RESTRICTED  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  WT/COMTD/M/50 
10 January 2005 
 
 (05-0106) 
Committee on Trade and Development 
Fiftieth Session  
 
NOTE ON THE MEETING OF 28 AND 29 SEPTEMBER 2004 
 
Chairperson:  H. E. Mr. Trevor Clarke (Barbados) 
 
 
Subjects discussed : 
 
A. ADOPTION OF THE AGENDA ........................................................................................................2  
B. OBSERVERS ............................................................................................................................... ..2 
(i) Request for attendance of ad hoc observers ...............................................................................2  
(ii) Request for Observer Status by the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States.........................2  
(iii) Further Consideration of the requests for observer status by the League of Arab 
States, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the Gulf Organization for Industrial Consulting, the Organisation Internationale de la 
Francophonie, and the Common Fund for Commodities. ..........................................................5
 
C. NOTIFICATIONS UNDER THE ENABLING CLAUSE - LETTER FROM THE CHAIRMAN OF 
THE SUB-COMMITTEE ON LDC S TO THE CTD  CHAIRMAN .........................................................5  
(i) Notification from Japan (WT/COMTD/N/2/Add.13) ..................................................................5  
(ii) Notification from Switzerland (WT/COMTD/N/7/Add.2) ...........................................................5  
(iii) Notification from China (WT/COMTD/N/19).............................................................................5  
D. TECHNICAL COOPERATION AND TRAINING ................................................................................7  
Request from the International D evelopment Law 0rganization (IDLO) ................................................7  
Letter from the Chairman of th e Committee on Ma rket Access...............................................................7  
(i) Technical Assistance and Training Plan 2005 (WT/COMTD/W/133)........................................7  
(ii) Implementation Report – Second Quarter 2004 (WT/COMTD/W/132) ...................................22  
(iii) Mid-Term Review of the WTO Technica l Assistance Plan 2004 (WT/COMTD/W/134)...........23  
E. DECLINING TERMS OF TRADE FOR PRIMARY COMMODITIES , AND ITS IMPLICATION TO 
TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT OF PRIMARY COMMODITY EXPORTING COUNTRIES ....................24  
- Communication from Switzerland (WT/COMTD/W/129).........................................................24  
- Communication from Kenya Tanzania  and Uganda (WT/COMTD/W/130).............................24  
F. PARAGRAPH 51 OF THE DOHA DECLARATION ON IDENTIFYING AND DEBATING 
DEVELOPMENTAL ASPECTS OF THE NEGOTIATIONS , IN ORDER TO HELP ACHIEVE THE 
OBJECTIVE OF HAVING SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT APPROPRIATELY REFLECTED .............31  
G. ELECTRONIC COMMERCE ..........................................................................................................35  
H. GRADUATION OF THE MALDIVES FROM LDC STATUS (WT/COMTD/W/128) .........................36  
I. OTHER BUSINESS ......................................................................................................................36  WT/COMTD/M/50 
Page 2  
 
  
A. A
DOPTION OF THE AGENDA  
1. The Chairman  recalled that the draft agenda for the meeting was contained in document 
WTO/AIR/2368 circulated on 31 August 2004, a revision of which had been issued on 23 September 2004.  
2. The Committee adopted
 the agenda. 
B. OBSERVERS  
(i) Request for attendance of ad hoc observers 
3. The Chairman  noted that agenda Item B (I) related to requests for ad hoc observer status.  He 
recalled that at previous sessions of the Committe e on Trade and Development (CTD), Members had 
agreed to invite a number of intergovernmental or ganizations on an ad hoc, meeting-by-meeting basis:  
the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU);  the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS);  
the Economic Cooperation Organisation (ECO);  the Inter-Arab Investment Guarantee Corporation;  
the Islamic Development Bank (IDB);  the African Union (AU);  the Organisation of the Islamic 
Conference (OIC);  the South Centre;  the Pacifi c Islands Forum;  the United Nations Environment 
Programme (UNEP);  the West African Economic  and Monetary Union (WAEMU) and the World 
Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).  He said that following the decision taken at the previous meeting of the Committee, those organisations had b een invited to the meeting.  He then proposed 
that these organisations be invited to the next formal meeting of the CTD. 
4. It was so decided
. 
(ii) Request for Observer Status by the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States 
5. The Chairman  informed the Committee that  a request from the Organization of Eastern 
Caribbean States (OECS) to be granted observe r status to the CTD was made to the WTO's 
Director-General on 9 June 2004.  In this lette r, the OECS and the missions to the European 
Communities explained their wish to open a perman ent OECS delegation office in Geneva once the 
Swiss authorities agreed.  He added that the OE CS had also requested observer status in the 
Committee on Agriculture and the Committee on Trade and Environment.  
6. The representative of St. Kitts & Nevis  said that the OECS was seeking the support of 
Members for permanent observer status in the CTD.  He said the OECS was a sub-regional, 
integration organization which was established by inter-governmental treaty on 18 June 1981 when 
the six smaller Eastern Caribbean countries signed the treaty.  The objectives of the OECS include the 
promotion of cooperation and econom ic integration among the member  States, both at regional and 
international levels and assisting member States with the realization of their obligations and 
responsibilities to the international community.  He explained that other areas concerned the 
establishment and maintenance wherever possible of  arrangements for joint overseas representation 
and common services.  He said that over the past 23 years, the OECS has emerged as a major, sub-regional integration organizati on in the Caribbean, contributing to the sustainable development of 
its Members by assisting them to maximize the bene fits of their collective economic space and by 
facilitating their intelligent integration into the global economy.  He said the Members of the OECS were an integral part of the Caribbean Commun ity (CARICOM) and negotiated with CARICOM as a 
single group at both regional and international foru ms such as with the Eur opean Union, the Free 
Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), with Canada and at the WTO.  WT/COMTD/M/50 
 Page 3 
 
 
 7. He said the Members of the OECS were all members of the African, Caribbean and Pacific 
group of states and were all signatories of the Econom ic Partnership Agreemen ts with the European 
Union.  OECS members had been able to develop an impressive array of successful joint institutions 
and areas of functional cooperation.  The member States had decided to further advance the gains 
achieved through regional integration by moving towa rds an economic union of the sub-region and, in 
this regard, the OECS had adopted a common development charter a nd a common development 
strategy.  He explained that some of the joint in stitutions which had been successful over the past 
years included:  the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank  with its common currency and central bank, the 
Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court; a common directorate of civil aviation, a common telecommunications regulatory authority, a common securities exchange and joint overseas diplomatic 
representation in Ottawa, Canada as well as in Br ussels, Belgium and hopefully soon, an OECS 
Permanent Observer Delegation to the WTO in Geneva. 
8. He said that as poor, highly vulnerable micro-states, the OECS often found it necessary to 
articulate and ensure that their particular and peculiar concerns and vul nerabilities were taken on 
board, both within CARICOM, as well as in other international fora.  He explained that the OECS 
Secretariat had its own General Secretariat and staff headed by a Director General with its 
headquarters located in St. Lucia.  Its highest  decision-making body was the Authority of OECS 
Heads of Government, i.e. the Prime Ministers of the six member States who met twice a year to give policy, political, and economic direction to the Secretariat. 
9. He added that the OECS comprises some of th e smallest, poorest and most vulnerable island 
states in the world and that the OECS member St ates had pooled their individual sovereignty to 
improve the economic and social well-being of their citizens.  He read out the following statistics 
concerning individual members:  Antigua & Barbuda  has a landmass of 443 square kilometres and a 
population of 80,000;  the Commonwealth of Domini ca has 750.6 square kilometres and also has a  
population of 80,000.  Grenada has 344 square kilome tres of land and 102,000 population;  St. Kitts & 
Nevis is the smallest with 269 square kilometres a nd a population of 45,000;  St. Lucia has 616 square 
kilometres of land and a population of 155,000.  Fi nally, St. Vincent & the Grenadines has 388 square 
kilometres and 115,000 population.  Under 600,0 00 people comprise the OECS members.  Two 
OECS members were having extreme economic and financial difficulties.  He explained that 
Dominica is undergoing a structural adjustment progr amme with the IMF and that Grenada, with the 
recent passage of hurricane Ivan, had demonstrated just how vulnerable these small island states were.  In just six hours, Ivan  devastated the island of Grenada, destro ying up to 90 per cent of its agriculture, 
housing stock, hotel plants, schools, government buildi ngs and public utilities.  It had been estimated 
that the damage done to Grenada's economy was the e quivalent of two years' of that country's Gross 
Domestic Product.  It would take up to 10 years before that island could again register economic 
growth. 
10. He explained that the OECS countries were origin ally dependent on agriculture for their main 
export earnings - bananas for some and sugar for others – but that they had in recent years 
increasingly diversified into tourism, the main econom ic activity in all member States, as well as into 
financial services. 
11. The six OECS member States currently had also  pooled their individual sovereignty and had 
established joint overseas diplomatic representation in Ottawa and Brussels.  Individually, they were 
also members of the WTO, but participation in this important body was very "ad hoc" due to both 
financial and human resources constraints.  To reme dy this situation and to ensure their effective 
participation at the WTO, the OECS Secretariat had sought a nd was now receiving financial 
assistance from the European Union to establis h a Permanent Observer Mission to the WTO. 
12. However, in order to enable the OECS missi on to function, it needed diplomatic privileges 
and immunities and this would only be granted by  the Swiss authorities if the OECS was granted WT/COMTD/M/50 
Page 4  
 
 permanent observer status in the WTO.  If the OECS was not able to utilize the resources made 
available by the European Union, it was possible th at such resources would be lost.  He wished to 
remind the Committee that this was a request by six of the smallest and most vulnerable states in the 
world. The OECS Governments had a responsib ility to their entire population and not to any 
particular interest group(s).  Granting observer stat us to the OECS would also ensure that the WTO 
becomes the inclusive club that it cl aims to be and give a voice to some of the very smallest and most 
vulnerable members of the international community.  It would also contribute to the work being done 
by the WTO itself, which was spending a lot of fina ncial and technical assistance resources to ensure 
greater participation by small, poor vulnerable countries, in the work of the organization. 
13. The representative of Barbados
 said her delegation strongly su pported the application for 
observer status by the representative of St. Kitts and Nevis on behalf of the OECS.  She said the 
OECS member States were all a ccredited to the WTO on a non-reside nt basis and that these countries 
were all small vulnerable economies a nd small island developing states.  It was widely recognized by 
the WTO and its Membership that small economic si ze and non-resident stat us constitute distinct 
challenges to a WTO Members' ability to participate in the work of the organization.  OECS member 
States suffered from constraints which negatively affect  their ability to participate in the regular work 
of the WTO as well as the Doha Round of negotiations  and which impeded their integration into the 
multilateral trading system.  She noted that it was cruc ial to grant observer status to the OECS at the 
meeting and not to link it to any ot her issue nor delay its approval. 
14. The representative of Jamaica  said his delegation supported the application from the OECS 
for observer status in the Committee.  Jamaica wa s aware of the situation that had prevented the 
Committee and the General Council from advancing on the issue of observer status and that this 
situation was deeply regrettable and hoped that it would find an expedient solution.  He said it was 
important for the Committee to show the utmost flexibility and continue to provide expedient 
solutions to particular cases.  This was the spir it in which the Committee ha d granted ad hoc observer 
status to other entities.  Given the fact that OECS members were small island developing states with 
small populations, it was important to grant this request.  
15. The representative of Trinidad and Tobago  supported the request by the OECS particularly 
because it would allow these small developing nations to be better able to follow and participate in the 
current negotiations.   
16. The representative of Canada  said her delegation fully supported the request and that this 
would allow some Members who did not have indi vidual representation to follow what was being 
done in the Committee. 
17. The representative of the United States  said that her delegation fully supported the request 
and this was a pragmatic approach to the problems of non-resident Members.  
18. The representative of the European Communities  was also supportive of the request and 
recognized the arguments that had been made regarding the difficulties faced by non-resident 
Members.  It was for this reason that the European  Communities had contributed to the costs to set up 
a joint office for these countries. 
19. The representative of Egypt,  on behalf of the Arab Members of the WTO, said he was not 
prepared to grant the request made by the OECS un til the General Council completed its work on the 
guidelines for observer status.  As a matter of pr inciple, Members should operate under a rules based 
system with clear guidelines.  He urged the Genera l Council to complete its work to allow the WTO 
to become the inclusive organization it claimed to be.  WT/COMTD/M/50 
 Page 5 
 
