful, 
comprehensive and balanced.  What should be done to further improve this new monitoring 
instrument?  Also, in the light of the financial crisis, what would be the elements of a closer 
cooperation between the WTO and the Bretton Woods Institutions?  (Latvia) 
 WT/GC/M/119 
Page 16  
 
  A: Thank you for your support with regard to th is exercise.  When we discussed it not long ago 
in this very room, I could clearly see that we were reaching cruising speed.  The second edition was 
better than the first, largely, may I say, thanks to you and to your suggestions and proposals, and also 
to the Secretariat Task Force, which was able to in corporate all contributions with considerable speed 
and flexibility.  The third edition will be an improvement on the second, as a result of two main 
elements, one of which is factual quality.  As far as  factual quality is concerned, we rely heavily upon 
your contributions, which greatly im proved between the first and sec ond editions.  I hope that we will 
see the same rate of improvement between the sec ond and third editions.  Factual quality constitutes 
the basic raw material and is where we have an unde niable comparative advantage, given that, thanks 
to you, we are able to put cabbages, carrots, pot atoes, apples and pears in our basket.  The second 
element which would enable us to improve this exer cise is our analytical capacity.  There too we have 
a distinct comparative advantage.  I do not wish to  criticise anyone, but when one puts apples, pears, 
cabbages, carrots and potatoes in a single basket, one has to be rather careful when giving an opinion 
on the resulting soup.  We cannot take the somewhat simplistic view that to initiate anti-dumping proceedings automatically constitutes a protectionist measure.  I am not saying that if you were to 
initiate 40 anti-dumping proceedings this year, whereas you initiated five last year, there would not be 
a slight suspicion that all was not mere happensta nce.  Such problems of interpretation are delicate 
and awkward, and improvement is still required on this point.  However, we are in a way the only 
ones able to provide the necessary expertise to propose a diagnosis, an opinion or an assessment 
which takes this tremendous complexity into consider ation.  This is where the work of our colleagues 
from other organizations comes into play.  The World Bank works very well with us on these issues.  
It does at times tend to publish its own diagnoses, a matter I have discussed with the head of this 
institution, and he is well aware of the fact that  attracting the attention of the public to such 
complicated matters by means of rather flashy headlin es does have its risks.  Some of you have also 
sought out our friends at the World Bank and told th em that you would prefer a little more care to be 
taken in the way their work is presented to the public.  They do it to assist us, not to cause us 
problems.  They are also very well aware of the fact that trade policy is a key concern in the 
management of this major crisis.  The same is true of the IMF, even if its capacity in this respect is 
slightly less than a few years ago.  As you are awar e, the IMF has suffered severe cutbacks, and it is 
in its role of fire-fighter, rather than of analyst or  architect, that it is most in demand nowadays.  We 
also work quite well with the OECD and even with the FAO on certain issues;  recent events 
concerning the risk of contagion in a number of areas need to be included.  We also work in 
conjunction with the OIE, the FAO and the WHO, so all functions smoothly in that respect.  We 
receive input.  We also work with UNCTAD, which assists us with some of the items making up our 
basket.  I do not therefore see any difficulty.  We have the necessary mandates both to carry out our own work and to work with others.  The overall re action to this exercise has been one of cooperation 
and collaboration, rather than of competition with the rest of the system.  Having attended the IMF 
Interim Committee recently and then the World Ba nk Development Committee, I can tell you that 
everybody is now familiar with this exercise, in particular the finance Ministers and development Ministers since, as you know, it is not trade Ministers who are in Washington during these major meetings.  I am sure that your trade Ministers will be pleased to learn that their finance colleagues or 
development colleagues – since these are the two ma in types of Minister that one meets on such 
occasions – are fully conversant with this exercise.  I also think that it is likely to assist them with 
their domestic duties.  They are in need of allies w ithin their governments to be able not to bow to the 
inevitable pressures which they face.  I therefore cons ider that, for the time being, the importance of 
this exercise is to produce results.  I am not sayi ng definitive results, because deep down, I feel that 
the worst is yet to come, and I view the situation not as an economist, but from a political perspective.  
I believe that the worst of the crisis is yet to come, because its social consequences take a certain 
amount of time to be translated into reality in relation to economic data, and it will be when that 
happens that our lives will be most difficult.  We must be fully equipped in order to tackle this period.  
This is our endeavour, but, once again, we are relying to a considerable extent on you. 
  WT/GC/M/119 
 Page 17 
 
 
  Q: You know that in response to the crisis, I in itiated that a standstill be put forward and 
discussed among Members, so what is your opinio n on how this standstill should be discussed, 
and more importantly, drafted, in a balanced way, that is to say, to avoid a situation in which the instruments that developing Members could use would be locked up, while the toolbox of the developed Members was left open.  But also on th e other hand, that not only the WTO-violating 
measures should be strictly forbidden, but that the similar WTO-complying measures should 
also be strengthened, so they are not abused and used for protectionist purposes.   (China) 
 A: This notion of standstill is familiar to this Organization and to the organization that preceded 
the WTO, although it has always been more of a politi cal concept than a technical tool.  And of course 
at a time when we are trying to conclude a negotia ting Round, the sensitivity of some elements of a 
precise definition of a standstill are politically very high.  As you have rightly said, the G20 communiqué is clear on that, and those of you who ar e thinking of adding to the G20 another impulse 
for non-G20 members have been discussing this issu e recently.  As you may know, and some of you 
announced it publicly, when we had our last TPRB, some of you were trying to put on the table 
something which would add to the G20 commitments on standstill.  The discussions you have had 
among yourselves show clearly the difficulty of getting very deep into the nitty-gritty.  WTO compliance is, of course, a frontier which helps us, because complying with WTO rules is what 
Members have to do, and there is no debate about this . And by the way, at this stage it has worked.  
Now then, the difficulty starts in the second elemen t which you mentioned, which is within the policy 
space that remains for each of you  while respecting your WTO commitments.  A part of this policy 
space is on the table of the negotiation – diffe rences between bound tariffs and applied tariffs, 
differences between ceiling subsidies and applied subsidies, and of course as the repartition of this 
policy space is very different according to Members or according to the negotiating priorities of the 
Members, there cannot be a sort of one-size-fits-a ll.  I can recognize and understand that while some 
countries whose contribution to this Round is precisely this rota will not be ready to cede this rota for 
nothing, and this is a political issue which is impor tant.  So there will be resistances in considering 
that a political standstill commitment is equivalent to a legal renunciation to this policy space, which 
can only happen within the results of multilateral trade negotiations.   
  So that is to say that it has to be a political endeavour, the interpretation of which then we will 
review, rather than something which is very precise in terms of comparison to existing, for instance, 
tariffs or subsidies.  But if you take trade defense,  for instance, it is even more murky, because within 
the disciplines which you have all subscribed to , safeguards or anti-dumpi ng or countervailing duties 
can be erected.  And while you can all comply with the WTO prescriptions, the amount of these trade-defense measures can vary considerably.  Is this a bri dge to the standstill?  It is very difficult to say on 
a case-by-case basis.  As I said previously, it is a very complex question whether or not initiating an 
anti-dumping investigation – or at the end of an an ti-dumping investigation, applying an anti-dumping 
duty – is, on a sort of specific basis, a bridge to a standstill.  Again, if, as compared to last year, you 
quadrupled the number of your anti-dumping invest igations, which you have to undertake before you 
apply anti-dumping tariffs or safeguards, the suspic ion will be that it really smells like a serious 
breech of the standstill.  But in between we have to be  very careful.  So in a nutshell, what this means, 
and what my forecast is, is that a standstill will remain a political commit ment which will not be 
translated into detailed rules, b ecause doing so will take us back to exactly where we are in the 
negotiation of the Round.  So it will remain a political commitment.  It is helpful for your Ministers to 
have this at home, becaus e it will help them resist domestic pressures, creating a sort of added value – 
the sum of avoided domestic measures will be the value of the standstill.  And of course it has to work reasonably evenly among Members, because the difficul ty may be – although I think we are not there 
yet, but we need to think about this – situations  where some have respected the standstill but others 
not.  This is precisely what we should be doing togeth er in this TPRB.  The place for you to interpret, 
discuss among yourselves, ask questions, critici ze, and answer this standstill commitment 
operationalization is the TPRB, and that is my r ecommendation.  We have a place to do that and we 
have the support to do that, which is the monitori ng report we publish.  We have experts to discuss WT/GC/M/119 
Page 18  
 
  this, so let's do it there.  Then if public stands or d eclarations have to be drawn out of that, let's do that 
after we have looked seriously at the matter itself.  
Q: I would like to get back to the first a rea for action which the DG mentioned, the 
negotiations and the commitment to the conclusi on of the Doha Development Agenda at the 
earliest possible opportunity.  Bearing in mind the ever more gloomy forecast for the global 
economy, this task is becoming  ever more urgent.  What specific actions does the Director-
General have in mind to accelerate progress towards an ambitious and pro-development 
outcome?   (United Kingdom) 
 
