RESTRICTED  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  G/TRIMS/M/24 
25 September 2006 
 ( 06-4557 ) 
Committee on Trade-Related Investment Measures  
  
 
 
MINUTES OF THE MEETING HELD ON 9 JUNE 2006 
  
Note by the Secretariat
 
 
 
1. The Committee on Trade-Related Investment Measures met on 9 June 2006.  The meeting 
was opened and conducted under the Chairmanship of Mr. Alexis Massot.  The Committee adopted  
the agenda contained in WTO/AIR/2832. 
A. PROPOSALS ON SPECIAL AND DIFFERENTIAL TREATMENT PROVISIONS REFERRED TO THE 
COMMITTEE ON TRADE -RELATED INVESTMENT MEASURES BY THE CHAIRMAN OF THE 
GENERAL COUNCIL , RELATING TO ARTICLE 4 AND ARTICLE 5.3 OF THE TRIMS  AGREEMENT 
(TN/CTD/W/3/REV.2).    
2. The Chairman  recalled that two proposals on Special and Differential (S&D) Treatment had 
been referred to the TRIMS Committee by the Chai rman of the General Council in 2003.  These 
proposals had been submitted by the African Group in document TN/CTD/W/3/Rev.2 and related to 
Article 4 and Article 5.3 of the TRIMS Agreement.  Pursuant to the decision adopted by the General 
Council on 1 August 2004 ("July Package"), the Co mmittee had held a number of formal and open-
ended informal meetings to discuss these proposals, as well as several rounds of consultations with 
interested Members on this issue.  At an info rmal meeting held on 9 May 2005, the Committee had 
had before it a revised version of the proposal su bmitted by Kenya on behalf of the African Group 
which addressed more specifically the concerns of the proponents.  Copies of this revised text had 
been distributed to Members for the present meeti ng.  While discussions in the Committee had helped 
to shed some light into the underlying concerns of the proponents, Members so far had been unable to 
reach agreement on certain fundamen tal questions raised by the proposals, in particular the country-
scope of their application. 
3. He recalled that in accordance with Paragraph 37  of the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration, 
the TRIMS Committee had been instructed to expe ditiously complete the consideration of the 
Category II S&D proposals and to report periodically  to the General Council with the objective of 
ensuring that clear recommendations for a decision were made no later than December 2006.  In light 
of the Committee's mandate, and given the importan ce of the S&D issues in the framework of the 
Doha Work Programme, he appealed to Members' fl exibility and cooperation to work together and to 
engage in a constructive dialogue in order to find a sa tisfactory solution to this issue.  On his part, as 
he had mentioned in his oral report to the Ge neral Council on 15 May, he  had started informal 
contacts with some interested delegations to hear their views on how best to address the S&D 
proposals and intended to pursue these contacts in th e future.  He then asked Members, and in 
particular the proponents, whether they had any ne w developments to report from their contacts with 
other delegations or whether they had any plans on ho w to continue consideration of the proposals, in 
particular regarding the revised text from the African Group. G/TRIMS/M/24 
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  4. The representative of Kenya, on  behalf of the African Group
, said that the African Group 
hoped that some positive progress could be made on its proposals.  Referring to the proposal on 
Article 4, he said it sought to provide the African  Group countries with the flexibility allowed under 
the TRIMs Agreement and, by extension, under Article XVIII of GATT 1994.  Since enough 
information on GATT Article XVIII was already available, the first part of the African Group 
proposal aimed at interpreting Article 4 of the TR IMs Agreement in light of the decision taken at 
Doha in 2001.  It was hoped that Members w ould be able to reach some understanding on the 
proposal. 
5. Since the Committee had not made much progress on the Group's original proposal, the 
African Group had submitted a revised proposal to be more specific and make clear that it was the 
African countries who wanted to use, and have so me flexibilities under, the particular provision in 
order to be able to address their industrial concerns.  It was for that reason that, in the second bullet of 
the revised text, reference had been made to  African countries whose dependence on primarily 
production was particularly high and whose overall level of industrializa tion was particularly low, and 
the text now read along the same lines as Article XVIII and also referred to GATT Article XXXVI:5.  
Regarding the country scope of the proposal's appli cation, bullet 2 had been formulated to take 
account of the fact that it was mainly the Afri can countries that depended heavily on primarily 
production and needed to be able to diversify and enhance that production.   