 
 20. The representative of China  said his delegation wished to support the request by the OECS 
and hoped that consultations would be held so that their observership would be resolved as soon as 
possible. 
21. The representative of Cuba  expressed support for the request by the OECS, given the 
vulnerability of their small economies. 
22. The representative of the Pacific Islands Forum  said her delegation wished to join others in 
expressing support for the application by the OECS for observer status.  The Pacific Islands Forum represented non-resident Members and acceding c ountries and understood the benefits of gaining 
access to the deliberations of the CTD.  Moreover , the participation of the OECS would allow the 
Committee to better understand the vulne rabilities of small island states.  
23. The representative of the African, Caribbean and Pacific group (ACP)
 fully supported the 
request by the OECS for permanent observer status  as this would help the OECS countries, which 
were all members of the ACP, to be tter participate in the negotiations. 
24. The representative of Djibouti  said the Committee would have to wait to make a decision 
until the General Council took the necessary measures.   
25. The Chairman  proposed that consultations be held to see if Members could give this 
particular request special consideration. He said th e Committee would  revert to this matter at its next 
meeting.   
26. It was so agreed . 
(iii) Further Consideration of the requests for observ er status by the League of Arab States, the 
Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the Gulf Organization for 
Industrial Consulting, the Organisation Interna tionale de la Francophonie, and the Common 
Fund for Commodities 
27. The Chairman  noted that the third sub-item in this it em of the agenda related to outstanding 
requests for observers status.  At previous mee tings, the Committee had had before it a number of 
such requests.  Those requests came from the League of Arab States, OPEC, the Gulf Organization for 
Industrial Consulting and the Organisation Intern ationale de la Francophonie and from the Common 
Fund for Commodities.  He recalled that the positi ons of delegations were  well known and were on 
the record.  He said that if there was no change in  positions to extend observer status to any of those 
applicants, then the Committee would revert to those requests at the next meting.   
28. It was so agreed . 
C. NOTIFICATIONS UNDER THE ENABLING CLAUSE - LETTER FROM THE CHAIRMAN OF THE SUB-
COMMITTEE ON LDC S TO THE CTD  CHAIRMAN  
(i) Notification from Japan (WT/COMTD/N/2/Add.13) 
(ii) Notification from Switzerland (WT/COMTD/N/7/Add.2) 
(iii) Notification from China (WT/COMTD/N/19) 
29. The Chairman  recalled that the Committee had referred two notifications to the 
Sub-Committee on Least-Developed Countries for s ubstantive consideration and reporting back, 
namely the notifications by the Governments of Australia - contained in  document WT/COMTD/N/18 WT/COMTD/M/50 
Page 6  
 
 - and the addendum to the notification by the Government of Canada contained in document 
WT/COMTD/N/15/Add.2.  He said the Chairman of  the Sub-Committee had written back to him and 
welcomed the initiatives taken by the Governments of Australia and Canada. 
30. The three new notifications before the Co mmittee were from the Government of Japan 
contained in document WT/COMTD/N/2/Add.13, from  the Government of Switzerland contained in 
document WT/COMTD/N/7/Add.2 and from the Gove rnment of China contained in document 
WT/COMTD/N/19. 
31. The Chairman offered the floor to Jap an to introduce its notification.  
32. The representative of Japan
 said that while his Government's notification was 
self-explanatory, he offered to answer any questions  Members had with respect to the notification. 
33. The Chairman  recalled that at the previous meting of the Committee, he had said that it was 
important that work within the WTO is carried out in the most efficient way possible.  He therefore 
reminded Members that the CTD, at its 32nd Session, decided that any market access measures taken 
specifically in favour of the least-developed countries under the Enabling Clause, and therefore notified to the CTD, be transmitted to the Sub-Co mmittee on LDCs for substantive consideration, and 
that the Sub-Committee would report  back to the CTD on its discussions.  Since the notification by 
the Government of Switzerland referred to the second stage of tariff reduction applicable to LDCs in 
the agricultural sector, he suggested  that the CTD refer this notification, without discussion, to the 
Sub-Committee on Least-Developed Countries for substantive considera tion and report back, 
following the reporting procedures agreed to.  Should Members wish to add to the discussions held in 
the Sub-Committee, they would have a possibility of doing so at the time when the Sub-Committee on 
Least-Developed Countries reported back to the Committee.  
34. The representative of Switzerland
 said that he agreed with the Chairman's proposal and would 
be ready to answer any additional questions from Members. 
35. The Chairman  proposed that the same procedures be  followed for China's notification.   
36. The representative of the United States  asked China whether there was any further 
information available on the scope and nature of th e specific concessions that were referred to in the 
notification and inquired about the implications of China's accession to the Bangkok Agreement.  
37. The representative of China  said that Chinese concessions were contained in the schedule 
submitted to the Secretariat, as well as the text of the agreement.  If more information was necessary, the United States could request the schedule or th e text of the agreement from the Secretariat. 
38. The representative of the United States
 asked whether these were new schedules for China's 
concessions or whether they were the same Bangkok Declaration schedules. 
39. The representative of China  said that both were available with the Secretariat. 
40. The Committee took note  of the statements made and referred the notification from the 
Government of Australia to the Sub-Committee fo r substantive considera tion and reporting back, 
following the reporting procedures agreed to at its 32nd Session.  WT/COMTD/M/50 
 Page 7 
 
 
 D. TECHNICAL COOPERATION AND TRAINING  
Request from the International Development Law 0rganization (IDLO) 
41. The Chairman  said that before beginning the consideration of the 2005 TA Plan, there were 
two issues that he wished to bring to Members' at tention.  The first related to a request from the 
International Development Law Organization (ID LO) to make a statement on IDLO's various 
technical assistance activities at the next me eting of the CTD, which was scheduled for 
16 November 2004.  The IDLO was an inter-gove rnmental organization based in Rome which 
together with the WTO had collaborated in the de livery of a large number of technical assistance 
programmes.  The IDLO was proposing to present it s activities to help acquaint Members with the 
aim and activities of the IDLO.   
42. It was so agreed . 
Letter from the Chairman of the Committee on Market Access 
43. The Chairman  noted that the next issue related to a letter that had been received from the 
Chairman of the Committee on Market Access rela ting to a proposal for the Secretariat to conduct a 
workshop on the technical issues involved with th e HS 2002 (Harmonized System) transposition of 
the Consolidated Tariff Schedules Database.  The Chairman of the Market Access Committee wrote 
that some delegations were of the view that th e workshop would be particularly useful for capital-
based representatives and agreed that the CTD be asked to see whether the Global Trust Fund could 
be used to fund the one-day workshop.  The fundi ng being requested would finance the attendance of 
a representative from each developing country.  A co py of that letter had been made available to 
Members.  He asked whether Members could ag ree to including this in the 2005 TA Plan. 
44. The representative of Canada  said that it was her understanding that the request was originally 
made in 2004 and that it would be useful to know if there were sufficient funds available to cover 
these costs. 
45. The Chairman  said that the request had been made for inclusion in the 2005 TA Plan and said 
it was perhaps best to deal with it after discussion of the 2005 TA Plan had taken place.   
(i) Technical Assistance and Training Plan 2005 (WT/COMTD/W/133) 
46. The Chairman  said that agenda item D related to Te chnical Cooperation and Training.  There 
were three papers under that item:  the Technical  Assistance and Training Plan for 2005, the 
Implementation Report and the Mid-term Review.  He suggested that Members address the plan before discussing the implementation report and the mi d-term review.  He asked the Secretariat to 
introduce the Plan. 
47. The Secretariat
 noted that Members had before th em document WT/COMTD/W/133, which 
contained the proposal for the Technical Assistance and Training Programme for 2005.  The Secretariat recalled that a fairly radical and new approach had been introduced to Technical 
Assistance for the 2004 Programme, and this was showi ng to have been an appropriate approach.  So 
the Secretariat had tried to avoid another major ch ange in concept for 2005.  Rather, what had been 
done was to build on the Plan concept that was introduced for 2004, and to maintain that basic 
approach.  Nevertheless, the Secretariat highlight ed the points where the Plan for 2005 was different 
from the Plan for 2004, and how it built on the Secr etariat's experience and lessons learnt.  These 
changes along with the basic approach were the basis for the budget which was proposed for 
implementing this Plan and which was presented also at the meeting.   WT/COMTD/M/50 
Page 8  
 
 48. The first point made was that the proposals took account of the state-of-play in the 
negotiations and in particular integrated the results  coming out of the July Package.  The Plan also 
integrated the results of the pro cess of informal consultations whic h was initiated at the beginning of 
2004 and which resulted from decisions taken in this  Committee last year to deal with some 
policy-oriented issues.  So, in that sense the i ssues such as needs assessment, the emphasis on the 
needs of least-developed countries and so on, had b een reflected.  The Plan also incorporated the 
results of the mid-term in 2004 and wh ich was before the Committee in document 
WT/COMTD/W/134.  The programme for 2005 woul d pursue the Secretariat's efforts towards 
sustainable capacity building.  It was proposed to introduce a Fifth Regional Trade Policy Course. Efforts in the area of training of trainers through  links with academic institutions would also be 
continued.  As a result of this emphasis on va lue added training activities, the number of short 
regional topic-specific activities was scaled back.  Th ose that remained were focused more clearly on 
priority issues of the Membership, in particular the July Package.  This approach had an impact also 
on the budget.   
49. The Plan laid the groundwork for some form of process for selecting participants for the 
activities that went beyond what was done at th e time.  That process existed essentially for the 
three-month trade policy courses whether in Geneva or  in the regions and for a number of specialized 
courses in Geneva.  This was part of a building block approach where there was an attempt to move away from continually repeating training at the b asic level and moving on to offer Members training 
both at the basic level but also at a more advan ced level for those who had already undergone the 
basic training.   
50. The Secretariat mentioned that an e-training programme had been re-launched successfully, 
and that success had prompted its inclusion in th e Plan for 2005.  The e-training platform was 
interactive, internet-based and involved testing the re sults of participants.  It had essentially the same 
objectives as the Trade Policy Courses and under this pl atform participants in the TPC could move to 
more advanced levels of training in more specific t opics.  The Secretariat reported that 54 candidates 
went through the e-training programme and complete d it successfully.  The Secretariat continued to 
press for partnerships with other international organizations and acad emic institutions.  This was a 
form of outsourcing and partnership along with the more traditional forms of outsourcing.  The focus 
was on partnerships with partners who would act in a co-equal fashion with the Secretariat in terms of 
substance and in terms of  financial support.   
51. The Secretariat noted that the 2005 Plan ha d been re-designed to enhance accessibility, 
coherence and comprehension.  The annex which liste d all the activities, followed the structure of the 
text of the document. 
52. Regarding the technical assistance budget, th e Secretariat noted that the figures provided 
together with the Plan and its presentation would provide Members with the basic information they 
needed to prepare their authorities' position.  The results of the discussions in the Committee would be 
taken into consideration by the Committee on Budg et, Finance and Administration later this year 
when it made a recommendation to the General Council on the WTO revised budget for 2005 and on the target months for the Doha Development Agenda  Global Trust Fund in 2005.  The cost estimates 
presented would be revised to reflect the discussi ons and would be reporte d to the Budget Committee 
accordingly.  The Secretariat referred to document numbered 6326 date d 24 September which 
contained the proposed budget.  This document followed the structure of the TA Plan for 2005 as 
presented in Annex II to document WT/COMTD/W/133.   The Secretariat noted that the General 
WTO-related Training and Technical Assistance in  Chapter A, and Specialized and Advanced 
Training and Technical Assistance in Chapter B combined Geneva-based activities traditionally 
financed out of the WTO regular budget, and activities in the field financed by the Global Trust Fund.  
Members had accepted that Geneva-based activities like the four three-month Trade Policy Courses 
constituted the core of the training provided by the WTO to developing country officials and hence  WT/COMTD/M/50 
 Page 9 
 