A: Well I certainly agree with your starting point, which is by the way the feeling I got in 
attending the London G20 Summit.  Anyone sitting in that room, listening and looking at people's 
words or body language, could not have missed the fact that protectionism is seen as a huge threat by the heads of state and government sitting around the tabl e, and the sort of political determination they 
have expressed.  So once more we are confronted w ith this question of how we move forward.  On 
these two tracks, our Geneva technical track, some  of the negotiating groups have changed Chairs 
recently and need to sort of re-acculturate to a ne w Chair, and the Chair has to re-acculturate to the 
nitty-gritty of the agenda, but this is our day to da y work.  I am consulting with the Chairs on this and 
there is quite a lot to be done, not least in the peri meter of the modalities, but also in other areas.  So 
we need to push the technical work here, and again,  there is plenty to do.  But we all know that we 
will need Ministerial engagement sooner rather than later to cross the sort of pre-final stage which 
then will lead us to a sort of serious, credible  deadline for concluding the Round.  And I am as 
convinced as all of you that we need to do that.  So the question is when and how do we get political 
Ministerial engagement and how do we reset the political  process?  My answer to that is as soon as 
possible, and I am spending, as you may know, quite a lot of time to make this happen.  We had a 
change in the US administration and we all know that  changes in the US administration take a bit of 
time to percolate.  I had a meeti ng a month ago in Washington in order to try to get a sense of where 
they were and what their plans were.  I had anot her meeting in Washington a month after that, which 
was last Friday and Saturday, and clearly there is  a much more precise view on the US side of the 
challenge, the details of what is on the table, and they have started working on scenarios for the next 
steps.  The USTR will be in Geneva as far as I understand in the second week of May to hold consultations with a number of you.  So the mach ine is now moving and the question is not whether 
the US will engage in this exercise but how they are going to do it.  And again, there has been a lot of 
maturation during the month, and those of you who have had the occasion to read the speech which 
Ron Kirk gave in the Georgetown Law School last Thursday will have a rather precise view of were 
they are at this stage.  So that is a positive elemen t which I think brings us nearer to the moment when 
the USTR, together with a few others, will be able to engage.  We also have, as you know, Indian 
elections, the results of which should be clear by the middle of May, so that is also an area where we 
will have news.   So the two priorities are:  keep moving on the nitty-gritty of a number of technical issues which have to be dealt with in the negotiating grou ps, in whichever format they appear, and then re-
engage.  We have the visit of Ron Kirk in Ge neva coming.  We proba bly have a Cairns Group 
meeting sometime in early June.  We have a Mi nisterial OECD meeting which would be accompanied 
by the traditional afternoon hosted by Australia on the nice premises they have in Paris.  We have the 
G8 + 5 sometime in July under the Italian Presidency.   We have an APEC Trade Ministers Meeting at 
the end of July.  So the occasions for Ministers to be there and to engage ar e reasonably good for the 
months to come.  Again, I will try, because I think this is my duty, to stimulate this and as soon as 
possible I will re-engage them on where we were at the end of last year. 
 
Q: Let me first thank the Director General for his very lucid exposé this morning.  
Knowing that the Director-General is quite sensitive  to the issues of development that have been 
brought forward by the African Group, I would li ke to agree with the Director-General on the  WT/GC/M/119 
 Page 19 
 
 
  priorities he has set in terms of concluding the Round as soon as we can, and that this Round is 
definitely going to yield development results only if development is at the core of our 
negotiations and the negotiations lead to the in tegration of developing and least-developed 
countries in the world economy.  Also that th e results should be guided by the just the 
distribution of the benefits of trade.  It is good  to set all these targets for ourselves, and we know 
that the WTO is a Member-driven organization.  But how in these turbulent times are we going 
really to translate all of this into concrete deve lopment outcomes that would definitely make this 
Round meaningful for many of the African countries that are very active in this organization and that are looking for a tangible result to a ssist them in the very difficult times emanating 
from the present global financial crisis?  The development efforts and reforms that have been 
going on in Africa for a long time – and trade ha s been part of them – have been a vehicle for 
many of the African economies to get out of pov erty and to deliver on some of the development 
objectives.  We feel that this is really the core of  the business that we should be in, in the coming 
years – to mitigate the effects of the crisis and also to have a meaningful and pro-development 
result from the Doha Round.  One last element is the emerging role of the developing countries 
in global governance, which the Director-General a lluded to.  This has become evident in the 
G20 process, but also in other processes, and sh ould also be translated into the WTO in the 
future.  This is how we see it.  We look forward to a continuing focus on these issues that are obviously not going to be answered in a question-answer session, but should rather be a 
continuous process of engagement.   (Egypt for the African Group)  
 
A: What can we do to move in the direction ju st advocated by the representative of the African 
Group?  Two things.  The first is to conclude  the Round.  The African Group is, incidentally, 
becoming more and more forceful and more and more vocal in its request to that end, for example at 
the G-20 meeting in London, where the representativ e of the African Union expressed himself in the 
clearest and most unambiguous terms on that point.  Th at is the first thing we can do.  Namely, to 
confirm the expectations of your Members and many others that these negotiations will provide them 
with new opportunities for growth, thanks to internati onal trade.  Hence, there is a kind of hope to be 
translated into practice, and the significance of th at hope has unquestionably been heightened by the 
crisis, because there are very few patches of blue sky in sight, and we can, so to speak, create such a 
patch ourselves.  So we have our own meteorological  impact to make, which is a rare thing indeed, 
and that is our foremost priority.  The second thing is to continue working on the linkage between 
market-access theory and the theory of fairer competition for the developing countries' exports in a 
number of areas and the way in which all of this tran slates into reality for local populations.  Not that 
the WTO is responsible for the entire length of the chain leading from fairer international rules and 
standards to improvement in people's standards of liv ing – much of this lies entirely beyond our reach, 
to the extent that it is largely a result of dom estic policy.  Trade liberalization cannot be made 
responsible for a great many difficulties, not to mention many opportunities, which in fact have to do 
with problems of policy, domestic problems in te rms of how effective polic ies are and of how well 
they are implemented, infrastructure, know-how, and so on and so forth.  But I think we have to acknowledge that many links in the chain lie beyond  our reach.  One upstream link in the chain should 
be closer to what we do, and that is why we made  the efforts we did regarding Aid for Trade.  My 
predecessors and you yourself have already significa ntly boosted WTO technical assistance activities 
since Doha, and that is a good thing.  The integrated framework predates September 2005, and since 
then we have endeavoured to press ahead with bot h technical assistance and the integrated framework, 
which, as you know, has been redesigned, equippe d with new means, undergone reform, and been 
provided with a management that is now operational.   Aid for Trade is very specifically centred on 
that link in the chain which I would wish to put in to practice and which lies closest to us.  We are 
going to re-work it together on 6 and 7 July.  To quote your own words, we will work on tangible 
projects.  In November 2007, we worked on concep ts, we worked on policy, we worked on the need 
to create a drive to prompt those undertaking/im plementing commitments and the recipient countries 
to change their methods.  We have moved ahead on a ll of that.  In July, we will be working on more 
concrete matters.  In the regional reviews in wh ich DDG Rugwabiza and I took part in Africa a few WT/GC/M/119 
Page 20  
 
  weeks ago and will be participating in the Caribbean  next week and in Cambodia at the end of the 
month, we now speak of more concrete things.  So  first the Round, and second we continue our efforts 
to use our capacity, our reputation, our name and our  networks to boost everything to do with Aid for 
Trade and technical assistance.  We are not Aid for Trade operators, we are coordinators.  
 Finally, to turn to the last part of the question, which is “what should the WTO do to adapt to 
changes in global governance and to the G-20 in partic ular”, I shall give you a simple answer.  It is 
the G-20 which is adapting to the modes of operati on that have been current in the WTO for some 
time now, rather than the other way round.  If we look  at the question of participation of the emerging 
countries and the developing countries in the d ecision-making mechanisms at international 
governance level, if we compare the G-7 with wh at it used to be in the WTO, the WTO as an 
organization has yet again been swifter in recognizi ng that such modes of operation reflect the major 
geopolitical changes of recent decades.  In this area,  therefore, I think that we should feel, at least 
among ourselves, some degree, not of complacency, but of pride.  If the international organizations are now seeing the emerging countries and the deve loping countries take an increasingly forceful and 
visible part in negotiations and decisions in their own interests, the WTO undoubtedly served as the 
precursor.  You will note, incidentally, that in all of these discussions on global governance, 
especially in economic matters, that have emerged from the crisis, th ere is much talk of reforming 
plenty of things, but very little ta lk of reforming the WTO.  So this must mean that we are perhaps 
less in need of reform than others.  This is not to say  that all is well and there is not a lot of work to be 
done, but I believe that where we ourselves need to improve, is at the level beneath.  As I said a 
moment ago, I do not believe that there is any need for major surgery, whereas it yet has to be 
performed on our Bretton Woods colleagues, in particular.  
Q: I am sincerely appreciative of Mr. Lamy's inspiring vision he has articulated in his 
statement.  However, recalling the painful delays and protracted progress of the DDA 
negotiations, my delegation would like to seek  more crystallization from Mr. Lamy on the 
following question:  realizing the advantages of international trade to both developed and developing countries, including LDCs, and while cognizant of the contribution of all the membership of the WTO generally, how do you see your role as Director-General of the WTO 
in insuring the speedy and successful conclusion of the DDA negotiations?    (Tanzania)  
 
A: That is a difficult question.  As you may re member, apart from managing the Secretariat, the 
duties, responsibilities and rights of the DG are define d nowhere in our agreements, which by the way 
is not that particular to us.  And I recently looke d into how other organizations define the mandate 
rights, obligations, and duties of their bosses, and it is  a pretty large wetland, maybe because it is very 
difficult.  Maybe also because it is not necessary.  So mine is a variety of cont ributions which I try to 
explain to the media by images, saying I am so metimes a shepherd's dog, sometimes a conductor, 
sometimes a confessor, sometimes a surgeon, someti mes a weatherman – it is a rather large spectrum 
of contribution, depending on the topic, countries, people.  More seriously, I see my role as that of activator of negotiations, which is why I offer an answ er to many of you that I am not pessimistic or 
optimistic, just "activistic".  My basic contributi on, which is moving the negotiating process, pushing, 
pulling, cajoling sometimes knocking one or two heads together so that what Members do what they 
have decided to do, which is nego tiate a Round and conclude it.  I ha ve not decided it.  They have 
decided it, you have decided it.  You simply have a problem getting there, and my role in a nutshell is 
to help you get there.  Again, it depends very mu ch on topics, people, countries, latitudes, longitudes 
and sometimes it is recalling purposes, mandates, tr ade-offs which have already taken place in the 
negotiation and which sometimes people tend to fo rget or in public communication redress or nuance 
positions which negotiators take publicly, on the value for them of what is on the table, what remains 
to be done.  So it is trying to very objectively help you match the mandate  you have given yourselves 
in energizing a process which is very slow and very complex.  But it's not for now to redefine how the 
process could be less complex or less slow.  It is not when you gone done 80 per cent of the way that 
you start wondering whether you could take another r oute or follow a different travel programme.    WT/GC/M/119 
 Page 21 
 