6. Regarding the proposal related to Article 5.3, in order to be in line with the specificity that 
had been given in the second bullet, the African Group had tried to define the countries that should be 
provided with an opportunity to notify TRIMs and to  request a new transitional period.  The definition 
that the African Group had arrived at borrowed fr om an existing decision regarding intellectual 
property rights and access to public health.   
7. The text of the revised proposal was now more specific because the African Group had been 
informed that the first generation of its proposal  had been too general and some Members had not 
understood exactly what the Group wanted.  The proposal was now specific enough even to show the 
group of countries that were interested in using these flexibilities and in seeking an opportunity to 
notify new TRIMs and also to request for trans itional periods.  That was as broad as the proposal 
could be.  While acknowledging the discussions that had been held so far, Kenya wished at the 
present meeting to hear whether Members had specific problems on, or whether there were particular areas of the revised proposal that needed to be addressed so that the Committee could move forward 
on this issue.  
8. The representative of the European Communities
 thanked Kenya for once again presenting 
the African Group proposal and said that his delegation appreciated the African Group's efforts to better identify the precise beneficiaries of the proposal .  This was indeed a good thing.  However, as a 
matter of principle, the European Communities did no t conceive this kind of S&D proposal as being a 
blank check available to any developing country, indepe ndently of its real needs.  He recalled that the 
spirit of the modification made to the TRIMs Agreem ent in Hong Kong was to give the benefit of the 
modification to LDCs only and his delegation appreciated the efforts to try to further narrow down the 
scope of the countries which would have real ne ed for such a measure.  Having said that, the 
European Communities felt that precise justification for such a measure had not been made and they 
were not convinced of the real needs for this possible amendment to the TRIMs Agreement.  The 
reason for this was simply because the EC failed to se e in concrete practical terms what would be the 
precise use of those amendments if implemented.  The EC would therefore appreciate if the African 
Group could provide concrete examples of the issues that they wished to address.  That would very 
much help in furthering the Communities' understanding of those proposals. 
9. The representative of the United States
 said that the US position was quite close to that of the 
European Communities.  He thanked Kenya for the revised paper and said that his delegation  G/TRIMS/M/24 
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  recognized that this was an issue of importance to Kenya and to other developing countries.  The 
United States took the issue seriously and did not disagree on the fundamental objective of what was 
being proposed in the revised text.  He considered  that his Government supported certain measures 
that would promote development in certain of these countries that were trying to use these kinds of measures as a development tool.   
10. The problem that the United States were faced w ith regarding this specific proposal was that 
it was far too general.  It basically tore down the TRIMs provisions of the GATT.  There were 
concrete ways in which one could move forward.  One way forward, in terms of very specific issues, 
was the suggestion by the EC on the particular kinds  of investment measures that had been proposed, 
although this suggestion had fallen through and was pending.   Those kinds of specific examples 
could be looked at because the Committee had had th eoretical discussions in the past about whether , a 
priori , one could determine whether all, some, or no TRIMs were inefficient, and potentially even 
harmful, to certain development needs of developi ng Members.  Proposals had been made for studies 
to be done and. the United States were aware of  the studies that had been carried out by the 
Philippines both recently and in the past, and of the fact that there was a mixed message that came 
from those studies. 
11. The United States did not exclude the possibility that a specific TRIMs proposal could 
promote the development purposes of developing count ries.  However, his delegation wanted to see 
what one was dealing with and did not want to ha ve an open door that would let just anything in.  
Going by his own country's experience, both recently  and over the past year, he could come up with 
plenty of examples of proposals that were political ly motivated, and costly, which were certainly 
favourable to special interest groups but not favourab le to the national interest.  An economist would 
be able to see the various proposals that had succ eeded in going through in his country which were 
not inconsistent with the TRIMs Agreement.  Indeed , there were many things that could be done in 
the TRIMs area that were not inconsistent with th e Agreement.  So, even these provisions that were 
consistent with the Agreement, a dispassionate anal ysis by an economist would say they were not in 
the national interest.  They were in fact politically motivated, costly, and inefficient, i.e. everything 
that had been considered as bei ng a problem with this kind of " carte blanche " approach allowing 
anything to go forward. 