 
 had incorporated them in the regular budget of the institution.  This part of the budget should remain 
at the same level as in 2004 since the Plan for 2005  contained exactly the same activities as in 2004.  
Activities in the field financed through the Global Trust Fund had on the contrary been significantly reconsidered in the light of the most recent deve lopments in the WTO negotiations.  Compared to the 
Plan for 2004 this led to a certain evolution.  The amount intended to be dedicated to regional 
seminars should be 20 per cent lower in 2005, natio nal activities should remain at the same level and 
expenses for regional short trade policy courses would more than double, and the cost of the regional 
three-month trade policy courses would increase by 20 per cent compared to last year.  The three-
month regional trade policy courses would represent more than a quarter of the total expenses 
financed through the Global Trust Fund in 2005.   
53. The Secretariat anticipated a budget increase of  5 per cent compared to 2004 for the activities 
in Chapters A and B, which was a result of the addition of one three-month regional trade policy 
course to the Plan.  This relative stability of th e budget hid a profound re-balancing of spending, in 
favour of activities of longer duration, from severa l weeks up to three months, which now represented 
44 per cent of the budget estimate compared to only 27 per cent in 2004.  Conversely shorter activities 
of a week or less would see a relative important fall from 73 per cent in 2004, down to 56 per cent in 
2005.  This was the clearest indication of the efforts made by the Secretariat to re-enforce the activities that had the most impact for beneficiaries.  In Chapter C, the cost estimates of partnerships 
for training and capacity building had been increased by more than 20 per cent compared to 2004.  In 
Chapter D, the budget for Geneva-based topic sp ecific symposia had been reduced by 10 per cent 
compared to 2004.  This chapter had been complete d to show the cost of trainees and interns who 
were financed out of the Global Trust Fund or othe r dedicated Trust Funds.  This had not presented as 
part of the cost estimates in the past.  It was anticip ated that the cost of WTO input into international 
conferences and workshops in Chapter E would doubl e, compared to 2004.  For costing purposes, 
compared to Annex II to document WT/COMTD/W/133,  four new chapters after Chapter E had been 
added to deal with: the cost of L-posts;  the WT O contribution to the STDF, the standard and trade 
development facility; the overheads charged on all di rect costs financed by extraordinary budgetary 
resources; and the sharing of costs with certain partners.   
54. Globally, the costing for activities in 2005 came to approximately Sw F 32.1 million, which 
was the result of a total cost of Sw F 38.6 million mi nus Sw F 6.5 million of cost sharing.  In arriving 
at these figures the Secretariat applie d the same standard costs methodol ogy as in previous years.  The 
methodology was assigning different standard costs for one day of activity for one person, depending 
on whether the event had been classified as a nati onal activity - an activity in which WTO financed 
only the participation of staff members, a regional ac tivity - i.e. an activity in which the participation 
of delegates was financed by WTO, a training c ourse - same as a regional activity but of longer 
duration which permitted an amortization of the trav el costs over a longer period, or an activity in 
Geneva Headquarters.  With the exception of re gional activities for which the standard cost had 
increased by 10 per cent, the standard cost for all th ree of the categories of activities was identical as 
previous years.  When applying the standard, a le vel of non-participation among invited countries of 
ten persons had been anticipated – this rate wa s double last year's level and was applied for all 
activities organized at regional level.   
55. The cost estimate for the five three-month re gional trade policy courses had been based on 
real cost for such events in previous years.  In 2005, it was proposed to finance in full 12 L-posts out 
of the Global Trust Fund.  The Secretariat recalled that 19 such L-posts were created in 2002 after the 
Doha Conference in order to give the Secretariat the additional human resour ces needed to implement 
the Doha Development Agenda.  The posts financed out of the Global Trust Fund were those directly 
associated with the delivery of t echnical assistance and training to beneficiary countries.  The 
remaining 7 L-posts played more of an internal su pport role in the implementation of the Plan and 
would continue to be financed out of the pr ogram support funding 2005.  The cost-sharing hypothesis 
on which estimates had been based was ambitious at  Sw F 6.5 million.  It was hoped that further WT/COMTD/M/50 
Page 10  
 
 displays of outsourcing and partners hip with other institutions would help in reaching that level.  
However, this amount should be considered as a maximum.   
56. As far as the bottom-line was concerned, it was hoped that Members, when revising the 
regular budget for 2005 would maintain an envelope  for Technical Assistance and Training fairly 
similar in size to what had already been approved at the end of last year, i.e. Sw F 5.5 million.  The 
Secretariat's estimation was that all of the projects in  the Plan taken together would involve a cost to 
the WTO over and above the regular budget money available for Technical Cooperation and Training 
of about Sw F 25 million.  This amount would have to  be financed out of the Global Trust Fund.  It 
represented a 4 per cent increase on what had been asked of donors in 2004, and corresponded in fact 
to the addition of one more three-month Regional Tr ade Policy course to the Plan.  This meant that 
the Secretariat had been very careful to make sure that the continuous re-engi neering of the other parts 
of the Plan presented today, did not lead to any incr ease in cost compared to 2004.  In conclusion, any 
adjustment to the Plan that could result out of th e discussions in the Committee, would have an impact 
on the cost estimate which was presented. 
57. The Chairman
 asked whether it would be possible to accommodate the workshop on the HS 
2002, and what would be its cost. 
58. The Secretariat  replied that if one more Geneva-based symposium was added to the list it 
would add further costs and increase the budget.  It was estimated that this event would cost between 
Sw F 400,000 and Sw F 500, 000, assuming that the rate of participation in such an event would be 
similar to events in 2004. 
59. The representative of the United States  asked why was the cost fo r international conferences 
and workshops doubled in the budget.  
60. The Secretariat  replied that in fact, the doubling of the co st in this part of the Plan was simply 
the result of much more emphasis placed on that in the Plan itself.  It was not the cost of any 
particular activity which had been increased, but th e number of activities which had been doubled. 
61. The representative of Venezuela  noted that the documents presented were extremely useful to 
help Members improve management of effective technical cooperation which satisfied Members' 
expectations of both donor s and beneficiaries.  The Venezuelan delegation also expressed its opinions 
with regard to the inclusion in the first outline of the TA Plan for 2005, of activities on the Singapore 
Issues which were not subject of the General C ouncil's August decision, i.e. transparency in 
government procurement, competition and investment .  Venezuela was of the view that including 
activities in thematic areas which did not involve current WTO commitments, or which were not part 
of the negotiations, implied an inefficient use of re sources which could be used in areas which were of 
a greater interest for developing countries, and especially for Venezuela.  He cited as examples, firstly, the initiative which came out of the last me eting of the Market Access Committee, to hold in 
Geneva at the beginning of next year, a works hop with experts from the capitals on how to manage 
tariffs with the focus on the HS2002 transposition to the consolidated tariff schedules.  Secondly, the 
request from a number of developing countries in informal consultations which took place in mid-
September, to broaden the number a nd change the format of activities for capacity building within the 
negotiations on services.  He made it clear that his comments did not imply any disinterest on the part of Venezuela's delegation in these issues, nor was it meant as a criticism on the technical expertise 
which existed in the Secretariat.  What Venezu ela believed was that cooperation activities on the 
Singapore Issues which had been mentioned earlier, w ould be better addressed within the framework 
of organizations such as UNCTAD, because they had a mandate for these specific issues.  He 
suggested to eliminate these issu es in the work plan on the tech nical cooperation, until the necessary 
resources were found to carry out all of the desired activities for 2005.    WT/COMTD/M/50 
 Page 11 
 
 
 62. The representative of India  noted that there were a lot of things he liked about the Plan.  
However, just like Venezuela he was intrigued at the very substantial complement of activities on 
competition policy, on trade and investment and govern ment procurement, these being the three issues 
that had been specifically excluded from the scope of the Doha Development Agenda.  Particularly, 
since the Secretariat had mentioned  that the Plan  took into account the state of negotiations and the 
General Council's decision of 31 July 2004.  He  did not see the activities planned as being in 
conformity with the mandate of the General Counc il.  He thought that at the least, there was an 
imbalance even if there was room for some activities on this issues.  He was of the view that the scope 
and extent of some of the activities on the Singapore Issues needed reconsideration.   
63. The delegate of Canada  asked a question concerning the par ticipating rates used in projecting 
the costs for the Plan.  She understood from previous  informal consultations that the participation 
rates had been much lower than the 10 per cent discount  for participation rates used in the costing of 
the Plan.  She wanted to get more information on the actual participation rates in previous years. 
64. The delegate of Cuba  noted that under Section II of the Plan, in the seventh bullet point it said 
that the Plan should  guarantee coverage of all th e WTO agreements as well as all negotiating issues 
of the Doha Development Agenda, wi th an appropriate degree of deta il.  She believed that there were 
other elements in the Work Programme which were not included in the Plan, but were part of  the 
General Council August decision.  Therefore, sh e proposed to add all ot her relevant elements, 
especially those which were of interest to deve loping countries.  On paragraph 68 of the Plan 
regarding workshops at regional le vels, Cuba noted that given the limitations with regard to the 
resources available and the funds which are availabl e to the Secretariat in 2005, efforts should be 
concentrated on chapters such as the development ch apter, specialized and differentiated treatment for 
small economies, including issues such as transfer of technology which is covered under paragraph H 
of the July decision of the General Council a nd the work programme.  This would replace the 
currently planned regional workshops on the Singapore Issues. She said if training in those issues was needed, then it should be provided on a national rather than regional level. 
65. The representative of Malaysia
 joined Venezuela, India and Cuba in seeking clarification on 
the fact that the three Singapore Issues, invest ment, competition and government procurement, had 
been included in the programme for 2005 when these issues had been excluded from the DDA 
negotiations.  Malaysia was concerne d that to achieve cost effectiveness the scarce resources available 
should be channelled to areas of importance to developing countries involving increased market access such as agriculture, NAMA, services, and now w ith trade facilitation.  Malaysia agreed with 
Cuba that if there if there was need to have ac tivities on the three areas of Singapore Issues, then they 
should be at the national level where each Member would decide whether these were their priorities.  
But at regional level, priority should be gi ven to the areas that were being negotiated. 
66. The representative of Colombia
 was of the view that the Pl an had substantial improvement 
and reflected the positive experiences coming out of pr evious plans.  For Colombia it was interesting 
to see that this Plan was based on trying to build  capacity in a sustainable way through training for 
public civil servants as well as academics.  Colombia  also thought that it was appropriate that there 
was a categorization of products in the Plan, and that it covered activities with specific objectives;  
this would help Members in prioritizing their nati onal activities.  Colombia asked the Secretariat how 
it envisioned carrying out the Plan with regard to specific interests which may be expressed by 
developing countries and least-developed countries, as well as those countries who did not have 
permanent representation in Geneva.  
67. The representative of Peru  believed that the focus of this Plan had improved;  and supported 
its concentration on specific products and providing specific guidance for development.  He asked the 
Secretariat whether delegations ha d been consulted in planning national or regional seminars and 
workshops.  He was of the view that informing Members' delegations beforehand on the different WT/COMTD/M/50 
Page 12  
 
 activities to be carried out in their country would co ntribute to improve efficiency and effectiveness.  
Regarding page four of the document, referring to how the Plan was put together, he suggested to 
make it clearer that the Secretariat took into account  the priorities of developing countries to whom 
the programme was oriented.  With regard to the Si ngapore Issues, Peru agreed that priority should be 
given to subjects in the negotiations tied to market access such as, technical barriers to trade, sanitary 
and phyto-sanitary issues because these were  important to deve loping countries.  
68. The delegate of Kenya
 noted that the Plan gave a special emphasis to the development 
dimension of the DDA.  He thought that this was an important aspect that should feature in all future 
TA Plans.  On regional trade courses, he noted that the transition from phase 1 to phase 2 of the 
projects would be dependent upon some circumstan ces and these included capacity and the expertise 
of the regional partners concerned.  However, his delegation was of the view that in order to ensure 
the continuity and sustainability of the project, th e Secretariat should develop some tools or some 
parameters to gauge the readiness and the capability of the regional partners concerned to assume a 
growing responsibility for delivering follow-up tr aining courses in the region.  His delegation 
believed it to be very important to ensure that the capacity building that had been developed was 
sustained, even when the WTO withdrew from the region.  Regarding the national technical assistance 
activities, he noted that the Secretariat had indicat ed that it would continue to give developing 
countries the flexibility to identify and request their own national assistance activities, this approach 
was fully supported by his delegation.  However, his delegation wanted the Secretariat to report on 
how effective this approach had been so far, an d whether all developing countries including LDCs, 
had been able to put in their requests for nati onal technical assistance activities, and also how 
effective the Secretariat had been in responding to these requests.  On the Singapore Issues, his 
delegation agreed that the Secretariat needed to pr ovide technical assistance on trade facilitation since 
there was a clear and specific mandate on this issue in  the July framework.  However, he did not view 
the other three issues as immediate technical assist ance requirements, and thought that this should not 
be included in the technical assistance for 2005.  He believed that the Secretariat should focus the 
technical assistance in the area of market access and in  this regard the propo sed framework should not 
only give specific attention to trade facilitation a nd NAMA as mentioned in the Plan, but also to 
agriculture and services. 
69. The representative of the European Communities  was of the view that compared to last year 
progress had been made;  account had been taken of th e observations that were made then, and he also 
appreciated the informal consultation process that ha d taken place over the last year.  He suggested, 
however, that notice on the consultations should be more than a couple of days before the meeting 
because this allowed delegations to prepare more t horoughly for the informal consultations.  He also 
had a question about the participation rate in the t echnical assistance activities.  This subject had been 
extensively discussed at the inform al consultations.  He understood that the participation rate was 
estimated at an average of 70 per cent with quite a large volatility.  Even a participation rate of 
17 per cent had been mentioned at a certain point.  He believed that the reasons for low participation 
in particular activities should be analyzed, and consideration be given to including in the budget 
calculations a participation rate lower than 85 per cen t.  That would allow the same level of funding as 
last year, and he did not really see a justification for an increase of the budget of 4 per cent.  He thought it was important to base the Plan more an d more on needs, as identified in many existing 
documents, such as the Integrated Framework, JITA P, and Trade Policy Reviews, that are already 
taken into account.  As far as the seminar on th e HS2002 was concerned he doubted whether it was 
useful to bring capital-based officials over for one day at a cost of Sw F 400,000 or Sw F 500,000.  He encouraged the Secretariat to consider other opt ions, including perhaps regional seminars, which 
might lower the cost.  As far as the Singapore Issues w as concerned,  he recognized that they had been 
dropped from the single undertaking, but had not been dropped from the WTO.  So, his delegation 
was in favour of maintaining a certain level of ac tivity on the three Singapore Issues that had been 
dropped from the single undertaking, in a cost-efficient manner.   WT/COMTD/M/50 
 Page 13 
 