 
   So my role is activation, and it is inevitable, given that this Round has a lot to do with 
rebalancing the rules of world trade and trying to convince developed countries, big countries, big players that they have to be more open, show more understanding, notably to groups like the one you 
chair.  And I think if we look at what's happened dur ing the last few years, the sort of preoccupations, 
the print of the LDC group on the negotiations and on their result is reasonably strong.  Not that we 
are already 100 per cent there, and I take the 100 pe r cent as an image notably on market access – we 
are not there yet, but I think the LDCs' preoccupations are much more inserted in what is on the table than used to be the case.  I have tried to bala nce carefully my activism.  Yes, I have been seen 
sometimes as having taken sides on an issue like cott on, for instance.  I do not like that, I do not like 
being criticized for having taken sides in a nego tiation.  On cotton I have been openly, publicly 
criticized for siding with the proponents, and I do no t like that because it is something that is not in 
tune with the sort of standing anticipated of the WTO DG.  But this being said, I do not feel guilty.  So I am taking this example to show that sometimes stepping in a bit more or being a bit more activist 
involves risks.  So be it.  I think they need to be taken in some cases.  Q: Thank you, Mr Director-General, for your exhaustive opening statement and responses to questions.  At one point you mentioned the Seattle Ministerial Conference, which met - as did other meetings, such as the G-8, G-20, WTO, IM F, and so on – with massive rejection on the 
part of civil society, the NGOs, the media, et c.  A sentence pronounced 50 years ago by Cuban 
leader Fidel Castro is highly topical today:  "T he population at large ha s but little concern for 
the issues discussed in international conferences,  the population at large has but little belief in 
the solutions arrived at in international conferences;   they simply do not have faith".  And he 
added, "it is necessary to awaken faith within the population at large, and faith within the 
masses is not awakened by promises, people's faith is not awakened by theories, people's faith is 
not awakened by rhetoric."  My question in this context – and this quote is indeed highly topical 
in regard to some international, and in particul ar economic, multilateral organizations – is what 
else could we do in the WTO beyond what is on the table in this Round in order to reduce 
growing food insecurity, growing poverty and under- development so as to win people's faith or 
good will, when the current draft texts, inter alia , would make the terms for granting food aid 
and agricultural export credits more stringent at a time when both are most needed, since food 
aid, official development aid and trade financing have been curtailed as a result of the crisis, 
and not even an attempt has been made, nor was it  the mandate of this Ro und, to address one of 
the key trade issues for the developing countries,  which is the ever-increasing inequality in the 
terms of trade between their import and export prices.   (Cuba) 
 A: I have noted your quote, which you attribut e to Fidel Castro.  I am not sure whether 
Karl Marx or Friedrich Engels would agree with th e idea that the faith of the masses is not awakened 
by theory.  They spent much of  their lives trying to prove the contrary.  Whether or not they 
succeeded is a matter of opinion which I leave open.  On the subject itself, as I said at the beginning 
of this morning's session, I believe, and continue to believe – and this is not a question of faith but of 
experience – that trade openness is a much better reci pe than the opposite, since that is the choice we 
have before us.  The choice is:  either we open up or we do not.  One needs to be well aware of this, 
and history has provided ample evidence in this re gard.  So either we open up or we do not, and the 
question is whether openness works better than the opposite, or whether deciding not to open up 
works better than trade openness.  On that subject  I have no doubt as to both the theoretical and the 
practical answer, which is that open trade works be tter than the opposite.  But is that necessarily good 
news for everyone, everywhere, at all times?  Th e answer is no, because opening up trade causes – 
and that is one of the main reasons for its e ffectiveness – opening up trade entails readjustments 
between those who produced one thing and th ose who produced another, as well as other 
readjustments when trade opens up to internati onal competition.  If trade openness produces a plus 
overall, I am convinced that the plus is a balance between a plus and a minus.  The balance is positive 
but it is a balance between a plus and a minus, so  one has to consider how the minus in question, 
which is assuredly part of the system, needs to be tackled.  That is where the chain linking up to a WT/GC/M/119 
Page 22  
 
  number of international policies or a number of do mestic policies comes into play.  And once again, 
its translation into concrete bene fits for local populations depends in  part on the quality of the chain, 
of which only a segment lies within the WTO's sphe re of action, though I believe that it should be 
expanded.  Not by turning the WTO into a devel opment agency, but by paying closer attention to 
what is happening downstream.  So the question as to  whether the current draft texts are moving in the 
right direction is for you to judge.  These negotiations  have moved forward and there is a great deal of 
consensus around what is currently on the table, which means that many of you believe that things are 
going in the right direction.  But nothing will be  concluded without your stating your decisions on the 
matter.  The mandate on export credits was not inve nted by the Director-General.  The export credit 
mandate is part of the Doha Agenda.  Therefore,  you were the ones to decide amongst yourselves to 
renegotiate the disciplines governing export support,  and within export support are export subsidies 
and export credits, not to mention other items concerning state enterprises.  So you are the ones who 
collectively decided that export support in the form of credit entailed risks of unfair competition, and 
these are risks that you want to contain through the di sciplines that are already on the table.  If there is 
one chapter in the Agriculture negotiations that co uld be placed well above 80 per cent in terms of 
progress in the negotiations – and I know full well th at my 80 per cent is a little like holding a finger 
in the wind and that it is actually the sum total of  things exceeding 80 per cent and those that lie under 
80 per cent – it is certainly a chapter in the Agriculture  negotiations that is close to 100 per cent.  It is 
not the primary area that I would think of as deserving of criticism.  As regards the terms of trade, there are indeed no mandates from the membership  on the subject, which is essentially a matter of 
economic study and analysis.  The re gulation of international trade is not what will change the fact 
that when it comes to the sharing of value added,  the production apparatus throughout human history 
has created value on the basis of raw materials wh ich are indeed the export advantage enjoyed by a 
number of developing countries, and that the trend as regards relative prices is rather towards what 
creates value added, with lower prices for raw materi als.  This is a rule which to my mind cannot be 
overlooked and which is linked, inter alia , to areas where productivity is capable of enhancement.  So 
I believe that the solution does not lie in regulating the prices of raw materials – I do not think that is 
the right track.  The solution is to enable deve loping countries which have raw materials to increase 
integration of downstream activities.  A number of el ements in the current negotiations focus on that 
very issue – tariff escalation, for example.  It is tr ue that tariff escalation exists, and for a very long 
time it confined many developing countries to upstream production sectors, preventing them from 
becoming more involved in downstream activities, b ecause the more they became involved in such 
activities the more tariffs increased, so it was better for them to sell raw materi als than to seek value 
added.  The issue of the terms of trade does not seem  to me to be – and this is my own personal 
opinion – a matter for international regulation.  The economic specialists in this  area, the best experts 
at any rate, are not presently with the WTO.  We have very good economists, but this is not their 
primary area of expertise.  The best ones are at UNCTAD, and I find it perfectly normal that there 
should be a sharing of tasks in this sphere, in te rms of academic study, unde rstanding and analysis of 
matters that concern the price of commodities, including declining terms of trade.  I gladly defer intellectual leadership in this field to our friends at UNCTAD.  
Q: We thank the Director-General for his view s and welcome his blessing on the conclusion 
of the Doha Development Round as a number-one priority.  I align myself with the question 
from Tanzania, and I would just like to add that the Doha Declaration used words like 
"development" and "developing" 63 times in 10 pages and 52 paragraphs.  These development 
concerns have been reiterated by subsequent meet ings in WTO fora and countless times in this 
very room.  Delay in the implementation of th e Doha deal has accumulated challenges of all 
kinds in the developing world, particularly in the LDCs, which are mired in a vicious circle of 
poverty and supply-side constraints.  Also, the poorest and most vulnerable countries have been 
hardest hit by the ongoing financial crisis.  Th e representation and participation of LDCs is 
limited due to several constraints.  In this scenar io, and eight years on from Doha, what does the 
DG as the custodian of the multilateral trading system, plan to do to ensure inclusiveness and  WT/GC/M/119 
 Page 23 
 
 
  mainstream development in the process, so as  to widen trade policy space and provide 
diversification for the poor and vulnerable of the world?   (Nepal) 
 A: I think I have already answered most of th is question in answering your colleague from 
Tanzania.  Two short complements.  First, developmen t is all over the place in this negotiation.  It is 
not a negotiation where you have Agriculture, NAMA, TRIPS, Environment, Dispute Settlement and 
then Development.  It cuts across all the silos of  the negotiation, and in each and every one of these 
silos, when the contribution to the developmenta l objectives of the Round counts, it is a question of 
looking at numbers or at things like  special and differential treatment.  And again, in each of the silos 
of the negotiation these issues are there.  Second, in terms of commitment and involvment, this is 
fairly simple.  The LDCs have a group, which was not the case ten years ago, and if they want to 
collectively influence the negotiations, they can do it.  The price, of course, is unionization.  The price 
is that the LDC Group must get to a common positi on in various remits of the negotiations, some 
which are of high importance for the LDC Group, and others which have no importance for them as a 
group but which have a big importance for others, so  that the LDC group can try to trade-off issues 
which have no importance for it, against issues which have importance, which is the basic tactic of a 
trade negotiator.  It has always been to pretend this is important in order to get a price for that, and to 
pretend that this is not important in order not to be asked to pay too high a price.  So the LDC Group 
can do that.   The LDC Group has started to do that I think.  Now, together with the AU Group and 
the ACP Group, you have working methods that ha ve allowed you to weigh the price of lots of 
internal consultations and the price of accepting th at one of you speaks on a topic on behalf of the 
others, and that focal points take the lead in some  parts of the negotiation.  Frankly speaking, it is 
working.  I can speak from experience.  I started in  this business at the end of the Uruguay Round, not 
in a negotiating position but in a oversight position, in which frankly I did not hear a lot about what 
the LDC Group position was at the time.  I was in Seattle, I was in Cancún, I was in Doha.  The 
difference is like night and day.  So you have ac quired a leverage capacity in this organization 
because you have decided to do it collectively.  I r ecognize this in the interactions I have with the 
leaders of each of these groups.  By the way, this is  also true for the G20, the G33, the G10 and the G 
"X", "Y" or "Z".  But in terms of involvment as DG and for the Secretariat, the LDC Group is now recognized as a major interlocutor, as, by the way, it is for many of you.  Again, the price for this is a 
bit of internal discipline, a bit of time spent in  consultations.  But ask your European colleagues 
whether or not getting to a united position is easy a nd they will all tell you a few things about this, 
which I am not in a position to tell you directly anymore.  
Q: Bolivia would like to know on the strength of what mandate the informal negotiating 
sessions known as the Green Room meetings, or G-7 or G-4, were convened.  We would like you 
to specify which part of the agreements of this  Organization stipulates that a reduced number of 
countries are to replace continuous, full, tr ansparent and democratic participation by all 
Members of this Organization – as happened in Ju ly last year when you invited 35 countries to 
a mini-Ministerial in order, you said, to ma ke significant progress and conclude the Doha 
Agenda's Agriculture and NAMA modalities – t hus preventing the remaining 118 Members 
from taking part in important negotiations.   (Bolivia) 
 A: I broached this question this morning in my introduction to this discussion and said that 
decisions at the WTO are taken at Ministerial leve l, it being understood that a number of the decisions 
then have to go before national pa rliaments, which, at the end of the day, is what guarantees the 
democratic functioning of this ins titution.  Democracy is exercised at  several levels, the first being 
that from which each one of you derives his or her mandate, insofar as you must report back to your country’s citizens and Parliaments for approval or re jection of the outcome of the work of the World 
Trade Organization.  Hence the principal guarantee, fr om the point of view of democracy, lies in the 
fact that it is for your systems of popular representation to reach the ultimate decision on what we do WT/GC/M/119 
Page 24  
 
  here, and I have never heard anyone  call this into question, even though some of the decisions you 
take in this room need not be ra tified, depending on the country, and wh at I am thinking of here is a 
number of decisions on waivers or decisions concerning accessions.  So, the first part of the reply is that your own democracies are in charge when it comes to deciding on the proceedings of the World 
Trade Organization. 
 