12.  The EC proposal that more specificity wo uld be helpful was one approach.  The other 
approach that had already been discussed was that current WTO rules permitted things to go forward 
on a waiver basis, perhaps even as a test case.  If there was a specific example of something that a 
Member wanted to put into place, perhaps concerni ng technical assistance (TA) – since he noted that 
the African Group proposal referred to technical assistance – the United States would be completely 
supportive of any proposal that would generate this sort of TA so that a developing Member was able 
to put forward in a transparent way what was bei ng proposed, what its potential effects were, giving a 
clear and specific example and pushing th rough the Article IX waiver process. 
13. Examples such as these made it clear that they were pro development policies that could be 
implemented in an efficient manner that promoted economic growth and prospe rity.  While the United 
States was not against something that would work, it feared that, in the case at hand, not only would it 
not work but also it could be counterproductive.  The kind of general approach that prevailed was 
something that the United States would continue to have a problem with.  
14. The representative of Brazil
, recalling what had been decided in Hong Kong, said that 
Members should approach this issue with a different spirit and try to do whatever they could so that, 
to the extent possible, the Chairman could give a positive update to the General Council.  
15. His delegation did not agree with the EC and US comments that this issue could not be 
resolved unless specific cases were provided.  This  same argument had been presented in the CTD G/TRIMS/M/24 
Page 4  
 
  where the LDCs' proposals were discussed and where, at  the end of the day, this spirit had prevailed.  
Members had realized that there was a call for flex ibility in the TRIMs Agreement.  This was, of 
course, tailored for the LDCs.  Brazil could go alo ng with the argument that LDCs were a different 
category of Members, but the same rationale th at applied in the CTD applied in the TRIMs 
Committee.  Developed Members have said that unl ess they were provided with specific cases they 
could not continue to discuss this issue.  This prove d not to be the best way to continue the discussion 
and, in Hong Kong, Members approved the flexib ilities for LDCs, even with the LDCs not having 
suggested in advance any type of programmes or intentions they had vis-à-vis  TRIMs.    
16. He then made more concrete comments regarding the proposals on the table saying that, for 
his delegation, there were not two proposals but ra ther six different proposals gathered in two major 
blocks.  As far as the first block was concerned, th e proposals related to Article 4.  In fact, Brazil 
considered that all the proposals were very much limited to that Article as it currently stood and did 
not see anything that would alter the TRIMs Agreement.  The proposals were procedural ones, borrowing from decisions that had already been ta ken and relating to what the Committee had already 
discussed, and they did not ask for a ma jor deviation of the Agreement.   
17. The proposals were made up of two major paragr aphs and two bullets.  The first paragraph 
relates to the Decision Members took in Doha re lating to the balance-of-payments provisions in 
Article XVIII, and it proposes that when a devel oping-country Member uses Article 4 which allows 
for the possibility for deviation based on balance- of-payments problems then Members would look at 
it favourably.  He did not think anybody would disag ree with that.  The same applied to the second 
paragraph when talking about any recourse to Article  XVIII of GATT which was also in Article 4 of 
the TRIMs Agreement as a possibility to deviate from the current prohibitions. It proposes that a 
Member make such recourse in light  of the decision approved in Doha vis-à-vis  Article XVIII, which 
is an S&D provision. 
18. Those who had concerns with this should try to indicate exactly how these first two 
paragraphs would provide a major deviation of something that Members had already agreed upon.  It 
was possible to use balance-of-payments arguments or Article XVIII to deviate from TRIMs 
provisions.  What the African Group was proposing was that when a Member used those instruments, 
that were in the TRIMs Agreement as a possibilit y for deviation, the decision taken in Doha on 
Implementation-related Issues and c oncerns and the fact that Article XVIII was an S&D provision 
should be kept in mind. They were not asking anything more than the status quo. 
19. Regarding the first bullet, Brazil did not see how anybody could be against the Secretariat 
providing technical assistance to developing co untries invoking Article XVIII.  This was a 
reinforcement of the current rules being applied. If a Member wanted to invoke Article XVIII it had to 
follow very strict procedures provided in paragr aphs 14-19 of Article XV III of GATT and developing 
countries were merely requesting the help of the Secretariat to fulfil those procedures.   