 
 70. The representative of Bolivia  noted that the objective of the TA Plan for the next year should 
above all be focussed on the results of the package adopted on 1 August 2004 by the General Council.  
Bolivia was also one of the countries interested  in a seminar on the HS2002, so as to support 
negotiations on market access and believed that nati onal activities must be appropriately coordinated 
by the Secretariat of WTO. 
71. The delegate of China  noted that in paragraph 58 of the Pl an, the Secretariat referred to one of 
the guiding principles of the Plan as being cont act between the Secretariat and Governments in 
requesting specific national projects.  China suppor ted this idea and had already established contacts 
with the Secretariat.  So all the requests for technical assistance would be put forward to the 
Secretariat by one focal point in the Ministry of  Commerce of China in order to coordinate the 
technical assistance and seek out the priorities from the different requests coming from different 
governmental parties at the central level, and at the local level.  With regard to the priorities for the 
work programme, taking Agriculture and Services fo r example, China believed that the Secretariat 
strengthened technical assistance to developing  countries and the LDCs in those two areas.  
Agriculture was the core of the Doha Developmen t Agenda, so more assistance should be provided to 
developing countries and LDCs in that area.  Regard ing services, already in the informal consultations 
process, a few delegations had pointed out th at many developing countries, particularly 
least-developed countries, did not have the capability of putting up offers and requests.  So he 
believed that there was a need to enhance the t echnical cooperation activities from the Secretariat to 
the relevant Members.  Regarding trade facilita tion, this was a new area for the negotiations, 
therefore, developing countries, particularly l east-developed countries, needed more technical 
assistance from the Secretariat.  He would also we lcome if developed countries offered assistance to 
developing countries either bilaterally or through the WTO Secretariat on this subject.   Regarding the 
other Singapore Issues, according to China's read ing of the Work Programme, which was adopted on 
1 August, these three issues were no longer within  the Doha Work Programme .  In case there was a 
different understanding on the scope of the decisi on he suggested to wait until a consensus had been 
reached on the scope of the mandate before co mmitting resources into the assistance on the Singapore 
Issues.  In closing, he emphasized the relevance of the technical assistance activities that were offered 
by the WTO Secretariat to developing countries, and particularly to China as a new developing 
Member. 
72. The delegate of Egypt  supported the positive elements in th e Plan with respect to the regional 
trade policy courses and the geographical expansion to areas not yet covered and hoped that regional 
trade policy courses in those regions could be allocated in the final draft of the Plan.  He believed this 
was important to guarantee parallelism in activities pr ovided for the various gro upings.  This would as 
well complement the regional partnership mentioned in  paragraph 132, bullet point 2.  Regarding the 
outreach activities for parliamentarians, he requested  the Secretariat presenting the Mid-Term Review 
of 2004 Plan to clarify whether there had been any outreach activities held in 2004 so that members 
would get to know more about this product or programme.  Regarding the Singapore Issues, he 
supported those delegates who made the point that it was not a priority, as priorities had to reflect the July Package.  However, he did not disagree w ith the European Commun ities about the need for 
technical assistance activities in these fields.  Nevert heless, technical assistance should reflect the July 
Package.  Consequently, he believed that ta king out the activities on the Singapore Issues would 
render it financially possible to hold the HS 2002 seminar or workshop. 
73. The delegate of Djibouti
 expressed support for the training of trainers programme as all 
technical assistance on training supplied by the Secretariat was important in the case of the least-developed countries.  Djibouti found it difficu lt to reply to requests from Members on Services 
as it faced difficulties in understanding and replying as  a least-developed count ry.  High level courses 
were very useful and should be strengthened as well as the training of trainers in the field.  Regarding 
the Singapore Issues, he believed that, except fo r the decision taken under trade facilitation, these 
subjects should be dealt with elsewhere  separately and were not priorities. WT/COMTD/M/50 
Page 14  
 
 74. The delegate of Barbados
 welcomed the basis and principles on which the 2005 Plan had been 
formulated including but not limited to the deve lopment priorities as laid down in the Doha 
Ministerial Declaration, the recognition of specific needs of Members including LDCs, non-residents and small economies, as well as the principle of  flexibility and transparency which had been 
emphasized.  She also welcomed that emphasis w as being placed on in-country capacity building and 
empowerment and on the building of partnerships  and relationships with  regional and national 
academic institutions as well as other types of in stitutions and agencies.  Barbados strongly 
encouraged the continuation of the regional and trade policy courses and welcomed organization in 
the Caribbean of a course in 2005.  Barbados felt  that it was very important that Members were 
seeking to build upon mechanism through specific follow-up activities which ha d been articulated and 
identified in the Plan.  Similarly, she welcom ed the continuation of Geneva Week and other 
programmes for non-residents.  With regard to ot her products which had been identified in the 2005 
Plan she was glad to learn of the success of the tr aining for trainers programme and plans to continue 
it.  She felt that other innovative activities were ve ry useful, like those outlined in paragraphs 111, 
112, 113 of the document.  Lastly she touched upon internships.  This was a very important training 
tool and it was a useful vehicle for capacity build ing in the countries.  Barbados had benefited from 
one programme in the past and hoped to be included  in other programmes in the future.  However, it 
was in this part of the Plan that her delegation fo und a source of concern, specifically in the paragraph 
where there was a sentence which dealt with the sel ection process for the programme.  Barbados had 
always rejected the use of income-related criteria;  the focus of the WTO wa s trade, increasing ability 
of countries to trade and trade rulemaking.  She und erstood, appreciated and agreed that a selection 
process was necessary for every trai ning activity.  However, Barb ados could not accept the income 
based criteria applied to this or any other aspect  of the WTO training programme and wanted this 
reference to be removed. 
75. The delegate of Nicaragua
 endorsed the need mentioned by various Members to focus the TA 
Plan on negotiation matters which were currently important for developing countries, including the 
issue of trade facilitation.  The issue of transpositi on to the HS2002 would in Nicaragua's view justify 
regional seminars in areas where such transposition he lp was required.  Regarding areas not subject to 
negotiation capacity building could be undertaken in  coordination with other relevant bodies or 
agencies.   
76. The delegate of Japan  noted that the TA Plan for 2005 re flected the outcome of the informal 
consultations since January.  Moreover, in pa ragraph 69 of the document the Plan explicitly 
mentioned that the July Package was appropriate ly addressed.  He strongly supported the idea that 
assistance in the area of trade facilitation should be  emphasized.  Other than the activities on trade 
facilitation, he was of the opinion that technical assistance on services should be emphasized and added explicitly to the description in paragraph 69.  With regard to  the three other Singapore Issues, 
he supported the view of the European Communitie s that WTO should keep a minimum level of the 
programmes as provided in the TA Plan presented by the Secretariat, taking into account cost 
effectiveness.  Regarding the total amount estim ated for the Global Trust Fund next year, he 
appreciated the efforts made by the Secretariat to  prioritize the activities and limit the total amount to 
Sw F 25 million, but as some other delegations mentioned this was still Sw F 1.6 million more 
compared with that of previous years.  Although he understood the explanations of the Secretariat on why this was necessary, he believed that there shou ld be a way to streamline the estimated budget, 
taking into account the discussions on participation ra te, to keep the level of funding similar to the 
2004 level.   
77. The delegate of Switzerland
 touched upon five points.  First,  on needs assessment he believed 
this was probably one of the most fundamental points which had been discussed over the last two 
years and a lot of progress had been made.  Howeve r, improvements were still necessary.  Switzerland 
liked the national guidelines which had been establishe d and believed that the basic process should be 
the process of self-evaluation.  This concerned ma inly national activities and to some extent regional  WT/COMTD/M/50 
 Page 15 
 
 
 activities – it did not concern the basic course lik e the trade policy courses.  At the same time, 
Switzerland believed that it had to be clear for the Secretariat how much it should give support to some countries in the self-evaluation process and what  the means should be to do this, since it was 
probably the countries which had the most important  training needs which also would have more 
difficulties than others to have a good self-evalua tion process.  Switzerland also believed that WTO 
should itself have progressively a very clear view on how it looks at the training needs of each 
country.  For instance, by having a specific country sh eet or a country analysis inspired by all the 
different sources that were available including DT IS, TPRs, trade clinics and even the training 
workshops which always allowed for good contacts with national authorities.  This should be a 
process which should be revised constantly and this  would also then provide an instrument for 
dialogue on the country needs.  Switzerland though t that comments on need s assessment should be 
very specific and set benchmarks.  The benchmar ks for the 2005 programme would be, how many 
different countries does the Secretariat expect to  have needs assessments for, and in how many 
countries the Secretariat could have clearly analysed  the needs.  Second, for the selection process, it 
was clear that only if homogeneous groups were traine d could the training be efficient.  This was not a 
problem for some of the established courses, but it still represented a problem particularly in national 
activities and some of the regional activities.  Swit zerland believed that it was absolutely essential for 
the Secretariat to be progressively more involved in the selection process, to provide, as suggested in its report, as a first step, the profiles which were expected for the trainees for specific workshops.  
These profiles should relate the composition of the gr oup to the needs assessment  in the countries, to 
the state of the institutions and to the role of the trainees in these institutions.  Over time the needs 
assessment should be made a condition for getting in volved in a workshop and other training activities 
in the countries.  Switzerland belie ved training was terribly important and essential.  At the same time 
Switzerland noted that it cost a lot and, therefore,  Members should strive for cost efficiency and 
quality.  Needs assessment and selection processes should become more binding to create conditions for efficient training.  Third, regarding the budget,  Switzerland believed that some adjustment could 
be made by having a more realistic discount in te rms of participation.  Switzerland also had the 
impression that, with respect to the specific requ est on a market access seminar on tariff schedules, 
there could be alternatives to a very costly way of  handling this issue, but clearly this was a minor 
point and should not detract from the major thrust of the planning exercise.  Fourth, C and D activities – Switzerland agreed that these activities be  maintained in the budget.  Switzerland would 
have liked to have a stronger emphasis on these activ ities compared to others, but maybe this was for 
the next planning cycle.  Switzerland believed that th is was the future for WTO's role in training and 
capacity building.  Switzerland would like to see stronger emphasis on training of trainers and on 
outsourcing to qualified training institutions in the acad emic world.  It saw in the future the role of 
WTO as being kind of a supervisor, an agency which ensured the quality of training provided by 
others, maybe with some technical inputs, and saw much less a long-term role as the main training 
provider.  Finally, on the Singapore Issues, Switzerla nd believed some Members were trying to play a 
political game which did not have much to do with the function of training.  Three of the Singapore 
Issues were not any longer part of the Doha negotia tions, but it was clear that investment issues had a 
lot to do with the WTO's work.  The WTO had majo r investment activities in the GATT, in TRIMS, 
in TRIPs and so these aspects did not depend on whether there were negotiations on a new international agreement.  Similar considerations were relevant for competition policy.  Competition 
rules were in fact a tool for national governments to have a competitive environment to avoid private 
monopolies which can very often be also externally financed.  This was one of the reasons why in 
Switzerland's bilateral training programme comp etition issues would remain on the agenda.  When 
talking about training, Switzerland was not talking about negotiations over the next two years – it was 
talking about a longer term trade agenda where there were very clear priorities.  In that sense it was 
clear that maybe there should be less priority on the Singapore Issues in the programme for 2005 and 
this had already been reflected. 
78. The representative of Australia
 supported the general thrust of the Plan and considered it a 
solid design.  Australia was encouraged in particul ar by the programmes for Asia and the Pacific.  WT/COMTD/M/50 
Page 16  
 