 The second part of my reply concerns our own m odes of operation, that is to say, democracy 
internal to the Organization, which, like most other international organi zations, is composed of 
sovereign members.  There are various ways of ta king decisions in the international system and the 
international organizations.  Some  reach decisions by a simple majority, others by a two-thirds 
majority, and others still by a three-quarters majority .  In this Organization, it so happens that you 
have decided to take your decisions by consensus, which is not, incidentally, what is stipulated in a 
number of cases in the agreements which you pr eviously accepted and ratified.  A number of 
decisions concerning the Organization can be taken other than by consensus, but in your collective 
wisdom, you decided to set aside those provisions under which issues can be decided other than by 
consensus, and to take decisions by consensus.   From the standpoint of democracy within the 
Organization, consensus is undoubtedly the guarantee you sought in order to ensure that even the 
voices of those who do not necessarily agree are taken into account in the discussions and the decision-making process.  The second part of the reply is that consensus is a guarantee that seems to 
me to be reasonably democratic, except when one  considers that democracy is also designed to 
produce results and that from time to time consensu s fails to produce results, but I propose that we 
leave that question aside. 
  The third part of my reply is how we take our  decisions by consensus, and in this case the 
starting point is perfectly clear and simple – it is a question of changing part of the Anti-Dumping or 
Subsidies Agreement, in which every word, adverb , comma or semi-colon counts in the interpretation 
that may have to be made by the dispute settleme nt mechanism.  We do not know how this can be 
done by 153 people multiplied by the number of e xperts necessary for each of these questions, usually 
an average of three or four experts, which makes around 600 people.  Therefore, the idea that decisions can be taken, put on the table, and co nvergence and compromise reached with as many as 
600 people sitting in one room does not seem work able, hence the idea of moving upwards towards 
consensus through concentric circles, which is a prac tice that was not invented by me.  When I arrived 
here in September 2005, there were about 60 year s – no small amount of experience – of building and 
reaching compromise and consensus within this Orga nization, and those 60 years of history were 
made in small groups which la unched negotiations, sometimes on the initiative of others on the 
outside, and which then grew as the product gra dually improved.  This method of moving upwards 
towards consensus through concentric circles is not only a matter of broadening the consensus at 
every turn and every stage in the process, but it is also because the reason for broadening the 
consensus is that what is on the table becomes more  and more acceptable in terms of a consensus.  
The Chairs of the Negotiating Groups are well aware of this, and they themselves use this method of 
consulting some people and not others, one small gr oup rather than another, and then widening the 
circle.  In my capacity as Chairman of the Tr ade Negotiations Committee, I have gone along with 
these existing methods which many of you practise, and each one of you who one day will assume the 
responsibility of chairing a group of this kind will in evitably use such a method.  I therefore endorsed 
the practice, because if that practice has been accep ted for 60 years, there are reasonable chances that 
it will endure for 65 years, and here I am not speaki ng of my third term, but there are fairly reasonable 
chances that it is something workable.  I have i ndeed introduced an innovation which my predecessors 
did not see fit to do.  The innovation I introduced w as to explicitly let everyone know, and the media 
in particular, that these various concentric groups ex isted.  When I arrived, the Green Room tradition 
did not yet exist.  These were non-meetings, as ther e are non-papers or non-conversations.  I changed 
that way of doing things, because I believe that for the sake of the Organization’s transparency, for the 
sake of its reputation, its standing, and its perception among the public at large, that was not a good thing.  I prefer, as I have just done perhaps somewh at at length, explaining why and how we work like  WT/GC/M/119 
 Page 25 
 
 
  this, and I have never heard of any convincing altern ative to not concealing the fact.  So, de facto we 
work in concentric circles, and it is true that in July I worked with a G-7 and then with a G-30 in the 
hope of reaching a G-153.  We spent a fair amount of time in both G-7 and G-30 groups in the Green 
Room, and as a G-153.  It is curious, by the way, to note that the proportion from one to the next is roughly between five and seven each time we move up one circle.  This must correspond to a rule that 
I have not yet entirely worked out.  That being said,  and I think this is the right method of going about 
things, it presupposes a habit of transparency which is important.  And I am the primary witness of how important it is, because in July, I spent hours in G-7 meetings and then hours in a G-30, followed 
by more hours in a G-153 in order to explain to the G-30 what the G-7 had done, and to the G-153 what the G-30 had done, and it is a fact that in the concentric circle process, one of the factors of 
transparency is the Director-Gen eral himself in his capacity as Chairman of the Trade Negotiations 
Committee.  So I am paid to know that such transp arency is not easy to achieve and involves, let us 
say, a considerable amount of physical stamina.   But as I said this morning, this is not my 
responsibility alone, it is also yours.  And those of  you who are involved in consultations, discussions, 
negotiations and smaller formats than the G-153, are involved mostly on account of an issue of 
particular interest to you or because you represent a nd speak on behalf of others in their respective 
groups, whether the G-20, G-33, NAMA-11, G-10, GRULAC, European Union, ACP Group, LDC Group, or African Group.  All of these groups partic ipate in building up consensus and are there as 
representatives of their members, and their duty is pr ecisely to ensure that th e necessary transparency 
actually works.  Look at what happened in July:  what we were doing in the G-7, G-30 or G-153 was 
consistently associated with meetings of the G- 20, the G-33, NAMA-11, the G-90 or the G-110, so all 
of these various parts contribute to building consensu s.  There is undoubtedly room for improvement, 
which I am willing to admit, and I am prepared to do my share, bearing in mind that every day has but 
24 hours, but I also think that Members have thei r own responsibility in ensuring that the system 
works for as long as we have not found any other.  Democracy has been said to be the very worst of 
all systems, except that no other has been found, and if many of our ways of building consensus may 
perhaps be the worst of systems, in the meanti me we have not found another to replace it.  
 
Q: I thank the Director-General for the impressi ve presentation this morning.  We have 
identified four areas of concern to us during ou r preparatory work for this meeting.  The DG 
has fortunately answered three of them in an im pressive manner.  First, implementation, as was 
highlighted by Japan.  Second, increasing the anal ytical capacity of the WTO.  And third, to 
have a regular Ministerial meeting before 2010.  Th e DG has elaborated on these three issues in 
an extensive manner.  What he said was music to my ears.  However, the fourth issue we had in 
our mind is transparency.  I think we need to dwel l on this issue a bit more.  I have listened very 
carefully to the reply of the DG to the question of  Bolivia.  Let me be more precise.  In the press 
pack distributed by the Secretariat in July 2008,  the Green Room is depicted as a process of 
informal small-group consultations in which "har d bargaining and drafting take place".  What 
we are concerned about is the fact that the discuss ions and drafting about the content is done in 
a small group, whereas the "G-153" should be in volved.  Small groups to deal with process 
rather than content would be understandable.  Today,  the DG also referred to this issue, if I am 
not mistaken, by saying that there is not enou gh transparency.  In this respect, we would 
appreciate the DG explaining his plan, including  the concentric circles, to evaluate the 
transparency and inclusiveness in his second term.   (Turkey)  
 A: This question relates directly to the prev ious one, which I think I have answered quite 
extensively.  So my answer to this one will be s horter.  You're right, this press pack, which I have 
checked since we have discussed this, the two of us , gave this description of the Green Room which, 
by the way, is correct.  This is a place where so me hard bargaining takes place.  What was missing in 
this press pack was to situate this Green Room  process among all the other discussions and hard 
bargaining processes including, by the way, regional  group, thematic groups, such as the G-20 or the 
LDC Group, within which hard bargaining takes place.  I can tell you that before the G20 tabled its 
Ag proposal on tariffs, subsidies and other issues, there was very hard bargaining within the G20.  WT/GC/M/119 
Page 26  
 
  And it is perhaps no coincidence that not much preci sion, for instance, was given by the G20 proposal 
on the SSM.  True, it is also in other areas or other geographical groups that compromises of this kind take place.  And by the way, if I refer to the G2 0 Ag proposal, this pro posal had a big momentum-
creating impact on the Ag negotiation.  If you look at where we are for the moment, some would recognize a lot of what was in there, hence the usef ulness of this process.  I am not on the side of 
those who criticize constituencies within the WT O.  I know there is some criticism, but as a 
practitioner I do not share this criticism.  So, the mist ake that was made in this presentation was to tell 
the truth but not the whole truth, and what we need is to tell more of the whole truth.  I think Turkey belongs to several of these constituencies.  That is  the charm of the constituencies, that you can have 
polygamy, which is not always easy in other systems.  You can belong to G-33, G-20, some of you 
are even members of a group of developed countries on the one side and developing countries on the 
other side, depending on the topic.  So this flex ibility and this sort of repartition has a lot of 
advantages.  I am sure that in the Green Room, a nd I am convinced about this, the main offensives 
and defensives of your country were represented, not formally, but were represented.  True, Turkey is 
not in this group.  Although when I have done consulta tions in other formats with this sort of variable 
geometry I have tried to introduce, and which by the way has worked reasonably well in July – 
Turkey was there – there were some smaller gro ups to which Turkey belongs in this sort of 
discussions and consultations.  So in a nutshell, I recognize we can do more.  I will do more, notably 
in increasing this variable geometry so that there is no sense of exclusivity.  But at the end of the day, 
we need to move step by step in the way we build  our consensus.  And you have to help me do that, 
insofar as I have to drive the negotiating process. 
 