20. Finally, on the second bullet, Brazil had taken note of the clarification provided by the 
representative of Kenya that this was an Africa n Group proposal.  Commodity dependency was not 
something exclusive to Africa, although Brazil might not be the best example of a commodity-dependent country.  Examples of commodity-depen dent countries could also probably be found in 
neighbouring South America, but this was not a majo r problem with this proposal.  What the African 
Group was asking was that when going through the procedures of Article XVIII - which were the 
status quo , at the end of the day, the possibility o deviate temporarily form the provisions of the 
TRIMs Agreement should be interpreted to be not less than six years. Therefore, they were not asking 
for any special additional flexibility.  What they  were saying was that, after going though all the 
established procedures, they should be allowe d to deviate from the provisions of the TRIMs 
Agreement for more than six years.  Brazil did no t consider this to be a major problem because, 
having fulfilled the whole process, and as foreseen in  the TRIMs Agreement,  if a Member was able  G/TRIMS/M/24 
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  to prove that it should be granted some flexibility vis-à-vis  TRIMs, it would be granted several years 
for this deviation.  What the African Group was saying was that the deviation from the provisions of the TRIMs Agreement should be granted for more than six years.  It could just as easily be ten years or seven years.  With some commitment from Member s Brazil felt that this issue could be resolved 
very soon accommodating the concerns that had been expressed over the past years vis-à-vis  
flexibility in TRIMs. 
21. Turning to the second block of proposals relating to Article 5.3 he said there appeared to be 
more conflictive elements. He saw two proposals here.  There was a pr oposal related to Article 5.3 of 
the TRIMs Agreement and a proposal related to Artic le IX of the Marrakesh Agreement.  He then 
quoted the last sentence of the African Group proposal  which stated that "[W]ith regard to requests 
made in this area by these Members under Article IX  of the WTO Agreement, account shall be taken 
of their particular circumstances when setting th e terms and conditions, in cluding time-frames, under 
which transition periods are granted" and said that that was what Members did when someone invoked Article IX.  He did not see any value added fr om the point of view of what Members already 
had, but if this was something that the demande urs considered important he did not see any major 
problem with it.  Some adjustments could perhaps be  made to the wording but his delegation felt that 
this was something that could be resolved. 
22. For Brazil, the major element of conflict in th e African Group proposal was the fact that there 
was a concrete proposal asking for developing countri es to be granted one more opportunity to notify 
exceptions to the current prohibitions and that in f act meant they would be granted extra flexibilities.  
This was what was at the centre of the second pr oposal from the African Group.  He admitted that he 
was not familiar with this formulation and that it was not clear to him who would be entitled to this 
flexibility.  As far as Brazil was concerned there were  two concrete groups of issues involved;  a first 
block of proposals and then the last sentence of  the second proposal which might be easily solved 
with some degree of commitment being given by Me mbers.  However, there was another major issue 
that Members had been facing everywhere and he  reminded the Committee that India and Brazil had 
also been pursuing flexibilities in TRIMs under the implementation track.  Brazil knew what were the 
arguments and was prepared to face them and, in  this respect, strongly recommended that Members 
tried to separate the issues at hand provided the pr oponents would not have any major difficulties with 
this suggestion. 
23. The representative of India
 said that, as Brazil had just pointed out, India and Brazil had to 
some extent been pursuing the case for flexibiliti es in the TRIMs Agreement and this was being 
carried on in different formats of the Committee.  In its intervention, Brazil had elaborated on the 
overall spirit which Members needed to follow and pur sue, and India was certainly willing to keep to 
that spirit in dealing with these proposals. 