 Technical assistance was important for all recipient Members but Australia liked  to see the particular 
constraints of its Pacific partners adequately rec ognized and dealt with.  Australia continued to be 
interested in selection for programmes, particul arly in national programmes, and thought that 
Switzerland made some interesting comments in that regard.  On participation, the views thus far 
expressed were largely shared by Australia.  Austra lia thought it would be useful for Members to 
continue to have information on participation.  This was not to micro-manage activities but Australia 
was interested in having a broad sense of the trends  in participation across the activities in the Plan.  
Australia emphasized the issue of monitoring and evaluation.  Aust ralia's concern was that plans 
continued not to mention indicators which might be used to eventually judge performance but noted 
the discussion of that issue on page 30 of the Plan .  Australia encouraged further work to identify 
specific performance indicators and targets in the design. 
79. The delegate of Canada
 congratulated the Secretariat for organizing the informal consultative 
process with the Members, and reflecting the findings of the internal audit and evaluation in the Plan.  As regards the costing of the Plan, Canada s upported what others had said about a possible 
consideration of a more realistic costing estimate fo r participation levels.  Also, Canada thought that 
there should be attention given to the high cost of the Geneva-based symposia as related to the overall 
costs.  Some of the suggestions which have been  made for the HS2002 seminar would be relevant in 
that respect, there could be other options, there coul d be linkages with other technical assistance that 
could be offered and other institu tions could support some of the costs of the attendance at these 
events.  Canada was of the view that more creativ ity was desirable.  In that regard, the informal 
consultation process should continue and when this  topic was discussed in the mid-term review, 
Canada would have a series of r ecommendations to make for on-going topics for discussion.  As 
regards the point raised by other delegations on the emphasis in the Plan, Canada supported putting 
more emphasis upon the core negotiating topics such as Agriculture, Services, NAMA and Trade 
Facilitation.  However, Canada agreed with comments by Japan, Switzerland and the European 
Communities regarding the need to keep Singapore Issues on the agenda as required. 
80. The delegate of the United States
 said that this year's Plan showed that the dialogue over the 
last two or three years, conducted in an effort to improve the Plan and the delivery of services in this 
institution that had involved both dono rs and recipients, as well as very active participation by all in 
the Secretariat, had borne fruit.  She agreed with other delegations  that as Members intensified work 
in the July Package, this posed a challenge to all involved in prov iding skills necessary to complete 
the task ahead.  She noted that there were short, medium and long-term needs in this institution in 
terms of technical assistance.  The longer term need s were a very important part of what was to be 
achieved and the Plan emphasized the need to build sustainable capacity in WTO Member economies.  
Medium-term needs were set by on-going regional tr aining courses and topical events.  Nevertheless, 
she doubted the WTO had the means to meet some of  the requirements that arose from the different 
negotiating groups.  Satisfying these needs wo uld depend on establishing a dialogue and 
communication with all the different negotiating gr oups on where the needs were and providing a 
flexible response based on the evolu tion of the work in the different negotiating groups.  It would be 
important to maintain flexibility in the implementati on of the Plan.  Certainly already it was apparent 
a lot more work needed to be done on trade facilita tion.  Also the Rules group might have needs that 
perhaps were not reflected in the Plan.  In th e areas of Agriculture, NAMA and Services there were 
urgent calls for assistance that had arisen from the Ju ly Package.  It was a reality that in order to 
complete the negotiations, there were some basic sk ills that were required of  all countries involved.  
With regard to the specific proposal on the HS2002 se minar, the United States wanted to continue 
discussing how this need could be met.  She w ondered whether a one-day symposium was really 
worth it and whether it achieved the kind of engageme nt needed.  However, sh e noted that there were 
a number of advanced market access training pr ogrammes and perhaps the HS2002 issue could be 
treated in those events.  She was also pleased to see that the work  on innovative approaches, like the 
e-training project, was continuing as this could add to the depth of the training programme.  This 
could be a way around some of the specialized tr aining courses needed to ensure that negotiators  WT/COMTD/M/50 
 Page 17 
 
 
 could move up the skills level.  She supported on-g oing work on needs assessment and thought that 
the guidelines that the Secretariat had put together – a sort of template – was a very useful start.  She 
urged Members to use this tool as it was not diffi cult to use.  She joined Switzerland in their 
suggestion that with regard to the LDCs and others  it would be helpful to be more pro-active in the 
Secretariat side.  The United States was still interest ed in exploring ways in which some of the basic 
course work might be outsourced and then use the expertise of the Secretariat's staff on more 
advanced elements of negotiations.  This should be set as a longer term goal.  She also sought more 
information on the participation levels, because she w as surprised at the volatility in the participation 
and it would be useful to have a better sense of what  might be behind some of that volatility.  Maybe 
it was that the right programmes were not offere d, maybe they were offered at the wrong times, 
maybe these were one-off problems;  the volatility problem ought to be monitored a little bit more 
closely.   
81. With regard to the regional seminars or work shops on the Singapore Issues in the areas of 
trade and investment, government procurement a nd competition policy, the delegate of Indonesia  
supported the views expressed by previous speakers th at these should be put aside for the time being 
and priority be given only to the area of trade faci litation.  This idea would be consistent with the 
programme of work mandated in the July Package to  concentrate on the core negotiating issues.  His 
delegation would be happy if the budget and resources for the three Singapore Issues could be 
allocated to increase the number of national activities. 
82. The representative of Senegal  noted that the 2005 Plan reflected the concerns which had been 
raised in the consultations and he supported it.  He  noted with a great deal of satisfaction the clear 
principles which had been outlined and which had been used in order to draw up the Plan.  This Plan 
was characterized by diversification with regard to the products which were  being offered;  this 
continued on with the dynamic begun at Doha and im proved the WTO's technical assistance.  It better 
responded also to the needs of developing countries on technical assistance which was a fundamental element of the Doha Development Agenda.  Sene gal had noted the usefulness of documents for 
informal work and identifying a country's needs.  These documents would contribute, at least for 
LDCs, in helping to assess the needs for national ac tivities.  This had been one of Senegal's on-going 
concerns and he believed it was important for Senegal to be able to have access to technical assistance 
which truly responded to its needs.  In the docum ent, Senegal had specifically noted a number of 
passages which were important to it, and some of these paragraphs had also given rise to questions.  First, regarding the partnership with university institutions or academic institutions,  he expressed 
Senegal's gratitude for having this partnership develop more fully.  He considered that it was a very 
effective tool for outreach in developing countri es and it also enabled these countries to adapt WTO 
issues to their own realities in their own regions.  He  then turned to paragraph 34, regarding regional 
trade policies and the different phases which were going to be set up in order to let developing 
countries' Universities take on their responsibilities.  He noted that there was a rotational system as 
well in the English languages courses – and be lieved that in 2005 there would be a course in 
Southern Africa – the question which was raised w as whether or not there was compatibility between 
this transfer and the objectives which had been se t out providing universities with regional courses.  
He noted that there were also regional courses sched uled for the Arabic and Middle East countries and 
wondered whether a similar course could be scheduled  for Africa.  He also asked whether the Arab 
countries in Africa were part of the African group or the Arab group.  With regard to trade facilitation 
he noted that it was important to see how there could be more activities related to this issue, because 
the negotiations were moving forward very quickl y and modalities were already being discussed.  
Nevertheless, he w ould not want to take away from the other activities.  Concerning Rules, although 
there were activities scheduled, unfortunately, there were none on fisheries subsidies.  This was an 
issue that was of concern to Senegal.  He noted th at there were other African countries interested in 
this issue, where fisheries represented a sector of importance.  Therefore, he proposed to have 
activities at a regional level on this issue as it was also  an issue under negotiation.  This would enable 
Senegal to better understand the issues being discu ssed.  With regard to the harmonized system WT/COMTD/M/50 
Page 18  
 
 HS2002, the transposition to HS2002 was work th at Senegal was going to undertake and he 
welcomed a workshop on this issue, but did not th ink that a one-day workshop would enable Senegal 
to overcome all of the obstacles which it faced.  Senegal asked if for LDCs this assistance would 
come out of a special fund and what were the other activities which would be carried out for 
transposition to the HS2002 system.   
83. The representative of Guinea
 said that she was pleased to see that the Plan reflected the 
consultations held earlier and took into account th e concerns of developing countries.  She thought 
that technical assistance should continue on those issu es that were of interest to developing countries 
and particularly the LDCs.  She expressed concer n about the number of activities on the Singapore 
Issues which were not part of the Doha mandate.  Effort to be made on these issues could better be 
used in other activities, like training of traine rs in universities and increasing the number of 
participants in the trade policy cour ses and courses on negotiation techniques. 
84. The representative of Nepal  said he was happy to see that LDCs would be given continued 
priority in technical assistance activities.  He be lieved that LDCs were in need of even more 
assistance especially on the new issues for negotiatio n in the WTO, so more tailor made programmes 
were necessary as well as evaluation and follow up of those programmes.  He would also like to see 
sufficient resources made available for the Secretar iat to effectively implement the programmes and 
activities. 
85. The representative of the European Communities  said that with respect to the Singapore 
Issues he believed that it was important to keep them in the agenda, and this was not an issue of 
capacity as the staff in the Secretariat dealing with  these issues did not necessarily have expertise in 
other issues.  He agreed that the number of activ ities could be reduced or modified according to the 
level of interest shown in the first activities held.  Regarding services he asked the Secretariat how it planned to deal with the need for countries to come  up with revised offers by May as was specified in 
the 1 August framework agreement.  It would be a pity if for lack of technical assistance Members would not be able to keep to that deadline.  The budget line on the Secretariat's input into other 
conferences and workshops had been increased two -fold in the Global Trust Fund and there was no 
input from the regular budget.  However, he recalle d that earlier discussions seemed to suggest that 
the participation in other conferences and workshop s was more the realm of the regular budget.  
Therefore, he requested some clarificat ion from the Secretariat on this issue. 
86. The delegate of Korea
 believed that the Plan was going in the right direction with focus being 
placed in improving the selection of the participants  and increasing the duration of some courses.  He 
believed that quality of the pr ogrammes depended on assuring an homogeneous level of knowledge 
among participants and other elemen ts required for technical assistan ce activities.  This was clearly 
mentioned in paragraphs 13 and 14 of the Plan.  With regard to the sources of information for 
elaborating the Plan he asked whether the Secretar iat was conducting any surveys of participants upon 
completion of a TA activity.  He believed this would be  very helpful in designing future plans.  On the 
Singapore Issues, he was not sure whether the WT O technical assistance activities should be confined 
to only issues under negotiations as one of the goals  of technical assistance was to ensure capacity 
building on sustainable basis by discussing diverse issues.  So, technical assistance activities in the 
Plan did not need to be linked to the DDA negotiati ons.  He supported the pr oposals by the European 
Communities on this matter. 
87. The delegate of Malaysia  emphasized the fact that tec hnical assistance was needed on the 
transposition to the HS2002 as it was the fundamental  tool in the current NAMA negotiations.  She 
suggested that the topic could be included in th e NAMA regional seminars and to extend the duration 
of these courses.  On the Singapore Issues she believe d the priority of work should be the areas under 
negotiation.   WT/COMTD/M/50 
 Page 19 
 
 
 88. The delegate of Madagascar  noted that the training Plan w as prepared in a very detailed 
fashion, meeting the comments made by Members and in accordance with the development project 
both in terms of the diversity of the products used  and as regards what had actually been achieved.  
He agreed with most of the comments that had b een raised by other delegations and would like to 
ensure that these comments would be duly taken into account so as to improve the quality of the Plan 
for 2005.   
89. The delegate of Tanzania  noted with appreciation the statem ent contained in paragraph 69 of 
document WT/COMTD/W/133.  However, he did not  see the rationale for holding regional seminars 
for competition, investment, and government procur ement as indicated in paragraph 68 of the same 
document, when these issues were not part of the DDA as agreed in the July Package.  He urged that 
regional seminars focus on trade facilitation, whic h was new territory, and also on market access. 
90. The representative from the Pacific Islands Forum  referred to page 22, paragraph 101 of the 
TA Plan, where reference was made to the Pacifi c Islands Group he requested the reference to be 
amended to the Pacific Islands Forum.  He looke d forward to the Geneva-based programmes, the 
regional programmes and the national programmes.  In  addition to that, he was also looking forward 
to utilizing the WTO regional coordinator internsh ip programme in 2005.  He also supported the 
delegation of Senegal in its request for trai ning programmes relating to fishery subsidies. 
91. The Secretariat  said that it had taken good note of the point that the Plan needed to focus even 
more on the issues that had emerged from the July  Package, and it had already identified several 
places in the text of the Plan to make this more cl ear and more focused.  On the question of the three 
Singapore Issues that did not form part of the nego tiating package, working on the premise that it was 
probably easier to remove items than to add them if they were not there, the Secretariat had taken the 
view that the TA Plan should include a minimum programme even on the Singapore Issues that had 
not been retained in the July P ackage.  This referred essentially to  competition policy and to trade and 
investment as the activities that were listed under g overnment procurement related to the Government 
Procurement Agreement.  It could be that in th e course of activities on the agreement itself reference 
would be made to the issue of transparency, but that  was not the main focus of those activities.  The 
Secretariat sensed from what had been said at th e meeting that the concept of a minimum programme 
on the Singapore Issues was even too much, and that Members did not consider it an effective use of 
resources to concentrate on those two issues.  The Secretariat reminded Members that the focus was 
on the regional activities that were listed for these s ubjects, but these subjects were also dealt with in 
the trade policy courses in Geneva, the trade polic y courses in the regions, and on demand if any 
country asked for an activity in those areas.  The S ecretariat proposed to consider these issues in a 
minimum context by retaining them in the trad e policy course framework and as national activities, 
deleting them as specific regional activities, unless there were for example a number of national requests for activities in this area which could be co mbined in a pragmatic way into a sub-regional or 
regional activity, again on demand.   
92. Regarding attendance at conferences and worksh ops, this section of the Plan was probably 
misnamed.  Attendance at conferences per se  was, as Members had decided, financed from the regular 
budget.  The attendance that was covered by th e Global Trust Fund was attendance at technical 
assistance activities that were organized by othe r organizations.  These were genuine technical 
assistance activities, and therefore in the Secretaria t's view attendance at such activities should be 
financed from the Global Trust Fund.  Some correcti ons in the labelling and description of this section 
would be made so as to make that clearer.   
93. Several questions were asked a bout how the Secretariat determ ined what activities to hold, 
how was flexibility for national activities applied, ho w priority to least-developed countries was given 
as required by the Doha Development Agenda, how effective had national activities been and what 
had been the response rate to Me mbers seeking to avail themselves of these activities.  The flexibility WT/COMTD/M/50 
Page 20  
 
