. /. RESTRICTED  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  WT/WGTDF/M/19 
11 March 2010 
 
 (10-1285) 
Working Group on Trade, Debt and Finance  
  
 
REPORT OF THE MEETING OF 22 SEPTEMBER, 2009 
 
 1. The nineteenth meeting of the Working Group on Trade, Debt and Finance (WGTDF) was 
held on September 22, 2009 under the Chairmansh ip of Mr. Martin Glass (Hong Kong, China).  The 
Working Group adopted
 the agenda contained in WTO/AIR/3409. 
2. In his introductory remarks, the Chairman  recalled that Members had agreed in the current 
period of crisis to continue monitoring developments  regarding the availability of trade finance. The 
subject had drawn significant attention before th e G-20 Summit in London, and the Expert Group on 
Trade Finance had met under the chairmanship of the Director-General on September 15, 2009. The 
Secretariat had circulated its report to Members shortly thereafter in W/WGTDF/W/46.  The Director-
General had invited the Chairman to attend Expert Group meeting. 
3. The Chairman proposed to centre the di scussion of the Working Group on recent 
developments in trade finance, as reported by the S ecretariat, and on current preparations in the run-
up to the Pittsburgh Summit. Finally, he suggested  a brief discussion on the draft report of the 
WGTDF to the General Council, which had been circulated before the meeting under his own 
responsibility. 
Discussion on Trade Finance between the Chair, Members and the Secretariat  
4. The Secretariat  based its report on Document W/WGTD F/W/46, and on a number of elements 
gathered by G-20 experts on trade finance, in thei r preparations for the Pittsburgh G-20 Summit. It 
appeared that the implementation of the trad e finance support package endorsed in London was 
proceeding well, with more resources mobilized than initially targeted. While overall market 
conditions seemed to improve, a number of difficu lties remained in certain regions (mostly low 
income countries in Africa, Latin America, and Ce ntral Asia) and for certain types of enterprises 
(small and medium size enterprises in particular) to access trade finance on affordable terms.  
5. The Chairman  opened the floor to delegations wishing to ask questions on the presentation by 
the Secretariat, or make broader statements on the topic. 
6. The Representative of the European Union  wondered whether this was the time to think about 
an "exit strategy" with respect to the support pack age, bearing in mind that problems remained in 
certain areas. He also emphasized the link between the trade finance support package, which aimed at 
supporting short-term trade finance, and the medium -to-long term segment of that market, which has 
to be taken into account if the recession was longe r or the recovery more sluggish than expected. 
Finally, he asked whether the trade finance suppor t package could increase the risk of distortion in 
competition within certain regions and whether multilateral institutions could do more by way of 
addressing the development aspect of the problem – i.e. the greater difficulties of low income 
countries to access trade finance in general. WT/WGTDF/M/19 
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  7. The Representative of Brazil
 welcomed the fact that trade finance has attained a high profile 
in the WTO and internationally. This was clearl y one success story of the institution in raising the 
awareness of the international community towards this problem, which eventually led the G-20 
leaders to take action. The support package for tr ade finance was nevertheless a mixed success, as 
important pockets of the market (low income c ountries, second tier banks in developing countries) 
continued to experience difficulties in accessing tr ade finance on affordable terms. Brazil would 
hence contribute to raising the attention of the inte rnational community to the remaining difficulties in 
the context of the Pittsburgh Summit's preparations. The representative also rai sed the issue of Basel 
II rules and the need for more flexibility in im plementing such rules. He said that the message 
delivered by the G-20 would be conveyed to Braz il's regulators, although the rules needed to be 
changed. He concluded that it might be a bit early to envisage an exit strategy regarding trade finance 
support. 
8. The Representative of the Secretariat  provided a number of clarifications regarding possible 
distortions in competition, trade finance support in struments proposed by multilateral institutions, the 
difficulties met by low income countries in accessing trade finance, and the issue of flexibility in 
implementing Basel II rules for trade finance. 
9. The Chairman  concluded that the WGTDF could play a role in advising WTO Members' trade 
ministries to flag the issue of Basel II regulati on for trade finance to local authorities, as a 
complement to the G-20 call to regulators in  general to use the available flexibility. 
Presentation of the Report of the WGTDF to the General Council   
10. The Chairman  reminded the Working Group that it had to report to the General Council, 
ahead of the 7th Ministerial Conference of the WTO.  With this in mind, he had circulated a draft 
report in WTO Document WT/WGTDF/W/47, under his own responsibility. Members were encouraged to deliver their comments and changes in  time for the report to be ready by the deadline, 
for its transmission to the General Council. 
11. Several delegations, among whic h the representatives of the United States, Japan, Brazil and 
Chinese Taipei  took the floor to show their general appr eciation that the work of the WGTDF had 
been re-focused in the past two years on the topic of trade finan ce, and broadly agreed that the 
WGTDF continue to interact in the future with  the Group of Experts organized by the Director-
General. They promised that specific comments on the report would be delivered on time.  
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