24. Brazil had also made some very specific comments on both the proposals and that was India's 
position too.  India was definitely supportive of the proposals, particularly the block of proposals, as 
Brazil had referred to them, relati ng to Article 4 of the TRIMs Agreement.  His delegation also 
supported the element in the second bullet about ge ographical distinction being made for African 
countries.  It was just a question of finding a way to deal with that.  The concern expressed by Kenya 
was being taken on board but they themselves in  their introduction explained how commodity-
dependency affected African countries.   However, in order not to leav e out others, it was a question of 
finding words that would reflect the concerns and capture the countries or Members who would be 
needing this kind of flexibility.  This was certainly  doable and, as Brazil had pointed out very clearly, 
what had been sought was not a major deviation, but  a question of trying to give more understanding 
and value to a possible deviation.  It was a reas onable suggestion and something that could certainly 
be discussed.   G/TRIMS/M/24 
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  25. On the proposal related to Article 5.3 of the TRIMs Agreement, the substantive portion of it 
was something which India would certainly like to discuss but his delegation also had some questions 
to ask about this proposal to understand it better in te rms of who would really benefit.  Would that be 
restricted to LDCs or those countries party to RTAs , or would it benefit othe rs?  And how would this 
really work?  India was more than willing to discu ss this.  His delegation appreciated the context in 
which the African Group had made the proposal and also  their concerns.  It al so appreciated the fact 
that the African Group had gone to the trouble of trying to revise and make their proposal more concrete.  It was important for Members that had pr oblems with it to come up with specific concerns 
rather than just repeat old lines about giving conc rete examples.  Brazil had explained what was the 
experience with the LDCs.  It was quite dramatic.  He recalled how, in Hong Kong, the United States 
themselves had suddenly tabled this proposal and how it had started with the TRIMs one.  At the time, 
the United States had said that if Members agreed to  a few things on the other proposals, then a whole 
package could be achieved.  This should be kept in mind and, if they could, Members should not let 
old positions hold them back from trying to make progress in some of the areas. 
26. The representative of Korea
 said that, after listening to the comments that had been made, his 
delegation felt that, although Member s had to show some flexibility, basically the proposal was some 
kind of deviation and it questioned how much Memb ers could understand the s ituation and difficulties 
they had to dealt with. Korea felt that this propo sal was trying to seek rollback.  If Members saw the 
proposal as consistent with the current TRIMs Agreem ent, Korea would have difficulty in agreeing to 
it.   
27. However, one had to be flexible and if so me grace period and geographical category were 
clearly set, the African Group would certainly be given another opportunity to rollback. This would 
then give some signal to the world's business circle th at they have to struggle. One had to be flexible 
and specific and perhaps the suggestions proposed by  the United States to seek a solution through a 
waiver approach would be a good basis to explore.   
28. The representative of Kenya  thanked those delegations that had taken the floor and expressed 
their point of view regarding this particular proposal.  On the comments by Korea, he said that 
Members needed to remind themselves of the pur pose of this exercise because it was an S&D issue 
and could not be transformed into a waiver.  The mandate was very clear.  What the African Group was trying to do was to strengthen and reaffirm issues  that were already there.  The flexibilities were 
provided for either in the TRIMs Agreement or in GATT Article XVIII.  Kenya would be interested to know how S&D could be converted into a waiver because this was the first time he had heard that 
argument for strengthening S&D through an Article IX waiver.  The African Group did, however, 
have a proposal on strengthening the provision relati ng to waivers and hoped that the same spirit 
Korea and the United States had indicated could prevail in that regard.  It was not the same spirit that 
Members saw in Hong Kong when the LDCs tabled a similar proposal.  Members needed to be honest 
with themselves because some of th e comments that had been made were not going to be helpful in 
reaching a solution.  A comment had been made that this proposal was a rollback but when one 
looked even into recent history some countries had used  the same measures in order to show that they 
needed this flexibility to be clarifie d so that they could also diversify and catch up with the rest of the 
world.  But when we hear comments that this w ould be sending the wrong signal to the rest of the 
world Kenya wondered whether the rest of the wo rld would want to condemn Africa into providing 
primary products and whether the rest of the worl d was committed to the objectives of the WTO.  
29. Turning to the question by India about who would benefit from part two of the proposal, the 
African Group had tried to match part one and part  two so that the same category of countries would 
benefit.  In part one, they had indicated the African countries.  In order to arrive at a definition that 
would fit within the African countries, including su b-Sahara Africa, they had borrowed the definition 
that was used in the TRIPs discussions when co ming up with the decision on public health.  The  G/TRIMS/M/24 
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  African Group was open to discussion on this and woul d like to hear some ideas from others including 
on what language could be used to he lp push the proposal further forward. 