 worked in the sense that the Secretariat offered th e opportunity to beneficiary countries to make their 
requests at any time and on any issue that was of prio rity to them.  And this could be done either at the 
beginning of the year, which was the preferred situati on, or at any time in the course of the year if a 
country was faced with a particular capacity proble m.  The Secretariat had put in the Plan, language 
expressing that in general, developing countries woul d have an entitlement to two national activities, 
while LDCs would have an entitlement to three su ch activities.  The priority to the LDCs was 
discussed in the informal consultations and the Secr etariat had tried ways of engaging LDCs in the 
process.  This was done by personal contact with representatives of the LDCs, not just the ones in 
Geneva, but also the non-residents.  This was bearing fruit.  Of the 49 LDC countries, the Secretariat had received requests for technical assistance from about  40 of them.  This was a situation where the 
Secretariat could only draw attention to the ava ilability of the product;  the Secretariat could not 
oblige any particular country to avail it of this possi bility.  This led to the question of how effective 
the technical assistance activities were.  The Secretar iat received feedback from the participants in all 
of the activities.  The Institute responded to re quests first by seeking the help of the operational 
divisions, and then if that was not workable because of other commitments, outsourcing possibilities 
were considered.  The ITTC coordinated carefully with operational divisions to ensure that that 
Members who had made a request got an opportunity to have that request addressed.   
94. A number of comments had been made about par ticipation rates.  The Secretariat understood 
the desire to keep the overall funding envelope at the same level as in previous years, i.e. 
Sw F 24 million for the GTF rather than the Sw F 25 million proposed.  However, the Secretariat 
expressed concern that the primary way of achie ving a reduction to Sw F 24 million would be to 
adjust the participation rate.  There might be other ways of reducing the overall cost of the 
programme, one of which was eliminating activiti es on the two Singapore Issues which would allow 
the Secretariat not to be too drastic on the participat ion rates.  The Secretaria t did not want a situation 
where participation rates were at an average of 85 or 90 per cent and only an 80 per cent or 
75 per cent participation had been budgeted.   
95. On needs assessment, the Secretariat had taken on board the discussion and the requirements 
that had emerged from the informal consultations.  The Secretariat had provided a template for 
countries to use in order to do their own prioritizatio n of their needs and was now urged to take this 
further.  One way this could be done was, when a request was made, to check whether the request for 
an activity was the result of needs assessment.  It was noted that some of the suggestions made by 
Members on being even more proactive would begin to have resource implications for the Secretariat.  
The Secretariat had systematically said, and that  was why the template had been prepared, needs 
assessment was to be done by the countries themselve s rather than having the Secretariat get involved 
directly in an analysis of priorities for the countries.   
96. On the workshop on the HS2002, the Secretariat would consult with the operational division 
in charge of the issue to see whether they ha d any ideas on how that might be done and for the 
moment that workshop would not be in th e list of those taking place in Geneva.   
97. On internships, there was a point made about  how these should not be income-related.  The 
Mission Internship Programme was financed from dedi cated trust funds that was provided by two or 
three donors.  There were very limited resources and that was why it was indicated that priority would be given to Missions that were in greatest need of  such help.  In addition, some donors had provided a 
lists of countries which were entitled to the internship  programme.  This also limited the Secretariat's 
ability to make it more widely ava ilable.  To the extent that reso urces were available, and after the 
most needy missions were taken care of, these resources would be made available on a first-come first-serve basis.   
98. On the selection of participants, the Secretaria t would be naturally more involved because the 
Secretariat would be making the selections for many of the activities.  However, the Secretariat was  WT/COMTD/M/50 
 Page 21 
 
 
 mindful that in a Member driven organization it was sometimes delicate to insist that certain 
participants proposed might not be entirely suited to a particular activity.  This was particularly so for 
national activities where the Secretariat had no say in who attended such activities and where countries in fact used these activities as a means of involving larger numbers of their officials to 
expose them to WTO matters, something which woul d not be possible in regional activities or trade 
policy courses.  The Secretariat did not see any real possibility of getting involved in selecting 
participants for national activities.  The Secretaria t would be more proactive in the selection of 
participants for regional activities, as it did alread y for trade policy courses and specialized courses in 
Geneva.   
99. In connection with the comments about focusing the activities more on the negotiating issues, 
and services in particular, the Secretariat noted that  the regional activities that were foreseen in the 
services area were relatively limited.  This was because it had become apparent that in order to help countries meet the obligations that had emerged from the July Package, in pa rticular the presentation 
of requests and offers by the appointed deadline, mu ch more had to be done on a national basis rather 
than on a regional basis.  This explained why th ere was a switch in balance between regional and 
national activities for the services sector.   
100. The representative of the United States
 requested some clarification on the issue of 
participation rates, as this might have been unde rstood by the Secretariat as a suggestion to lower 
participation rates.  The question was rather the opposite, or why participation rates had been lower 
for some past events and what this implied fo r the budget. She also requested information on the 
number of LDCs and developing countries which ha d availed themselves fully of the three or two 
national programme allotment and whether there were some countries that were not getting any 
programmes and any reasons for this situation.  The se she considered important questions in light of 
the shifting of the balance in the servi ces area to more national programmes.  
101. The representative of Switzerland  expressed satisfaction with the responses given on the 
question of needs assessment and participant selection,  but he was of the view that more should be 
done in order to seek efficiencies in the provision of technical assistance.  He suggested that the 
Secretariat use the limited resources available to try to have at least a partial country assessment and 
establish a dialogue with the recipient countries.  He  also suggested in terms of the selection process, 
to find ways to seek communication with the recipien t country and tell that country when the selection 
process had not led to a training format which could be efficient.  These inefficiencies could very easily happen when there were very diverg ent levels of knowledge in a group.  
102. On the issue of services, the represen tative of the European Communities
 noted that as he 
understood it, the support for services would have to  come out of national envelopes.  Since he 
believed that many countries would need support on this particular issue which might crowd out other 
issues and use some of the limited numbers of natio nal seminars allowed per country.  He suggested 
to consider some kind of additional support in the field of services so that the deadline of May 2005 
could be met.  He also welcomed the Secret ariat's commitment to further discuss the Singapore 
Issues.  He believed Korea made a good point in saying that the TA Plan was not only for supporting the July Package or the DDA, and hoped to find  an acceptable solution on the Singapore Issues. 
103. The Secretariat
 noted that there was no disagreement on what was meant by the participation 
rates.  He understood that the issue was how to  discount for the participation rates in the budget 
calculations.  He did not understand anyone to suggest the number of people that were invited to an 
activity should be reduced.  On the contrary, for ex ample for the trade facilitation issue, there was a 
very strong view that in carrying out such activitie s participation should not be limited to just one 
participant for country, but two.  This was so as to include both the trade policy people and the 
customs people who were actually going to have to deliver on whatever comes out of the negotiations.  
This would increase the cost, and the Secretariat woul d try to put this into the revised version of the WT/COMTD/M/50 
Page 22  
 
 budget.  On the question of why there was such vola tility in terms of participation, the Secretariat 
noted that most activities attracted a very good turnout in terms of participation.  There were only one 
or two activities, where for one reason or another, that was not the case.  For regional activities, the Secretariat explained that every country in that region got an invitation to participate in the activity and very often there were one or two that simply did not respond to the invitation.  This could be 
explained by a number of reasons;  either the count ry did not have someone who was specialized in 
the field, or they did not have someone who could be  released at that time, or there was some other 
reason.  These were all practical reasons and sometimes,  even if an official did set out to participate in 
the activity, for one reason or another the person migh t not actually make it;  this was a pity because 
the expense had been engaged and there was no benefit from the activity.  So there were many reasons 
why countries did not participate.  The Secretariat wo uld try to analyze some of the material available, 
and report to Members on this issue.  This could also  be an issue to consider further in the informal 
consultation process since it had an important impact.   
104. On the utilization levels for national activities the Secretariat offered to share some data with 
the Members.  The Secretariat noted that utilization varied very much by region.  The African region 
was pretty good in making requests for national activ ities.  Regarding utilization levels by the LDCs, 
he noted that in most cases LDCs had requested far more than what their quota allowed, and then 
some prioritisation was necessary.  Other regions we re not so forthcoming with their request, and the 
Secretariat made a commitment to work harder in reminding those countries of their entitlements 
under the technical assistance programme.   
105. On the services question, the Secretariat agreed  with the European Communities that there 
was a balance that needed to be achieved between keeping to the limitations set on national activities, 
and insisting that countries use the quotas that they  were allocated for services-related activities.  
However, he doubted whether the Secr etariat was in the best position to insist on that.  The most that 
could be done was to remind Members that there was a deadline looming next year and that perhaps if they were having difficulties with the offer process, that they may wish to include a request on that 
subject in their priorities.  This was an area where b ilateral donors or others might  be able to help stir 
interest in these activities.    
106. The Committee took note
 of the statements made and decided  to revert to this item at its next 
meeting. 
(ii) Implementation Report – Second Quarter 2004 (WT/COMTD/W/132) 
107. The Chairman  recalled that the Implementation Repor t on technical assistance activities for 
the second quarter of 2004 had been circulated  as document WT/COMTD/W/132.  He opened the 
floor for questions and comments on this report. 
108. The delegate of Canada  requested, for the next quarterly implementation report, to include a 
table which summarized the total amounts of money sp ent on technical assistance by subject, region, 
category and number of participants.  She also s uggested to include a chart that would show the 
number of events by the same line items: subject, region, category and number of participants.  She 
thought that providing this kind of an overview anal ysis would enable Members to start to work on 
some of the recurring questions on technical assistance.   Also on an annual basis, she requested that 
there be a comparison of planned, versus delivered  activities.  Again, she thought this comparison 
would be very helpful to Members in their deliberations 
109. The delegate of the European Communities  requested some clarification relating to 
participation of WTO officials in certain collo quia and meetings which the European Communities 
considered should be funded from the regular budget ra ther than from the Global Trust Fund.  As an 
example of these type of events he mentioned the NEPAD Africa partnership forum, the board  WT/COMTD/M/50 
 Page 23 
 
 
 meeting of the Joint Vienna Institute, the 20th Committee for Economic and Commercial Corporation 
of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the 11th Session of the United Nations Conference on 
Trade and Development, and the meeting of the African Union Second Ordinary Session of the 
Ministers of Trade.  It seemed to him that these e xpenditures were made to fund participation of WTO 
as such in those events rather than WTO pa rticipating in technical assistance activities. 
110. The Secretariat  replied that regarding the question on statistics, from January to September, 
the Secretariat had carried out 320 distinct activ ities out of the 450 that were foreseen in the 2004 
Plan. One hundred and thirty-eight of these activ ities were national activities and 112 were regional 
activities including activities organized by others. In terms of the geographical spread of these 
activities, perhaps of the 138 national activities, 54 we re in Africa, 45 in Asia-Pacific and of the 112 
regional activities, 42 were in Africa and 26 in Asia-Pacific.  The Secretariat recalled it had 
introduced a new way of counting activities so as not  to count a three-months course in the same way 
as a two-day seminar, this was the concept of partic ipant days.  The Secretariat reported that by the 
end of September 2004, there had been 24,000 particip ant days of implementation, which compared to 
33,000 that had been foreseen at the outset of the 2004 Plan.   
111. The Secretariat confirmed that attendance by  staff to Conferences, was funded from the 
regular budget.  What was funded by the Global Tr ust Fund was attendance by Secretariat staff at 
workshops and training activities of other organizations. 
112. The Committee took note  of the statements made. 
(iii) Mid-Term Review of the WTO Technical Assistance Plan 2004 (WT/COMTD/W/134) 
113. The Chairman  recalled that the Mid-Term  Review of the 2004 TA Plan  had been circulated as 
document WT/COMTD/W/134.  He then opened the fl oor for questions and comments on this report. 
114. The delegate of Canada  noted that the informal consultati ons held during the year had been 
very useful for many delegations.  She proposed th at these consultations continue in the next year 
with another list of topics for discussion.  She offe red some examples of the topics  that could be 
developed in the next year.  She thought improving th e participation rate was a subject that must be 
addressed collectively.  Identification, refinement of indicators of measurement of results for technical 
assistance needed to be discussed and refined.  Linkages between technical assistance and country 
development plans and needs assessments.  Explor ing further creative ways of leveraging technical 
assistance including further discussion of partnerships for outsourcing.  Discussing activities and missions that could be financed through the Global Trust Fund versus the regular budget.  Lastly, at 
the end of the year, after the evaluation of the TA Plan for 2005, a cost benefit analysis of the 
different components of technical assistance should be performed.   
115. The representative of Madagascar
 informed Members that in 2004 the ITTC had carried out 
several national activities in important areas whic h were priorities for Madagascar.  These activities 
had been geared toward WTO Agreements.  They  had provided useful information and several 
Ministers participated in these activities.  These activities had trie d to raise awareness and keep 
officials informed on WTO issues.  Another activity  was to take place in December, on textiles with 
the participation of government officials and professionals.  Madagascar also hosted a regional 
activity on SPS measures as well as a regional semi nar on non-agricultural products which was being 
prepared.  Madagascar also informed Members that several civil servants had been able to participate 
in seminars which had been organised in Africa. 
116. The delegate of the European Communities  acknowledged the efforts that had gone into the 
informal consultations expressed appreciation for the mid-term review that was undertaken.  He 
thought this was a very useful exercise and defi nitely benefited the design of the 2005 Plan.  He WT/COMTD/M/50 
Page 24  
 
