RESTRICTED   WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  TN/TF/M/17 
11 May 2007 
 (07-1951) 
Negotiating Group on Trade Facilitation  
  
 
 
SUMMARY MINUTES OF THE MEETING 
 
Held in the Centre William Rappard
 
on 30 April and 1 May 2007  
 
Chairman:  H.E. Mr. Eduardo Ernesto Sperisen-Yurt (Guatemala) 
  
1. The Chairman
 recalled that the proposed agenda fo r the meeting had been circulated in 
WTO/AIR/3003 and that the purpose of the session mainly aimed at furthering the negotiating process 
by offering an additional opportunity to advance the Group's discussions by tabling new contributions 
and reacting to the proposals previously received.  Furthermore, Members would be invited to admit relevant international organi zations, including the IMF, OECD, UNCTAD, WCO and the World 
Bank, to attend the next meeting of the Group on an ad hoc basis, as in the past.  
2. The agenda was adopted
. 
A. CONTRIBUTIONS ON THE AGREED AGENDA OF THE NEGOTIATING GROUP  
3. The Chairman  said that the first item took Members st raight to the heart of the negotiating 
business in inviting further contributions on the agreed agenda of the Negotiating Group (NG). 
Members would be familiar with the matter as it ha d been the established basis of their work.  
4. In organizational terms, he wished to stick to the traditional process of  keeping the debate as 
interactive as possible by letting most of the discussi ons take place in informal mode, limiting formal 
elements to the introduction of new proposals and st atements Members explicitly requested to make 
for the record. He equally wished to maintain th e custom of first looking at the implementation 
proposals before turning to the ones on the GATT Articles and the customs cooperation side.   
5. At the same time, he saw little value in me rely repeating the process of addressing the 
contributions in identical form. At the recent meeti ng of the TNC, DG Lamy had made clear that there 
was need for more engagement and an intensification of the negotia ting efforts towards a time horizon 
pointing to the end of the year.  
6. For that to happen, it was necessary for Members to pick up the pace and intensify their work. 
They had already agreed in Hong Kong on the n ecessity of "mov[ing] into focussed drafting mode 
[..... ] so as to allow for a timely conclusion of text -based negotiations on all aspects of the mandate". 
Good progress had been made since then in moving to third generation proposals. But what was 
needed now was to move into the next phase of focussing the negotiations on these proposals so as to 
generate draft texts.   
7. That was why he urged Members to intensify their efforts. All delegations knew that there 
was still a significant amount of work ahead of them with time not being on their side.  TN/TF/M/17 
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  8. What he therefore wished to propose was to make the discussions as focussed and text-
oriented as possible and to concentrate on the open qu estions at hand. While room would certainly be 
accorded to look at all proposals on each element of  the mandate, he would like Members to focus on 
those contributions that had attracted relatively little  attention so far. The airgram already alluded to 
relevant compilation headings in that regard.  
9. The remaining part of the discussions under this agenda item took place in informal mode
 
with the exception of the following statements th at were requested to be placed on record:  
10. The representative of Honduras  thanked UNCTAD for the experts that had come to visit 
Honduras from 5-15 February 2007. The purpose of the mission had been two-fold. On the one hand, the initiative aimed at getting a better understanding of the situation regarding Trade Facilitation in 
the country. On the other hand, it sought to establis h the basis which would enable a national group to 
follow the negotiations, assess the needs and the cha nges required in the area of Trade Facilitation and 
to continue working on an analysis of the propo sals presented to the NG. Honduras wished to express 
its gratitude to UNCTAD and its staff for the work  they had done, especially for the recommendations 
made, and hoped to be able to c ontinue to count on the support of this organization and to work 
together in order to have a professional follow-up to that mission.   
11. The representative of Nigeria
 said that it would be a burden on some delegations to participate 
in technical meetings of Negotiating Group in the absence of experts from the capital. Therefore, 
Nigeria continued to urge that every effort be made  to facilitate the participation of customs officials 
from the respective capitals in order to be able to enhance and deepen their understanding of the 
issues at stake and for them to be able to appreciat e the fact that there was need for collaboration even 
at the national level between agencies responsible fo r customs matters. Nigeria would be thankful if 
such participation could be achieved.  
12. The representative of Switzerland  wished to take the opportunity to remind delegations and 
participating international organiza tions that an informal technical workshop would take place in the 
afternoon on measures aimed at expediting the move ment of goods. The workshop would take place 
in room D and all Members were invited to attend. 
13. The Negotiating Group took note  of the statements made. 
B. AD HOC ATTENDANCE OF RELEVANT INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS , INCLUDING THE 
IMF,  OECD,  UNCTAD,  WCO  AND THE WORLD BANK, AT THE NEXT MEETING OF THE 
NEGOTIATING GROUP  
14. The Chairman  suggested inviting relevant internati onal organizations, including the IMF, 
OECD, UNCTAD, WCO and the World Bank to attend th e next formal meeting of the NG on an ad 
hoc basis, as provided for in the Work Plan. 
15. It was so agreed . 
C. OTHER BUSINESS  
16. The Chairman  addressed the issue of the Negotiating Group's next meeting. He recalled the 
dates mentioned at the end of the last session. On th at basis, he proposed to hold the next session on 7 
and 8 June.   
17. It was so agreed . 
  TN/TF/M/17 
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  18. The Negotiating Group took note  of the statements made. 
19. The meeting was adjourned .  
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