30. Brazil had suggested that perhaps Members could consider making some decisions on the 
obvious part of the proposal, i.e., the first part of the proposal, if the second part was proving to be a bit problematic.  The African Group would have no pr oblem if a decision could be made on the first 
part of the proposal.  In fact, initially, these were tw o proposals but they had had to be merged and the 
African Group would have no problem in looking at the first part separately, and then at the second 
part.  Comments had been made that the propo sal was general and although Brazil had responded to 
those comments, Kenya wished to know how more  specific the African Group could be in this 
particular proposal, especially on the first part gi ven that it was a matter of reaffirmation and also 
seeking to have some correct interpretation with rega rd to Article 4 of the TRIMs Agreement.  He felt 
that the African Group had been specific and had responded to the mandate.  
31. As for the comments that had been made rega rding concrete examples and precise cases this 
would have a bearing if one was looking at implemen tation of the TRIMs Agreement.  However, this 
proposal was looking at the S&D part of the TRIMs Agreement.  So the question of coming up with 
concrete examples and precise cases of measures was not necessary because one was looking at the 
provisions of the S&D as they were now in th e TRIMs Agreement and seeing how they could be 
strengthened and made operational.  If concrete examples were to help to do that, by indicating what 
kind of measures Members would want to see the Afri can group being allowed to use, then what came 
to his mind was local content requirements and export performance requirements because that would help the African countries to diversify and industria lize and therefore meet the objective of the Doha 
mandate of delivering development and also trying to strengthen the provisions which were quoted in 
this particular proposal.  The African Group would li ke to explore the suggestion made by Brazil and 
see whether Members could look at the first part of the proposal and then, if the first part could be 
dispensed with,  they could move to the second part. 
32. The representative of  Nigeria
 said that Members should try to operate according to the rules 
and, in this instance, his delegation believed that the rules should be able to lead Members to an 
outcome of fair play.  Referring to the recomme ndation made by Brazil, Members would have to 
ensure that at least the concerns as proposed by th e African Group were taken on board.  If there were 
going to be any other serious concerns, those concer ns should not stand in the way of other concerns 
that had been expressed in the paper. In other wo rds, Members should try as far as possible to ensure 
that new concerns being expressed should not be seen  as a roadblock to the general concern that had 
been expressed by the African Group. The issue of S&D had also been mentioned and in this respect 
Nigeria was in complete agreement in terms of its ow n particular situation with what Kenya had said.  
Nigeria's investment regime, like others, was very  dynamic and regulatory reforms were on-going, but 
Nigeria still appreciated the fact that the concerns in  terms of specificity had to be taken on board and 
his delegation would try to ensure that at the e nd of the day Members were all winners, not losers. 
33. The representative of Canada  thanked Kenya for the revi sed proposal. Canada had on 
previous occasions already made similar points to those made by the EC and United States, but his delegation had a practical question. If the intent of the two proposals was to target roughly the same recipients, it might be a good idea to have somewhat  equivalent language. In that regard, perhaps the 
TRIPs language, although having significance in a certa in context, might be a little confusing.  So, 
perhaps a first step would be to target the recipien ts and then move from that specificity to perhaps 
additional specificity in other language.  In particul ar, he had in mind the end of the proposal related 
to Article 5.3 of the TRIMs Agreement which he  felt Members considered to be somewhat open-
ended and less clear.  There was also the point abou t the waiver which was either to be dealt with 
separately or, as Kenya had mentioned, was also  to be dealt with in an S&D proposal.  G/TRIMS/M/24 
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  34. The representative of China
 said that his delegation was very positive towards the African 
Group's proposals.  As previous speakers had menti oned, the language might be negotiable but China 
felt that the proposal went in the right direction. The Doha Round was, after all, a development round 
and the real concerns of all developing countri es should be taken care of.  China wished to be 
included in any future consultations. 
35. The representative of Zimbabwe  supported other African countries who had spoken on this 
proposal and wished to emphasise that, as develo ping countries, these countries looked to other 
Members working towards supporting, if not impr oving, the African Group proposal because, as had 
already been pointed out, what the African countri es were asking for was nothing new. It was already 
provided for and the African Group simply wanted to make it operational and to strengthen it so that it 
benefited the African countries in terms of meet ing their development and national objectives.  
Zimbabwe wished to thank those delegations who ha d supported this proposal to a large extent and 
Brazil, in particular, who had been analytical at coming up with issues that could help Members move forward. 
36. The representative of Cuba
 thanked Kenya and the African Group for the revised proposal. 