Q: On behalf of my Ambassador, who has been  unable to attend this afternoon, I should 
like to thank the Director-General, Mr Pascal Lamy, for sharing the details of his vision for his 
second term.  To my mind, his views are clear an d fairly comprehensive, and we hope that he 
will succeed in implementing them, with the he lp of the Membership, of course.  I have a 
question, just one small question.  My delegat ion appreciates the efforts you made during your 
first term to make genuine progress on matters of  particular concern to LDCs, which are the 
most vulnerable Members of this Organization.   I would like to know what more you intend to 
do during your second term to help accommodate the situation of LDCs more effectively from 
all points of view, including on the accession issu e – to which you referred this morning.  Do you 
have any initiatives in mind to ensure that the Members of this Organization devote greater 
attention to the spirit of the Guidelines for LDC accession?   (Senegal) 
 A: I answered Tanzania and Nepal this morn ing on the general probl em of how better to 
associate the LDCs with both the activities and the results of the activities of this Organization 
because, as I think I said diplomatically this morning, in the end it is the result that counts, particularly 
when we are dealing with Ministers that must be  elected and are under democratic surveillance.  I 
mentioned accessions, and in particular LDC accessions, as an area in which, as I said this morning, I 
feel uneasy.  The fact is, we have guidelines for the accession of LDCs, the idea of which is to ensure 
reasonable speed in comparison to the generally very long accession negotiations:  some of you spent 
10 or 15 years negotiating your accession to this Organiza tion.  Ten or 15 years is clearly too long, at 
least for the LDCs, where the idea is to check that the accession cond itions are compatible with their 
capacities and take account of th e weaknesses from which they suffe r by definition, and without 
which they would not be LDCs.  And here I think there is a problem, which is why I suggested this 
morning that increased and more sustained political a ttention be paid to the acceding countries and in 
particular the LDCs.  Looking at the list of the acced ing LDCs, some are very active, and for a variety 
of reasons I have been personally involved in cer tain cases.  Take Ethiopia, for example:  Addis 
Abeba happens to be the headquarters of the Afri can Union Commission, not to mention the United 
Nations Economic Commission for Africa, so that I my self and my team often have the occasion to go 
there, which is good because it gives us the chan ce to discuss the accession process with the Prime 
Minister, a chance which I do not have everywhere.  But for example, for the accession of Yemen, I spent some time on the case myself;  and Aleja ndro Jara, who follows these accession issues at the  WT/GC/M/119 
 Page 27 
 
 
  senior management level in our team, has done a fair  amount of travelling, including to the LDCs.  In 
other words, from our point of view, we can try to contribute to speeding up the process.  However, we must not create false hopes:  the path to WTO accession for the LDCs will inevitably be arduous. 
  One of the reasons why the LDCs want to accede to the WTO is precisely that it provides 
them with the opportunity to bind themselves to the collective disciplines of this Organization.  What 
motivates some countries to accede to the WTO, name ly the opportunity to secure their international 
trade regimes, and in particular their exports, is not the primary motivation of the LDCs.  As a rule, 
LDCs have access to the markets of other countries, and in particular the richest countries, which is 
extremely favourable from the standpoint of WTO ru les.  The essence of the negotiations for the 
LDCs lies in the rules, in other words the body of agreements, of disciplines that have to be adopted 
and which, for the most part, require enormous ef forts in the areas of governance, legislation, and 
regulation.  It is not enough to ha ve parliament pass legislation th at is compatible, that amends 
previous legislation or that fills a gap where there was no obligation.  That legislation then has to be 
implemented.  Consequently, I don't think that we should hold out the hope that LDC accession can 
be completed within one or two years, because the work that needs to be done at the domestic level 
cannot be done in one or two years.  On the other hand, where we probably can do better is with the import rather than the export regi mes of those countries, because it is true that from time to time, 
Members tend to charge too high a price for accession simply because more often than not, the 
negotiations are in the hands of experts, of professi onals attached to the governments of the Member 
countries, used to doing their job properly, in other words as good trade negotiators:  the more you 
squeeze the lemon, the more juice you will get.  This is their method, it is in their blood.  All it takes 
is the occasional intervention at a more political level to remind them that the lemon they are 
squeezing is not very big and perhaps not ripe enough to justify the pressure that is usually exercised 
on other countries.  I think that this is the directi on we need to take, and to that end, I think that a 
horizontal examination by more of you of what is  being negotiated in the accession negotiations, of 
what is being prepared in the p ackages, is to be recommended – I am  ready to activate this mechanism 
if necessary.  
 Q: I was about to raise our concerns and put a question to the DG on how to improve the 
transparency and inclusiveness of the WTO decision-making process.  Since you have just answered this question raised by Bolivia and Turkey , let me just skip this question and switch to 
the second question that I had prepared for you.  Th e question is as follows:  one lesson we have 
learned from this unprecedented global economic fi nancial crisis that came upon us last autumn 
is that globalization has caused the crisis to  be more widespread than would have otherwise 
been the case.  At the same time we are hearing that what is needed is a global solution pushed 
by the cooperation of different international organi zations.  In this context, my delegation would 
be very interested in hearing the DG's view on  how we can enhance the linkage of cooperation 
with other international and regional organizations  with a view to forging cooperation with a 
common objective.   (Chinese Taipei) 
 A: I agree on the assumption in your question which is that we have a global crisis and that we need more global responses.  This notion that gl obal governance needs to be improved on our planet 
is one, if not the main, reason that was the rationale for my candidature in 2005.  And I think what we 
have been doing in recent years, building on what ha d been started before, goes in this direction.  
Using the constellation image, I see the WTO as one of  the stars of the constellation, and  using the 
island image, as one of the elements of this gl obal governance archipelago, which I believe should 
have more islands.  As an  island in this archipela go of global governance, we ha ppen to have a certain 
visibility and a lot of consistence, which puts us in  a position to build bridges with others.  When the 
island exists, what's not for us to do is to create is lands which do not exist.  We are our own island.  
We are a specialized, specifically mandated organi zation and this issue of specialization still 
overarches the organizations we have  internationally.  In some cases we have an explicit mandate of 
coherence with the Bretton Woods Institutions.  In  other cases we have memoranda of understanding.  WT/GC/M/119 
Page 28  
 
  In some cases we have no formal base for cohere nce, but we engage with  these organizations and no 
Member has complained. At least for the time I have been here, I have  never had a delegation 
complain that I have been talking to or liaising with this or that organization, notably with an 
organization that is a member of the UN family.  
 So we do not need formal arrangements.  When they are there fine.  When they are not there, 
for the moment that does not prevent us from worki ng, notably with the UN family, and I gave a few 
examples this morning of what we have done and what we will do in this regard.  I participate in the 
G-20 meetings, I was just last weekend in a me eting of the Development Committee of the World 
Bank.  I am a member of the Chief Executive Bo ard of the United Nations system.  Valentine 
Rugwabiza was the day before yesterday in New Yo rk in the ECOSOC, which is also one of the 
platforms where these issues are looked at horizontally.  So, there is plenty to do.  It is just a question 
of priority.  I will keep doing th is, not least because I believe that  it is good for the World Trade 
Organization that what it does and the way it do es it is well known and appreciated by other 
organizations.  And if you have ideas or if there are some of these bridges which do not exist which 
you believe should exist – I am not ta lking about the sort of bridge we have with WIPO under TRIPS, 
which is a very solid, treaty-like bridge, or what  I said this morning about environment, which is 
already in our constitutions but with mo re informal ways of creating liaisons. 
  So I will keep doing this.  I am a believer in  global governance and I will keep pushing this.  I 
have a strong interest in this, for political reasons, to move in this direction.  As I mentioned this 
morning, what became clear during these four years was that we probably do not pay enough attention 
to the regional level.  Notably, in the way we r un our trade-related technical assistance.  In Aid for 
Trade, for instance, one of the discoveries I ma de which I had not realized was how important 
regional development banks were in this Aid for Trade business in the capacity-raising for developing 
countries.  And once we realized this, we have wo rked more and more with  regional development.  
Actually, when I was in New York I had discussions  on this, and in Washington, and this weekend 
with Donald Kaberuka and Luis Alberto Moreno just  to mention a few.  We took the initiative of 
inviting the Islamic Development Bank to the Aid fo r Trade focus group, and while they had not been 
involved in this previously, they joined the club.  So  that is for the next four years.  That is the 
dimension which I intend to push.  We had, for in stance, when we were in Lusaka, discussions with 
all the Secretaries-General of all African groupings, COMESA, SADEC, ECOWAS, East African 
Community.  And I intend – and of course if that is a problem for you, you will tell me as we go – but 
I intend to beef up the level of interaction we have  with these sorts of organizations, who trade-wise 
become more and more relevant, and we should not be  surprised about this.  It is a sort of mini-
globalization which is taking place at regional leve l and which I think we should take into account. 
 Q: We would like to refer to the very interesti ng views the Director-General shared with us 
on the issue of regional trade agreements and the need for prevalence of the most-favoured-nation principle.  As everybody kno ws, this is a very important issue for my 
country.  Chile has 20 extensive trade agreements  with some 56 countries and four negotiations 
are under way.  We have no doubt that these agreements are consistent with GATT Article XXIV and GATS Article V.  However, we  do need to be more specific regarding the 
multilateral criteria for defining such consistency.  That is why we have proposed to take steps 
to that end so that such agreements are directed  at convergence and do not heighten or increase 
levels of discrimination.  We made such a proposal at the APEC forum and the OECD, and have also attempted to discuss the matter in this  Organization, but alas without success.  The 
question is why, do you believe, is it that no co ncrete progress has been achieved in this area?  
Why are some Members reticent to move ahead?   And what might be the possible courses of 
action or formulas to overcome such reticence?  (Chile) 
  WT/GC/M/119 
 Page 29 
 