 criticised that the date of the report was the end of August, as he considered it would have been useful 
to have the report in June or perhaps early July.  He also supported the Ca nadian delegation proposal 
to continue the consultatio ns and identify certain number of issues for discussions. 
117. The Committee took note
 of the statements made. 
E. DECLINING TERMS OF TRADE FOR PRIMARY COMMODITIES , AND ITS IMPLICATION TO TRADE 
AND DEVELOPMENT OF PRIMARY COMMODITY EXPORTING COUNTRIES  
- Communication from Switzerland (WT/COMTD/W/129) 
 - Communication from Kenya, Tanz ania and Uganda (WT/COMTD/W/130) 
118. The Chairman  said that under this item Members would discuss two submissions, one from 
the delegation of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, and the other from the delegation of Switzerland.  He 
said that even though he had held  consultations with several Memb ers in July to see what the CTD 
might do to address the specific concerns raised by some Members, he did not sense that there was a 
common approach on how to move forward on this ite m.  He said that commodities appeared in the 
July Package under the heading of "Other Developm ent Issues" and that the 1 August decision stated 
that "commodities and net food imports should be ta ken into consideration, as appropriate, in the 
course of the Agricultural and NAMA negotiations".  That was something that he said the proponents 
had wished to see.  He then said the newly elected Managing Director of the Common Fund for Commodities, Ambassador Ali Mchumo, would make a presentation to the Committee.  
119. The representative of the Common Fund for Commodities
 (CFC) read the following 
statement: 
"At the outset, allow me to express my thanks to you, Mr. Chairman, for the kind 
invitation extended to the Common Fund for Commodities to attend this very 
important Committee meeting as an observer and for the opportunity given to me to 
make a brief statement on this important topic under discussion. 
The Common Fund for Commodities is an Intergovernmental Financial Institution 
established in the framework of the United Nations with a specific mandate to support 
developing commodity dependent countries in  their efforts to improve and diversify 
their commodity production and trade thereb y increasing their export earnings as well 
as sustain their real incomes.  Thus, this topic under discussion on declining terms of trade for primary commodities and its implications to the economies of commodity exporting countries strikes at the very core of the mandate and operations of the Common Fund. 
It is common knowledge that many countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, 
Asia and, particularly, in Africa are depende nt on commodities for more than half of 
their merchandise export earnings. Approxima tely half of the countries in Africa 
derive over 80 per cent of their mercha ndise export income from commodities and 46 
developing countries depend on three or fe wer commodities for more than half of 
their total export earnings.  
Over the last few decades, adverse tre nds in commodity prices and high price 
volatility have exacerbated the vulnerability of the commodity dependent developing 
countries.  Commodity prices declined si gnificantly from 1980 to 2002.  In this 
period, the World Bank’s index for commodity prices decreased by 47 per cent, with prices of coffee, cocoa, sugar and palm o il falling by nearly 70 per cent.  The 2002  WT/COMTD/M/50 
 Page 25 
 
 
 real price of coffee was just 14.2 per cent of its price in 1980.  UNCTAD statistics 
show that prices declined for 41 out of 46 leading commodities. 
Taking into account 10 major tropical agricu ltural commodities (copper, coconut oil, 
palm oil, sugar, cocoa, coffee, tea, pepper, groundnuts, jute, cotton and rubber), in 2002 alone developing countries would have ea rned USD 243 billion if real prices of 
these commodities had remained the same as their 1980 price level.  This is almost 
five times the world’s aid budget. 
In a recent study the IMF reported that a characteristic common to the commodity 
dependent developing countries in Sub-Saha ran Africa is that movement in their 
terms of trade is a key determinant of  macroeconomic performance and has an 
important impact on real national incomes.  For example, coffee is the predominant 
export of Ethiopia.  The slump in world coffee price produced a 40 per cent fall in Ethiopia’s terms of trade resulting in a dec line of about 6 per cent in the country’s 
real income. 
The issue of the declining terms of trade for primary commodities and related aspects 
of the commodity problematique must be brought to the centre of the agenda in 
international discourses on global economic issu es since we believe a solution to the 
problems facing commodities will contribute to the fulfilment of the Millennium Development Goals.  It is for this r eason that we commend Kenya, Tanzania and 
Uganda for bringing this matter for your consideration. 
You will recall that one of the original functions of the Common Fund was the 
financing of international buffer stocks, but  for well known reasons this arrangement 
has not been operationalised.  We still n eed to find a workable solution to the 
persistent problems of price decline and vol atility.  In the short-term, market-based 
price risk management schemes help farmers manage the risk of falling prices on global commodities markets through the use of derivatives (futures and options).  
However, farmers in developing countries have very poor access to these instruments.  
In this regard, the Common Fund for Co mmodities and the World Bank have initiated 
activities to combine efforts on price risk ma nagement in East Africa to explore new, 
market-based, approaches to  assist these developing countries better manage their 
vulnerability to the volatility of commodity pr ices of coffee and cotton, to begin with.  
This, however, would not address the issue of persistent decline in prices effectively 
and permanently. 
Another solution to the problem would be making compensatory financing schemes 
that are user-friendly and workable.  Co mpensatory finance has an important 
potential role in insulating developi ng countries from the worst effects of 
international commodity price volatility, an d indeed in reducing volatility.  The 
international community has the experience of existing and erstwhile mechanisms 
and we could use this experience to improve on delivery and effectiveness.  
Compensatory financing should operate on the basis of ex-ante rather than ex-post 
mechanisms, in other words, clearly linking automatic payouts to specific 
occurrences. 
While the above are short-term measures, hor izontal and vertical diversification could 
contribute to the long-term solution.  You will recall that the Meeting of Eminent 
Persons on Commodity Issues empane lled by UNCTAD in October 2003 
recommended the establishment of an International Diversification Fund to supplement other relevant existing institutions .  We find that this proposal worthwhile WT/COMTD/M/50 
Page 26  
 
 as it would enable developing countries utilise opportunities to diversify their 
productive capacity within the commodity sect or, including through value addition. 
Market access and tariffs remain a major issue of importance to commodity 
dependent developing countries.  Average ag ricultural tariffs in industrial countries 
are still two to four times higher than tari ffs for manufactured goods.  In addition, 
tariff peaks and various degrees of tariff escalations act as barriers to imports of 
value-added commodity products from developing countries.  Although it is worth noting the positive developments in this area in terms of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and the Everything  But Arms Initiatives, more needs to be 
done such as further simplification of the ru les of origin to enable the targeted 
countries make more effective u se of these market access facilities. 
Public support, mainly in the form of s ubsidies, is another factor which distorts 
commodity markets and which needs to be t ackled.  Domestic and export subsidies 
provided by developed countries have led to price decline for certain commodities 
through subsidy-induced production.  According to a World Bank study, the 
elimination of border barriers and subsidies in agriculture would result in an increase 
in commodity prices, especially for cotton, gr oundnuts, rice, and sugar.  However, we 
are pleased to note that the issue of subsidies is receiving due attention in the negotiations taking place within the WTO. 
We believe that WTO has sufficient scope as a guarantor of a rules-based trading 
system, to discuss and even solve trad e-related commodity problems faced by 
commodity dependent developing countries.  We at the Common Fund are ready to 
co-operate with the WTO in this noble end eavour.  It is for this reason that we are 
happy to be here with you and we are looki ng forward for the fruitful deliberations of 
this Committee and of other relevant WTO bodies that will address the commodity problematique .  We shall be too glad to play the pa rt that will be assigned to us in this 
common endeavour." 
120. The representative of Kenya
 said the Common Fund's presentation echoed the issues that have 
been put forward by Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda in their two papers WT/COMTD/W133 and WT/COMTD/W/130. The three delegations had given an indication of how work on the commodity 
issue should proceed in the CTD.  She said the CT D should continue serving as a think tank on the 
commodity issue while the other issues are tackled in the negotiations.  She said it was time that 
discussions on commodities took place.  She said her delegation wished to re-emphasize the 
importance of finding a positive solution to the crisis that is being created by the persistent decline in 
prices to the trade and development commodity dependent exporting countries in a rules based 
system.  She said her delegation believed that the commodity issue needed a more multifaceted 
approach and that there were some issues which needed to be taken to the negotiations.  She said that 
in regard to the July Package, there was now a mandate to take the commodity issue to both the 
negotiating groups on Agriculture and NAMA.  She said her delegation was c onsulting on how these 
issues could be addressed in the two negotiating bo dies.  She added that this, however, should not 
hold back the discussions of the commodity issue w ithin the CTD.  She said that the Common Fund's  
presentation also showed that three delegati ons had a point in raising it in the CTD. 
121. The representative of Switzerland
 said he agreed with Kenya's statement and that the 
Common Fund's presentation gave the CTD at least five areas to discuss where solutions could be 
found.  He said his delegation was interested in  finding out what had worked, where there were 
interesting models for policy and how this related to different areas being negotiated in the WTO such 
as the areas of rules, market access and subsidy provisions.  He said the area of tariff escalation in the  WT/COMTD/M/50 
 Page 27 
 
 
 area of the negotiations on agriculture was also im portant.  He said the CTD should take time and 
assess what can be done in general internationally bu t also what could be done in the negotiations. 
122. The representative of the United States  said her delegation was open to ideas on how to 
proceed in the CTD and how to enrich th e Committee's discussion on commodities without 
duplicating the work that was being undertaken in  the WTO or other institutions.  She said her 
delegation was pleased that the July General Council Decision provided some focus for work 
particularly in the Agriculture and NAMA groups.  She added that her delegation had always assumed 
that those bodies would serve as the key focal point s in the WTO especially as regards liberalization, 
tariff peaks and tariff escalation and subsidies.  The se were all issues that would be addressed in the 
negotiations.  She noted that there were a number of other ideas as well as in the Kenyan proposal. 
For example, formula-based appro aches and negotiations which follo w a request and offer approach 
in the NAMA negotiations.  She asked what the CTD could do.  She said her delegation had considered some ideas and that while it was not in tended for the CTD to duplicate work, there were 
some issues that the CTD could look at including trends and prices and governance issues.  A next 
step could be to invite the World Bank and th e Food and Agricultural Organization to provide 
updates.  She added that those two institutions ha d just held a conference on commodities in Rome.  
She thought the CTD could also benefit from experi ences of the private sector such as Cargill or 
Nymex (New York Mercantile Exchange) and those of  international institutions.  Exposure to all 
these different entities could help make sure the Comm ittee obtains a full view of the range of issues.  
She said it would also be useful to re-examine the Secretariat's inventory and pick out some topics for 
future presentations.  She suggested that the Co mmittee could consider some case studies of 
commodity dependent countries which have in the past had some significant problems but which had 
managed to be quite successful in diversifying th eir exports.  She said some success stories of 
diversification include Brazil, Chile, India and South Africa.  She said that the CTD could first start to 
look at what others were doing in the area of commodities.  
123. The representative of the European Communities
 said the proposals from Kenya, Tanzania 
and Uganda as well as the Swiss proposal date before the 1 August Decision and that the CTD had not 
received any particular mandate from that Decision to address commodity issues.  He said NAMA and the agricultural Committees, however, definitely  had.  He said the European Communities was 
not against discussing commodities in the CTD but asked what the added value would be for the CTD to examine commodities, especially  since the subject was being discussed in many other fora 
including UNCTAD.  He asked what the Committee' s complimentary input could be in a discussion 
that would be held in the Committees on Agriculture  and NAMA.  He said it was important to clearly 
define the objectives for the involvement of the CTD and that it might be useful to identify what the 
WTO's influence could be on the discussion or what the WTO should take into account in the subject area of commodities.  He added that it might be useful to focus discussions on those countries that 
were vulnerable or the commodity dependent deve loping countries rather than all developing 
countries. 
124. The Chairman
 said the European Communities' represen tative identified the mandate of the 
CTD to discuss and debate these issues, particular ly their relevance to developing countries.  He 
added that a lot of the previous discussion in the CTD focused on the fact that while the CTD itself 
could not come to a conclusion on these discussions, that Members could individually draw from the 
discussions and use what they learn from them in thei r negotiations.  He said this is really a learning 
and debating exercise.  He added that the CTD had to agree on what it was it wants to discuss, with 
what objective and with an identification of the issues .  The CTD also had to decide whether to revisit 
some of the issues as suggested by some Members or  whether it should invite other organizations to 
give presentations.  
125. The representative of Australia  said it was useful to receive a briefing from the Common 
Fund which underscored the importance of the commod ities issue.  He said Australia saw this as an WT/COMTD/M/50 
Page 28  
 
