. /. 
  RESTRICTED  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  TN/CTD/M/33 
16 October 2008 
 
 (08-4965) 
Committee on Trade and Development 
Thirty-Third Special Session  
 
 
 
NOTE ON THE MEETING OF 7 OCTOBER 2008 
 
Chairman:  Ambassador Thawat chai Sophastienphong (Thailand) 
 
 
A. ADOPTION OF THE AGENDA .........................................................................................................1  
B. WORK FOR THE COMING MONTHS ...............................................................................................1  
C. OTHER BUSINESS .........................................................................................................................2  
 
 
A. ADOPTION OF THE AGENDA  
1. The draft agenda for the meeting as contained in airgram WTO/AIR/3243 of 
24 September 2008 was adopted.   
B. WORK FOR THE COMING MONTHS  
2. The Chairman  said that while a number of small group meetings had been held earlier in the 
year, this was the first open-ended meeting of the Special Session in 2008.  One of the reasons why 
Members had not met, as frequently as he would ha ve liked, was because the fo cus of work had been 
on establishing modalities in Agriculture and NAMA, a nd in fact, that would remain the focus over 
the coming months.  However, even if that was th e case, the special and differential treatment (S&D) 
work programme remained an important element of the overall Doha Deve lopment Agenda (DDA) 
negotiations and it was, therefore, important for Members to try and make progress on the issues that 
they had been considering as part of the work on S&D.  The pace at which Members would resume 
work would of course be governed by the ongoi ng work in the other negotiating areas.   
3. He went on to inform Members of the consultati ons he had held the previous week at which 
he had solicited a number of Members' views on wh ether they believed work should resume, as well 
as to share with these Members how he intended to proceed with work over the coming months.  He 
was pleased that like himself, the Members he ha d met with, had felt that work should continue.  
However, they had stressed the need to ensure that the pace at whic h work continued would take into 
consideration ongoing work on establishing modalities in  Agriculture and NAMA.  In addition, many 
had felt that the most efficient way to continue th is work was through the small group format, as had 
been the case in the past.  In te rms of how work would proceed over the coming months, he said that 
the idea was to continue work along the lines of the ro ad map contained in his last report to the Trade 
Negotiations Committee (TN/CTD/22).  This would en tail continuing work on all elements of the 
mandate on the basis of the language currently on th e table.  On the Agr eement-specific proposals, 
Members would concentrate their efforts on those issues where th ere were still considerable  
differences.  He was aware that Members had not yet ag reed to any of the proposals.  However, he felt 
that on some of the proposals progress had been made and spending too much time on these proposals 
could risk Members moving backwards.  On the Mo nitoring Mechanism, the focus would be on those TN/CTD/M/33 
Page 2  
 
  specific elements of the Mechan ism's structure and scope where positions were still far apart.  
Focusing on these elements would enable Members to make some progress and move forward.  With respect to the Category II proposals, he would conti nue to be in touch with the relevant Chairs of 
these bodies to which the proposals had been referred.  As the focus was current ly on the Agriculture 
and NAMA negotiations, it was likely that many of the Chairs would not be in a position to report 
much progress on these proposals.  Nevertheless, he believed that it was possible to begin identifying 
those issues that were being addressed as part of th e ongoing work in the different bodies and consider 
how to move on the outstanding proposals. 
4. With regards to the future scheduling of me etings, he said that the pace and frequency of 
these meetings would depend on what  happens in the other negotiating areas.  His intention was to 
hold a small group consultation towards the end of the month at which he would address the proposals 
where there were still significant divergences.  The proposals to be addressed would, of course, be 
communicated to Members beforehand.  Subseq uently, he would hold consultations on the 
Monitoring Mechanism.  As was the practise, open- ended meetings would be held periodically to 
keep the wider Membership abreast of any developments.   
5. No Member objected to the Chai rman's proposed work plan.   
C. 
OTHER BUSINESS  
6. No matter was raised under other business. 
 
 
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