 
  A: Well, this is certainly one of the major i ssues I believe we should address in the future and 
which I mentioned specifically this morning, together  with rules of origin, as issues which pertain to 
the present mandate we have.  So it is not a ques tion of getting a new mandate but, frankly speaking, 
that we have been flat in terms of ambition in the last year.  I am glad Chile is raising this question 
because if there was an Oscar for RTAs, Chile woul d probably be on the short list, together with 
Singapore and a few others.  So you undoubtedly have  solid experience, and I know that Chile and 
Singapore, to take these two, had been pushing fo r discussions, reflections within the APEC Group, 
which by the way is the only place where a bit of  intellectual elaboration has taken place in recent 
years.  I am not talking about the diagnosis.  We have extremely competent and good academics who talk about this problem of relationship and the spaghetti bowl.  We ourselves organized a conference 
with academics sometime ago here, but I do not thin k the issue is with the diagnosis.  The issue is 
with the solution.  How can we make sure that (a ) the proliferation of preferential trade agreements 
does not erode the MFN principle.  Generally it inevitably erodes, by definition, the MFN principle because it is a preferential trade agreement.  But how can we ensure that this partial erosion does not 
multiply and does not proliferate in the future?  That is the real issue.  So what can we do?  I will 
come back to this after answering your question of why is it so. 
  The two main reasons why is it so are:  (a) Slowness of the multilateral system to result in more trade opening.  Most of the content of these pr eferential agreements is with market opening.  It 
very seldom infringes on rules, although it sometim es does, in things like environment or labour, 
precisely because the multilateral system cannot address these, and it also leaves aside a lot of issues 
which can only be addressed at multilateral level,  like subsidies for inst ance, because when you 
subsidize your production, you do not subsidize it as a domestic process for exporting to country A 
and not to country B.  So the content is inevitably more market-access oriented and less rule oriented.  
That is the first reason.  It is up to us to show that  we can deliver and resist this argument, that if they 
do not do it in Geneva, lets do it in a smaller fo rmat which has a good solid rationale in political 
terms.  Even if I have forgotten everything in my  past life, I myself had a hard time when I was the 
EU Commissioner resisting these pressures.  The sec ond reason is schizophrenia and it is part of life.  
It happens that the international nervous system is actioned by diplomats, and that these diplomats –   
especially when they are an ambassador in a country  – love bilateral relations, more than, on average, 
multilateral negotiations.  It is a reality of life.  And if I am an ambassador in country A from country 
Y for my career, if I can bring my Minister to sign a good trade agreement, whatever agreement by 
the way, but in particular trade agreements, that is good.  It shines, it shows.  And if my Minister goes 
on TV with his counterpart signing a good agreement he is  going to be happy.  So if he is happy this 
happiness has a certain probability of having consequences on my ow n fate.  If my Minister is 
somewhere on a family picture of 153 Ministers of the WTO, he won't show it a lot to his domestic constituencies, because just spotting where he or sh e is on the family photo of the WTO is already 
hard.  So this is a political reality, and we have to  recognize political realities, plus the fact that in 
some capitals, those who deal with multilateral issues  and those who deal with bilateral issues report 
to different parts of the administration, and that in all administrations there are always turf wars.  And 
those of you here who are in charge of negotia ting, for instance under Article XXIV, do not get the 
clear and solid instructions from capitals, which peopl e who are in charge of the bilateral thing will 
not energize for obvious reasons.  On a practical level, this is how things work. 
 
 So, what can we do?  I floated this morning a fairly general concept on purpose, because it is 
not for me to enter into too many details.  The WTO does not have the so-called right of initiative, but 
having looked at that for years now, I believe that the only way to ensure co nvergence, which at the 
end of the day is the real problem, is to have some  sort of technique, methodology, road map, tool box 
to multilateralize bilateral agreements.  Because th at is the only way you can reduce the in-built 
element of preference in the system.  I know we have  tried the route of a parameters criteria, which is 
a discussion we have had on Article XXIV on "substantially on trade," which is a nice way to agree to 
disagree. Frankly speaking, the experience is not very promising.  So in my view, we have to be more 
creative and try to insert in bilateral agreements a sort of device, like you do with nano-technologies, WT/GC/M/119 
Page 30  
 
  which at some stage will ensure that the prefer ence is reduced.  Now this being said, the more 
available way of reducing preferences is to reduc e the MFN market-access level, but we have the 
experience that sometimes it is difficult, precisely because it reduces the preference.  And we increase 
this problem of preference competition everyday, as b ilateral agreements multiply and we create a sort 
of in-built break to what we do that is MFN.  We saw that in the Doha Round negotiation on 
longstanding preferences, which are not preferential b ilateral agreements, but I am aware that this is 
also the case for preferential agreements.  Finally  and lastly, in my remarks this morning I made a 
distinction between RTAs – the "R" of which, by  the way is sometimes extremely ambiguous – let's 
say preferential trade agreements or bilateral agreem ents.  I made a distinction between deep regional 
integration processes where trade is part of the pr ocess of integration, together with many other 
elements of economic or political life – this is a sp ecific case, and I am well aware of this – and the 
more classical, more normal bilateral agreements.  So I believe that we should work on this sense of 
convergence.  We should of course energize the MFN system.  That is the only way to address, I think, the sort of heavy shaping factors which have led us to this situation.  Q: Thank you for your statement and the rep lies you have given so far to extremely 
interesting questions from delegations.  We ourselv es had written down quite a few, and most of 
them have been answered.  However, there is  one question concerning the Director-General's 
ideas on which we believe – though this has already been mentioned – that it might be useful to have a few more details.  You spoke at length ab out the issue of coherence regarding the Bretton 
Woods Institutions.  You mentioned that there was effective contact with the International 
Monetary Fund and the World Bank and that you yourself had extended such contacts to other 
organizations such as the FAO, the ILO and UN CTAD, mainly in the context of the economic 
and financial crisis.  However, there are other international organizations in Geneva with which 
the WTO should coordinate policies, objectives and action – WIPO, for instance, and the WHO.  You made an oblique reference to this a moment  ago.  These are but two examples.  What is 
your view about such work, and what progress ca n we expect over the next four years in 
resolving important issues with these organizations  while cooperating with our delegations so 
that we ourselves can give great er coherence to our action?  At some stage you mentioned the 
fact that we were members of those organizatio ns.  But we are individual members and cannot 
think as one in all cases, which is why heads of secretariats have a vital role to play in 
channelling such coherence among the delegations.   (Paraguay) 
 
A: I think that I have essentially already answered :  I have pushed for this coherence agenda and 
I will continue to push for it.  There are aspects of th is coherence that it is not up to me to develop, but 
rather up to you as negotiators on the front line.  Th at is what we did with the World Intellectual 
Property Organization, for example.  In fact I am sometimes asked why we have this solid legal link 
with WIPO, and nothing nearly as solid with the ILO, for example, or with this or that agreement on 
the environment.  That is one method.  The others  are more pragmatic – I think I have used all of 
these different methods, notably with WIPO and the WHO.  No later than next week or the week 
after, we will be having discussions with Margar et Chan and Francis Gurry on subjects common to 
our organizations and in particular  on matters relating to intellectual property and medicines, an area 
in which, as you know, we have a certain experience, including on the regulatory front.  Once again, I 
do not think it is a matter of the WTO Director-General 's point of view;  I do not think it is a matter of 
mandate or a question of governance, which warrants institutional atten tion, so to speak.  This is a 
matter of pragmatism, in which we must choose our priorities, and the Secretariat has contacts with 
more than 200 international organizations.  In view  of the means at our disposal, we also have to 
choose our priorities, and what you tell us about these priorities is very important.  I have had 
repeated contact with the FAO because, for exampl e, aspects relating to the agriculture negotiations 
are of interest to us, and very much of interest to  them;  and I shall continue these contacts.  But – and 
this is my final point on this matter – it is true that the coherence mandate is  largely in your hands:  
you are members of all these organizations, an d how you develop your positions, negotiate 
agreements, ask for programmes and projects, is first and foremost your business.  We – that is to say  WT/GC/M/119 
 Page 31 
 
 
  those placed in charge of the organizations as Dir ectors-General, Secretaries-General, Presidents, 
whatever – we can do no more than help you in your efforts, within the confines of our very limited executive authority.  We can do so officially, we can  do so publicly, or we can do so more discretely.  
There is a "networking" element in this system that is very important, but we cannot do it without 
you, we can only help you to do it.  I have often said to your leaders, your heads of State or 
government, that this issue of coherence of your coun tries in the organizations to which they belong 
deserves greater attention than it often gets, since the well-known tendency towards 
"compartmentalization" that affects all bureaucracies often prevails.  So I shall continue in this 
direction, but I think that I need your help in a way.  If you believe in it, act accordingly, and I myself am ready to become involved once again. 
 
Q: The Agreements that emerged from the Tokyo Round were signed by a limited number 
of GATT Contracting Parties.  This led to the establishment of a two-tier GATT membership.  In the Uruguay and Doha Rounds, negotiations were,  and are being, conducted on the basis of 
the principle of a single undertaking.  Today we have raised or referred to a number of topics 
that could be addressed in the WTO once the Doha  Round has been completed.  My question is:  
judging by the experience of the Tokyo, Uruguay and Doha Rounds, would you recommend a 
variable-geometry type of approach in th e WTO as regards post-Doha obligations and 
undertakings, so that those who wish to advance more rapidly can do so?  (Colombia) 
 A: This is part of what I mentioned this morning in terms of re-looking at our processes post-
DDA.  And ideas such as moving backwards from a single undertaking which bundles several 
negotiations and moving back to sectorals, as we  did after the Uruguay Round.  I remember, as 
probably some of you remember, a sort of ma ntra post-1994 which was "s ingle undertaking never 
again."  A number of you are old enough to remember that.  That lasted two years, from 1994 to 1996.  That is how we moved in financial services, and th at is how we moved with the Telecoms Agreement 
in 1996 in Singapore.  Two years later, we were back to the track of single undertaking for reasons 
which deserve a long and careful analysis, which I w ill not present this afternoon.  So again, this is 
not really a new issue.  And variable geometry, whether it is RTAs, whether it is the Government 
Procurement Agreement – and these are very differ ent – has already been tested.  So we have 
experience with this.  And there may be merit in moving on something which does not encompass the 
whole of the membership with its different ob ligations, depending on whether you are developed, 
developing, SVE, recently-acceded Member or LDC, which in reality creates within an agreement a 
very strong differentiation, the negotiation of whic h is extremely painful.  There may be merit in 
moving among a number of countries who are ready to accept ambitious trade-opening or rule-making 
results, although it is probably a bit more diffi cult in rule-making than in market access. 
 