Cuba found merit in the revised text especially with  respect to the spirit a nd objectives it pursued. At 
the same time, Cuba wished to encourage Members to  participate in discussions  and consultations in a 
constructive and positive way presenting their difficulti es and expressing ideas for the proposal so that 
it could be acceptable to all Members. 
37. The Chairman  recalled that it had been his objective at the present meeting to have a 
discussion on how the S&D subject in the TRIMs Committee should be tackled and he thanked 
Members for their active participation in that exerci se.  He noted that there was a very interesting 
proposal by Kenya to look at the proposals in a fresh  way, that is, to consider the proposal not in a 
single block but perhaps in different parts and along the lines drawn by Brazil. This was a very 
important step forward for the discussion and he hoped that all Members would be able to seize the opportunity that Kenya had suggested to have a fresh  look on this proposal.  He also noted the effort 
made by many delegations, and especially Brazil, to ha ve a very analytical look at this proposal and 
he felt that that was the only way forward on this topic. 
38. Turning to Canada's proposal to work more specifically on the country coverage of the 
proposal, this was something that all Members should also consider. In general, his feeling was that 
proponents and other delegations were  willing to continue to work on that subject in the framework of 
the TRIMs Committee. He took that as a very good sign and wished to encourage interested 
delegations to increase their efforts to engage in  the discussion and to find as much flexibility and 
creativity as possible on this subject including, if appropriate, through the submission of new language so as to enable the Committee to reach an acceptable solution to the S&D proposals in 
fulfilment of its mandate. He also suggested that Me mbers, and in particular the proponents, continue 
consulting with each other to seek a basis for ag reement on how to address these S&D proposals. He 
encouraged Kenya, and the African Group to talk to each other to see how inside the African Group 
they could work together to take into account the various comments that had been made at the present 
meeting.  Some very interesting comments from all parties had been made and he considered this to 
be a very good sign. For his part, he stood ready to hold consultations if Me mbers believed this would 
help in moving this matter forward. 
39. The representative of Kenya 
thanked the Chairman for his summary. While his delegation 
would consult within the African Group to incorpor ate the comments that had been made, regarding 
consultation with other Members, perhaps the Chairm an could assist in this respect since there were 
so many other things happening in the WTO that the time might not be found for such consultation 
between now and the end of June. Perhaps thr ough the Chairman's good offices Members could be 
invited to continue w ith the consultation.  G/TRIMS/M/24 
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  40. The Chairman  said that he would take Kenya's commen ts into account and would do his best 
to help delegations in discussing this subject.  
B. OTHER BUSINESS  
41. Turning to "Other Business", he wished to share with Members the result of his contacts with 
a number of delegations since his election at the last meeting of the Committee, and also wished to 
share some the ideas he had on how the Committee should carry forward its work in the future. 
42. First of all, from the contacts he had been ab le to have with a number of delegations, it 
seemed to him that the majority agreed that the work done in the TRIMs Committee was useful to the 
Members and that the pace of the meetings should be kept up while bearing in mind the mandate that had been given to the Committee.  
43. His second conclusion that he would like to draw from his contacts was that the majority of 
delegations had a real will to keep on discu ssing the S&D proposals put on the agenda of the 
Committee without having any ideological preconcep tions but keeping in mind the very concrete 
situations that the TRIMs Agreements was meant to address. 
44. His final point was that work in the TRIMs Co mmittee should be carried out bearing in mind 
the discussions taking place on the same subject in other fora of the WTO.  On this basis his intention 
was to continue the discussion of the proposals on Special and Differential Treatment in informal 
meetings and at our next formal meeting. He asked Members, and in particular the main interested 
parties, to ensure that their representatives would be present at those meetings to allow the Committee 
to engage in discussions that were as substantive as the ones that had taken place at the present 
meeting. He hoped that arguments presented at the l ast meetings would not just be repeated but that 
Members would be able to come with proposals to improve existing proposals with a view to bringing 
some new input into the debate. In the meantime, as  he had mentioned, it was his intention to carry on 
informal contacts with Members to explore the va rious ways to reach a result in line with the 
Committee's mandate. 
45. He then informed Members that the next meeting of the Committee would take place on 
17 October, with the possibility that informal me etings could be organized before that date. 
46. The meeting was adjourned
. 
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