 This being said, this idea also has opponents,  notably in an organization which has become 
much larger and where the effective participation of  Members has increased a lot, which is the case of 
the WTO, and among those who might remain outsid e of the plurilateral agreement.  Variable 
geometry is fine for those who are in the part whic h becomes viable, but not being part of this may be 
a problem for some.  And we have experienced this  in recent years, notably when during the Doha 
Round on Singapore issues, the notion that invest ment and competition would be resisted as a 
multilateral agreement but could have been tested as  a plurilateral, was resisted by Members.  So 
maybe it is a route, but it is not an easy route.   So I think to answer your question deserves refl ection.  As far as my own view is concerned, I 
think critical mass makes sense.  If most of the st akeholders, if 70, 80, 90 per cent of world traders 
generally can agree on pushing the trade-opening, ru le-making system forward, I would recommend 
this.  But look at my previous answer on RTAs, insofar as it would create differentiation, the 
methodology for convergence should also pertain to this so rt of agreement.  So if variable geometry is 
a temporary distinction between the obligations of  one Member and those of another – which are 
already part of our DDA with special and differen tial treatment, with exceptions and so on – if this WT/GC/M/119 
Page 32  
 
  diversification takes the shape of something like  a critical-mass agreement, the overall objective of 
convergence at the end of the day has to be part of  the process.  Now how do you combine this?  What 
is the right technology to do this?  The answer is not  for this afternoon, but if some of you, when we 
reach the finishing line of the Round, want to go back to this reflection, I think it is worth considering 
again.  Although grand intellectual ideas like the one  we have exchanged today are of interest, as 
usual the seriousness of the discussion has more to do with the details, and there are a few land mines 
on this route which I nevertheless would recommend we look at from time to time. 
 
Q: In your presentation this morning, you aptly recognized the significance of the challenge 
that the global trading system is facing from  emerging and proliferating RTAs and FTAs and 
the need to multilateralize them.  I know that partly you have answered this query by the 
delegation of Chile.  We would like to know how yo u propose to deal with this.  What, according 
to you, would be the process?  Is it possible to work towards development of disciplines for 
integration of RTAs into the MFN-based system?  Similarly, you also have recognized complexities arising out of multiple rules of or igin.  Do you propose to harmonize the various 
rules of origin and if yes, how?   (India) 
 A: The answer to that will be very short becau se on RTAs I have given you my views or vision, 
to use the name of this exercise.  There is a pl ace to address the RTAs issue in the present mandate of 
the Organization under the Round on Article XXIV  negotiations, which is why I sort of 
diplomatically presented this this morning as food fo r thought for Article XXIV negotiators which, I 
repeat, in my view would benefit from a bit of energizing.  So that is the place.  Others and I have 
ideas, if you need us to bring a bit more sophisticat ed view of what this multilateralizing would mean.  
I am ready to do that.  On rules of origin, sam e answer.  We have a ma ndate.  We have been 
negotiating multilateral rules of origin for years, and there is a pillar of this negotiation sitting in the 
Brazilian Mission and she has been trying and trying .  And for years we have negotiated multilateral 
rules of origin and we still have a few problems , which our Australian friends, for instance, could 
explain, if that was the precise topic of today's de bate.  So there is a negotiating mandate.  There is 
something going on.  Unfortunately, Ministers and ambassadors do not like negotiations on rules of origin.  They believe it is dry, complex, arid and that the big principles of diagonal accumulation are a 
bit of a problem to understand.  And as they rightly see their role as explaining to their Ministers at some stage what is in this package, they are a bit reluctant.  So there is  also bit of sociology in the fact 
that it does not work now. 
  What should we do? The technical solutions are in the system for multilateral rules of origin, 
and I do not think at this stage of the negotiation we should reinvent the wheel.  There still are a few 
nuts to crack on what is the origin of milk, if milk  is made from putting milk powder with water in a 
different place from where the water or the milk powder come from, which is certainly an important 
topic but probably not insoluble technically.  Another problem is bilateral rules of origin.  And a third problem is unilateral rules of origin.  Because, of course, bilateral rules of origin are by definition 
necessary, because if you have a preferential agreement,  the preference has to be given with a sort of 
passport, which is the rules of origin.  Not to mention unilateral rules of origin, such as the GSP 
system, which is also very complex. I know some developing countries who have AGOA or 
Everything-but-Arms or whichever GSP plus or mi nus scheme, and where some exporters prefer to 
pay the tariff rather than do the paperwork they have to do to justify the origin.  I am sure you also 
know examples of this kind.  In this case we collectively do not do our job.  If we are serious about easing access to markets and exports of developing c ountries, this straightjacket labyrinth of some 
rules of origin, which by the way is not always  innocent, because you can give, on the one hand, 
market access, and retain a part of that in keep ing added value, for instance, with conditions or 
specific material utilization as it exists in some system s.  Now on this I do not think it is a question of 
harmonization.  There are several options.  If I had to recommend one, I would advise you to do what Canada does.  Canada some years ago – and I remember that very well because it was not an easy decision to take and there was a bit of an internal turbulence – Canada some years ago decided that its  WT/GC/M/119 
 Page 33 
 
 
  unilateral rules of origin system would be a flat  25 per cent added value parameter across the board, 
anywhere, anytime.  That is the simplest way, with a percentage for transformation which makes 
sense in my view.  That is a simple solution which co uld be emulated by others with great benefits for 
developing countries.  Q: In the current economic circumstances and havi ng identified the priority areas on which 
the Organization will centre its efforts in the short and the long term, what concrete and 
effective results do you think we should expect  from pressing ahead with measures in these 
areas?   (El Salvador) 
 
A: Short term and medium term.  Short term, the Round, the Round, the Round.  I am not going 
to expand on what would be there.  We already have  a fairly clear idea, although not totally clear to 
everybody, which I recognize is a fact.  The value of what is on the table and how it could translate 
into benefits for the Members, provided we can address issues in terms of Members' capacity to benefit.  Now, more medium term, at least post-DDA,  I have mentioned a few topics this morning that 
I find in the air listening to you, reading the press, reading academic contributions – and I think, by 
the way, I have mentioned them all – which means that  there is not such a long list.  Overall, my own 
sense is that the topics to come are with non-tariff ba rriers.  If we conclude this Round with formulas 
the way the negotiations have structured them, I th ink future tariff reductions will be quite easy to 
negotiate, because we have a new technology which is formulas, which is a powerful technology, and 
we will not spend the time we had to spend in  moving from the request-offer technology to the 
formula for tariff reduction in the future.  But there will remain, and we can see that in the everyday 
practice, there will remain obstacles to trade wh ich are difficult to tackle on behind-the-border 
regulatory issues, non-tariff barriers, technical barriers to trade, sanitary and phytosanitary standards, 
and the adjustment of this will be a problem in the future as, hopefully, countries become richer.  
When they become richer, mot of them become older, and as this happens, the focus of domestic 
policies is on things like safety, security, risk reduction, precaution and all these notions which 
imprint the regulatory system with the vision societie s have of where the risks are.  And the vision of 
societies of where the risks are is highly depend ent on culture and values, and it is much more 
difficult to negotiate – hence, by the way, con cepts like harmonization and mutual recognition, for 
instance.  That is in my view the field in which we will have to invest in the future.  As I am 
convinced that a lot of these non-tariff barriers cannot be harmonized as this would be horribly 
complex and politically horribly painful, we will have to live with systems in this field which are not 
adjusted.  This is why in my view, the surveillan ce monitoring function of this Organization should be 
more developed than it is now, because the way to address these differences will be by periodic 
review and surveillance, looking concretely t wh ether some of these differences are problems or not 
and tackling them one by one.  So the focus on implem entation, in my view, is coherent with this 
notion that in the future we will have to consider more and more of these non-tariff barriers as the real 
obstacles to the trade of tomorrow.  
Q: Just a brief aside to endorse your view s on regional trade agreements.  These are 
negotiated on a WTO-plus basis, and then when we come to this Organization we do not even 
want to accept the WTO Agreements themselves.  One question, if I may, and then a follow-up 
question.  What can the WTO do to help develo ping countries which are very open to trade, 
such as my own, weather the global financial storm, but which do not have the millions that developed countries do in order to bail out their banks and industries with incalculable sums of 
money?  I mention this in connection with last week's consultations in the Balance-of-Payments 
Committee, which renewed its activities for a te n-year period and in which some developed-
country Members sought to establish precedents and argue systemic interests at the cost of 
economic survival for a developing country such as  Ecuador.  My follow-up question is:  How in 
your view should the multilateral trading system  and its Members adapt to the current realities 
of the global economic crisis, ta king into account the fact that  there is little understanding for 
the specific circumstances of developing countries?   (Ecuador) WT/GC/M/119 
Page 34  
 
  A: Two points, to begin with.  First, I do not think that we should accept, intellectually, an 
argument that I have often come across since the begi nning of the crisis – namely, that open trade is a 
handicap.  According to this argument, the more ope n you are, the more you depend on trade, and the 
more you depend on trade, the more likely you ar e to go under when faced with a storm of the 
violence of the one we are currently facing.  This  argument is not entirely absurd, because it is true 
that when you are heavily dependent on internati onal trade and you are hit with the kind of economic 
crisis we are experiencing – with such a strong impact on demand, supply and hence trade – those 
who are more open will be hit proporti onately harder.  This is true in the short term.  But look at the 
figures for the medium and long term – the countries that opted to open up their trade extensively have fared much better in terms of  growth rate than those that were more reluctant.  All these 
pre-crisis gains and, since we will emerge from the crisis one day, the post-crisis gains, must be 
factored into the reasoning.  If we take all of these figures together over the medium term, we see that open trade pays off.  Second, it is true that all of  this has produced a considerable shock for certain 
countries.  Our rules contain flexib ilities to deal with this type of situation.  There are safeguard 
clauses, and some of you have a certain amount of leeway for managing your tariff structure.  There 
are specific provisions on balance-of-payments crises .  In other words, we are not entirely unarmed 
and unprepared.  This has already happened in th e past, and we do have the necessary flexibilities, 
provided that those flexibilities are exercised within the framework of  certain disciplines.  The WTO 
is not an organization in which flexibilities exist in the absolute – flexibilities are regulated like 
everything else.  There are disciplines with respect to  notification, which we spoke about this morning 
– in that area there is certainly room for improve ment.  And there are disciplines governing duration, 
specific flexibility measures which apply only in times of crisis, that are provided for in our 
agreements.  Part of the discussion of Ecuador's case in the Balance-of-Payments Committee concerns 
that point.  The question of whether measures of  this type, which are provided for under our 
agreements, respect the letter and spirit of our ag reements, is one which you are currently discussing 
among yourselves, in the Balance-of-Payments Co mmittee as well, since Ecuador has evoked that 
provision of our agreements.  A third and last point – to be as complete and as neutral and as objective 
as possible, I had understood that in this discussion of the case of Ecuador in the Balance-of-Payments Committee – I was not there but I try to keep up with the activities of this Organization – I had understood that it was not only the developed coun tries that were expressing concern or that had 
specific problems with the measures that Ecuador  took and notified under balance-of-payments 
provisions.  So at this stage, let us not treat it as a North-South problem. 
 
Q: I should like to thank Mr Lamy for his statement this morning and would add that 
candidate Lamy is better and more forceful th an the outgoing Director-General.  He is 
insightful, a clear thinker, and daring in his vision for the future and the level of ambition 
necessary for this Organization to become a star – as he himself said – in the constellation of 
international organizations.  In this connection, I welcome and note with great satisfaction that 
he is open to reform, which he himself described as surgery, whereas in his statement of 26 January 2005 he had ruled out any overhaul of the Organization.  I wish him the best of luck and every success in his task as  a surgeon.  My question has to do with the role of the 
Organization in the current economic and trade en vironment.  As we all know, the G-20 in 
London allocated, or decided to allocate, US $ 250 million to encourage, boost or provide 
incentives for trade and investment.  My question is:  What part is the WTO to play in this 
process, particularly in terms of mobilizing the funds for programming purposes and above all 
developing the principles or the criteria for th e selection of countries that will benefit from the 
financial windfall?  We are wondering about this  because the crisis in the South is becoming 
more and more acute.  Mr Chairman, I seek your indulgence since I am the last speaker merely 
to add a question concerning the post-Doha period.  Whether we like it or not, your statement of 
this morning, Mr Lamy, and the questions rais ed by Argentina, if I remember rightly, and 
France have opened the debate.  I agree with you that we should be cautious in not detracting attention from the key issue by inviting or en couraging a debate on what will happen after 
Doha.  But my question is:  Should we stand wi th our arms crossed, or should we not rather  WT/GC/M/119 
 Page 35 
 
 
  seek another alternative to prep are ourselves for the future, in particular – and I do not know 
whether your mandate empowers you to do so – by establishing a think tank representing the different groups of which you very precisely quoted the number a while ago, in order to 
address, from a totally independent standpoint,  the major challenges that will emerge once the 
Doha Round has been completed, so as to prep are the Organization to deal with these new 
global issues?   (Morocco) 
 A: This question, which I will reply to in three pa rts, will allow me to di spense with the need for 
a conclusion, since the first part of it, which I will address last, provides the perfect basis for a few 
concluding remarks.  First, I would hesitate to  describe the US$250 million allocated in London as a 
windfall.  When the IMF, for example, is give n supplementary resources, we know that these are 
funds that will be made available to the IMF by IM F members, or that will stem from the issuing of 
Special Drawing Rights or the IMF's gold-selling programme.  These sums of money are destined to be made available and lent by the IMF to its client s, which are its members.  So, if the IMF can lend 
250 million, it can lend 250 million.  If its means are increased to 500 million, it can lend 500 million, 
and so on and so forth.  The US$250 million we are talk ing about here are not like this.  In this case, it 
is not a matter of loans or funds that will be made  available to this country or that country by a 
centralized body such as the IMF.  The figure of 250 million is a mixed bag of cabbages, carrots, 
apples and pears, as the current problem regarding th e drying up of financing for international trade – 
which we identified relatively early on in the cris is and on which we have worked with both the group 
of experts I called together and the Working Gr oup on Debt and Finance – this financing of 
international trade, of imports and exports, is effected according to extremely varied modalities.  
Sometimes it is effected from account to account.  Sometimes short-term letters of credit are used, 
some of which expire after three months, others a little sooner or a little late r.  Sometimes the loans 
are a little more long-term, sometimes medium-term.  There is even a part of international trade 
financing for capital goods which is subject to long- term loans which are themselves more or less 
financed or guaranteed by the import-export banks in some countries, so as to facilitate the financing 
of generally large-scale international trade opera tions.  So, there are comme rcial banks, import-export 
banks, some of which are commercial banks from the poi nt of view of their statutes, banks in which 
there is more extensive government intervention,  and multilateral organizations such as regional 
development banks, the World Bank and the Interna tional Finance Corporati on, which provide banks 
with either credit lines or guarantee facilities fo r the purposes of international trade.  These 
US$250 million mean that the shortfall in the system  as a whole has been identified as more or less 
this size, i.e. it has been estimated that US$250 million is the amount needed to effect a certain 
number of operations that could take place despite th e crisis – that is to say, where an exporter knows 
that an importer is able to carry out a trade tran saction, but where this transaction cannot take place 
because the financial bridge between the importer and the exporter does not exist.  All the preparatory 
work for the G-20 – which to some extent we carried out, although at some point the British 
Presidency and the US Treasury took over to conduct  the technical negotiations – resulted in this 
amount, which is, as I have said before, an amount ma de up of, for example, what the Work Bank, via 
the IFC, has launched as a liquidity pool, as in a certain number of cases it is possible to have 
guarantees but no liquidity on the market.  It is an amount made up of what a certain number of 
import-export banks in the Berne Uni on have decided they are prepared to do.  It is an amount made 
up of all kinds of different things.  It is not a qu estion of a window for so many billion or another for 
so many billion.  It is the making available of li quidity that may have a major impact on international 
trade, if only because if you provide liquidity for sh ort-term loans, and these short-term loans are for 
90 days, you will have four opportunities a year to use the funds as operations take place.  So, once 
again, it is not something that is in the hands of a single organization.  We are going to follow up on 
this.  I spoke to my colleagues in Washington about it only last weekend, including to the 
Development Committee, where the issue of interna tional trade financing is now given far greater 
prominence than in the past, mainly because the Wo rld Bank very effectively, vigorously and rapidly 
did what was necessary to try to remedy the problem.  So, we are going to follow up with our experts, and we shall see whether this overall estimated shor tfall of US$250 million which, as I have already WT/GC/M/119 
Page 36  
 
  said, comprises a bit of this and a bit of that, is on the way towards being filled or not.  If not, we will 
re-address the issue.   As regards the post-DDA period, Morocco's ques tion is on a par with the one Argentina asked 
this morning.  On the one hand, I do not think we should stand around with our arms folded.  At some 
point we are going to have to reflect on what will happen after the Round.  In  this Organization there 
have always been work programmes, whether in  the form of overall or specific negotiations.  
Moreover, not all of our negotiations  form part of the Single Undertaking, beginning with those on the 
Dispute Settlement Mechanism.  I therefore think it is necessary to reflect on this matter and I stand ready to take the steps required – not to engage in major brainstorming sessions, because, at the end of 
day, we have already done quite a lot of that duri ng these consultations – but to look more closely at 
details and at potential post-DDA issues.  I am w illing to do that, but when the time comes.  
Everything in its own good time.  Let us start with today's work which, as everyone knows, should not 
be put off until tomorrow.  This is what will mobilize your strength.  The conclusion of the Round will mobilize your strength in the months and maybe even the year to come.  As soon as we are sure 
that we are to cross the finishing line in a matter of  months rather than years, decades or centuries, I 
will be ready to take the necessary steps with you.   In the meantime, I would hold back as, for the 
moment – and I hope this moment will be a short one , but that is something which is in your hands 
rather than mine – it is not our priority, and I would not like or recommend, given the shaky opinion 
that exists of these negotiations, giving the impression that we are moving on to something else.  Doing so could well make it seem as if the Round were slowly dying, but that we were just not 
admitting it, and were not going to bury it because that  would be politically incorrect.  In some ways, 
however, the truth is that we are indeed slowly bury ing it, the proof being that we are already thinking 
about what we are going to do afterwards.  I assure you that if we think about that now, this is what 
will happen.  There are a lot of people who would be very happy to present things in this way.  We 
must honestly admit, among ourselves, that the latter part of the Round clearly suffers from a problem 
in respect of its credibility, and therefore, in my opini on, the patient is not in a fit state to be taking 
steps of this sort.  They will be taken when the tim e is right, when we collectively feel that we are 
finally working on the conclusion of our exercise, in the form of a Ministerial meeting.  So, there you 
have my replies to the specific questions.   With regard to the first comment, which was not  unspecific, but of a lighter nature, I fully 
understand that the candidate seems le ss boring than the Director-General.  This seems to me to be 
quite clear, and, from the way I have enjoyed today's exercise, you might be led to believe that I feel 
the same way.  It is simply that a Director-Gener al's functions are constrained by practices that do not 
exactly always favour the stimulation of his interest , intellect or creativity.  That is how it is.  This 
Organization has its methods, its rules, its weight, a nd so it is true that we do not always have the 
opportunity to venture into certain areas – areas in which, as a candidate, I have the freedom that you 
have been kind enough to grant me today, but that I am not sure you would have been willing to grant 
me as Director-General.  You have contributed so mewhat to this exercise, forging ahead, little by 
little, and in this respect I think the General Counc il Chair and his predecessor have shown talent as 
negotiators.  You have reached quite a strange sort of compromise between a general, indeed 
extremely general, seminar, an election campaign and a formal exercise, which consists, given that I 
am the only candidate, of taking up the hammer and deciding that it's not worth spending too much 
time on it.  You have discovered this new type of fo rmula.  I am grateful to you and, because I am 
grateful, I have made a point of trying to stimulat e, colour and air our thoughts a little, as I said at the 
beginning of my statement this morning.  In conc lusion, I would like to thank you very warmly for 
having given me this opportunity.  Please give me others!  And I do not necessarily mean as a 
candidate – we will see.  I would gladly address any requests you might have. 
 
__________