 area which merited further focus in these negotiations .  The question for Australia, he said, was how 
to maximize the prospect for making progress in deali ng with the issue of commodity prices.  He said 
Australia was heartened by the July outcome which identified some key areas where progress could be made, i.e. the cross referencing of commodities with work in NAMA and Agriculture.  There was 
some work in the CTD which could complement work in other areas:  He added that having the other 
negotiating bodies make presentations was an idea that Australia welcomed in so far as more 
information would help structure the work of the CTD.  He said that although Australia had some 
reservations about the proposals on commodities, they did contain some ideas.  He said he was interested in seeing where the CTD could add value and complement the work of the negotiations in 
Agriculture and NAMA. 
126. The Chairman
 said there were two trends of thought. Au stralia mentioned the need to stay in 
step behind the work of the negotiations and the United States mentioned the need to avoid 
duplicating the work of other bodies.  He wondered if it was possible to avoid duplication and asked where the line was between duplication that should be  avoided and duplication that cannot be avoided 
because it relates to the same subject.  He said that if the CTD was to carve a niche in this area of 
commodities, a distinction should be made between the duplication that should be avoided – in other 
words there are no negotiations on commodities taking place in the CTD – but there are issues taking 
place in the negotiating bodies which should be discu ssed in the CTD.  He drew a comparison to 
paragraph 51 of the Doha Ministerial Declaration.  
127. The representative of Kenya
 said the mandate for the CTD is clearly indicated in 
paragraph 51 of the DDA.  She said the proposal Ke nya and others presented looked for a solution in 
a rules-based system.  That solution has to be in the WTO because the discussions going on in 
UNCTAD are not going to set international rules or  multilateral rules that can address the problems 
faced by commodity dependent, exporting countries.   She said she was looking for a solution within 
the rules-based system and that that should be done in the WTO.  She said her delegation agreed with 
the proposals to invite some of the organizations to make presentations on the commodity issue but 
wanted to remind the Committee about the reservations  Kenya had about the Swiss proposal to have a 
workshop on the commodity issue because her dele gation did not see the added value of such a 
workshop. 
128. The representative of Switzerland  said he thought the Swiss proposal complemented Kenya's 
and that that was the purpose of the Swiss proposal .  He never realized that there was opposition to 
the idea of a workshop and said Switzerland was open to a ll types of formats.  He said he did not fully 
understand Australia's reservations either.  In rega rd to what Kenya mentioned on paragraph 51, he 
thought it was exactly in that spirit that Members s hould consider the issue of commodities.  He said it 
was necessary to put the commodities issue in its deve lopment context in so far as looking at what 
was essential for commodity dependent countries to be able to profit from international trade, to be 
able to diversify out of commodities.  He said he wanted to remind the Committee that the legal 
framework of the GATT and the WTO was whenever that framework s poke of differentiation or tried 
to define developing countries, it always define d commodity dependent countries, as countries which 
have a very hard time diversifying. The divers ification of the economy is seen as a factor of 
development.  He said in regard to the relations hip to the negotiating Committees, the simple truth 
was that the Committees did not have the time to refl ect on this development context and in that sense 
he agreed with the Chairman that the CTD could enrich and supplement the discussion in the 
negotiating Committees.  He cited an example in  the Agriculture Commi ttee where there were 
requests to examine tariff escalation.  Switzerland had done some studies with several sector groups 
on how the price structure actually works in the el ementary and processing stages in the agricultural 
sector.  He said it was a difficult subject matter and he hoped that Members in the Agriculture 
Committee would not have to agree on how to define  and how to establish what effective protection 
rates were and what the exact system was in each  country.  Something which was well established as 
a negotiating priority was that the CTD did not have  the technical elements or enough knowledge.  He  WT/COMTD/M/50 
 Page 29 
 
 
 suggested that at the next session, the CTD c ould have some presentations by other agencies – 
perhaps the ones mentioned by the United States.  Based on the r esults of the discussion, the CTD 
could decide on which issues to discuss in further detail.  
129. The representative of Canada  said her country's proposal would be to invite these 
international organizations to atte nd. Papers could be prepared in  advance for the CTD as proposed 
under point 10 of the Swiss proposal.  She said she also  wished to suggest that some best practices be 
taken from the work being done by the Common F und for Commodities.  She said she believed the 
World Bank and the IMF were working on such practices for risk management in Africa.  She 
suggested obtaining the results from this work to allow for a broad discussion as had been suggested.  
She said the CTD could then isolate issues for further discussion.  
130. The representative of th e European Communities  said a sensible and pragmatic way forward 
was to worry less about the form in which the CTD conducted its work but more about the content of 
how CTD Members were informing themselves about what was happening in the field of 
commodities outside the WTO.  He said the pr esentation by the Common Fund for Commodities was 
useful and that others had suggested similar presen tations by the World Bank or the FAO or others in 
the field.  He said the idea had also been raised  of quarrying some of the research which had been 
identified by the Secretariat in their inventory docum ent on commodities.  He said this would help to 
identify which areas the Committee should focus vis a vis  the other WTO bodies which were 
negotiating groups. The 1 August Decision had given a boost to specific references to commodity 
relevant aspects.  He said his delegation sympathize d with the delegation of Kenya in so far as the 
frustration felt because the CTD had been discussing th is for some months.  He said there may be a 
way to address the issues in a pragmatic way – either  at a workshop or an in formal session.  He said 
this was not to delay a discussion of the problem, but more a question of having a common and clear view on the outstanding issues and the range of qu estions which could be addressed by the WTO and 
also those which the CTD could not really address except in a very general way.  He asked the 
Chairman and others to approach this in a pragmatic  way.  He said he was ha ppy to continue with the 
consultation process which had been organized since th e last meeting in order to determine the best 
way forward.  Finally, he referred to Kenya's earlie r intervention in regard to solutions being found in 
a rules based system, that directs attention immediately towards the negotiating groups.  It was in those fora where changes could be made to existing rules.  He said on paragraph 51 of the DDA, 
Members could have a useful, informative general di scussion.  He said it is for other bodies in this 
house where the hard work will be done to addr ess those issues in the course of the current 
negotiations.  He said that does not mean that there is  no role for the CTD, but that the CTD needed to 
be clear on what that role should be. 
131. The representative of the United States
 said she agreed with the n eed to be pragmatic.  She 
thought the CTD should broadly look at the issues an d relationships but that it should not be dictating 
to the negotiating groups about what they should be doing.  The CTD could provide guidance and 
information that could inform those discussions.  She said she did not expect the details of how the 
agriculture group deals with tariff escalation to be  determined by the CTD.  She said Members just 
had to be careful and pragmatic.  She added that if there was support for having other institutions 
come to the WTO and inform the CTD about their ac tivities, then it would be useful for the CTD to 
ask them where they see the gaps – and where those ga ps were trade-related gaps.  She asked what the 
WTO could usefully do that it is not already intending to do through the Agriculture and NAMA 
negotiations?  She said that might help Members define their focus.  
132. The representative of Nicaragua  said his delegation agreed with the United States about the 
need for a pragmatic discussion of the commodities issue in the CTD.  He said he believed the CTD 
could serve as a think tank.  The CTD should no t produce mandates or recommendations but should 
focus on the prospects or approaches from a de velopmental standpoint and receive comments from 
such organizations such as the Common Fund for Commodities.  WT/COMTD/M/50 
Page 30  
 
 133. The representative of UNCTAD
 said his organization had been working on commodity issues 
for more than 40 years and was encouraged that th is issue was now being discussed in the WTO.  He 
said UNCTAD had been dealing with commodities even when other organizations thought that 
commodities issues could be solved just by taking care of macro-economic concerns.  He wished to 
inform the CTD of paragraph 100 of the "Sao  Paulo Consensus" which was the outcome of 
UNCTAD XI where Ministers agreed to give UNCTAD a certain mandate on commodities. The 
mandate covers a lot of the same areas menti oned by the proposals from Kenya, Uganda and 
Tanzania.  These were areas where UNCTAD too be lieved a lot of work needed to be done. 
134. The representative of Canada  said she supported the approach outlined by the United States.  
She suggested that organizations could provide the CTD with a very short paper on what they were 
doing. She said the question had been posed as to whether or not organizations should be asked to 
identify trade-related gaps which were not being addressed directly  through the negotiations.  The 
United States had suggested Agriculture and NAMA a nd she suggested services and trade facilitation.  
Basically, she said it was to provide a focus for wh at the CTD was going to ask these organizations to 
do or to say so that it was not all outside the WTO's scope of discussions.  
135. The Chairman  said there seemed to be two or three id eas for presentations:  the first is a look 
at the case studies of countries which have solved th e problem.  In addition to such a case study, he 
said the CTD could invite some of the interna tional bodies working in the area of commodities to 
come and provide an overview of what they are doi ng. He said the hard part was to identify which 
organizations to invite.  Organizations proposed  so far included the World Bank, the Food and 
Agriculture Organization, UNCTAD and the Co mmon Fund for Commodities.  He said Members 
needed to identify the organization and to agree on wh at it was they wanted them to do.  He said he 
would hold consultations on how the CTD could move forward. 
136. The representative of Switzerland  said there seemed to be a con sensus emerging in that the 
CTD agreed to having presentations at the next meeting and that the Chai r would provide an outline 
of the mandate for the institutions to be invited.   
137. The Chairman  said the note to Members will contain the name of the country the CTD would 
like to invite to make a presentation and which international organization to invite. 
138. The representative of the United States  suggested choosing two or three organizations which 
are actively engaged in the work on commodities and having presentations so that CTD Members 
could inform themselves.  The Common Fund fo r Commodities or UNCTAD could assist with this 
effort which she saw as an on-going process of inviting institutions to make presentations.  
139. The Chairman  asked if Members could accept that the presentations start at the next meeting 
of the CTD of 16 November or have an informal meeting before then.  
140. The representative of Canada  said the proponents of the original proposal in paragraph 19 
outlined a list of most of the organizations that w ould be involved.  She said the CTD should let the 
proponents make the choice as to which ones to start with. 
141. The representative of Kenya  said he supported the Chairman's proposal and said his country 
was keen to hear the case studi es from those successful countries – especially as concerns how they 
stabilized prices and overcame the problems faced by other commodity dependent countries.  He said 
he hoped it would not be a case of export diversif ication only, but an issue focusing on how these 
countries were able to address the decline in pri ces and also add value to those commodities.  He 
suggested that the CTD Members could start with  UNCTAD, especially since it had 40 years of 
experience in the commodities area already, before hearing the presentations from other 
organizations.  WT/COMTD/M/50 
 Page 31 
 
 
 142. The representative of the United States  suggested that Members also consider inviting the 
World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organi zation since these two institutions had recently 
collaborated on commodities.  As concerned the selec tion of a country for an appropriate case study, 
she said she had cited some examples of where commodity dependent developing countries had had 
some successes with export diversification in certa in areas. She suggested Brazil, Chile, India and 
South Africa as possible countries.   
143. The representative of Australia  said he agreed that the World Bank, the FAO and UNCTAD 
are the kinds of organizations the CTD should cons ider inviting for its discussion on commodities.   
144. The Chairman  said it was important that the CTD be clear in what it wants these 
organizations to present.  He said he would consult with Members to work on an appropriate terms of 
reference. 
145. The representative of Switzerland  said drawing up a terms of reference may be going a bit far.  
He said it should be sufficient to have the ins titutions present the way they see the most important 
priorities and action on commodities.  He said a sec ond question concerned asking the institutions to 
look at commodity dependent countries and also at poor developing countries.  In terms of countries 
already mentioned, he said it would be better to focu s on tropical countries rather than temperate zone 
countries since they would be more relevant for Keny a and other African countries.  He suggested that 
the CTD could also look at Asian countries like Ma laysia or other new commodity producers which 
have in some cases taken the place of some African commodity exporters. 
146. The representative of the Common Fund for Commodities  said the WTO was a member 
driven organization and it was really for Members to  decide which organizations they would like to 
learn from.  He explained that the Common Fund was actually "the brainchild" of UNCTAD.  He 
suggested that perhaps Kenya's proposal could be followed and that the Committee begin with 
UNCTAD.  He said that if Member s felt that the CFC should also be there, his organization would be 
ready.  He said  it might be important to focus on  the trade-related gaps and that the activities of the 
CFC had not contributed to any rule making.  He sai d the CFC thinks it important to have some rules 
related to commodities and that that could be th e role of the WTO to deal with the commodity 
problem because the WTO is where the rules are made regarding trade.  He also said Malaysia could provide a good country case study. 
147. The Chairman
 said he would hold informal consultations  to determine the best way to move 
forward on the agenda item concerning commodities. 
F. PARAGRAPH 51 OF THE DOHA DECLARATION ON IDENTIFYING AND DEBATING 
DEVELOPMENTAL ASPECTS OF THE NEGOTIATIONS , IN ORDER TO HELP ACHIEVE THE 
OBJECTIVE OF HAVING SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT APPROPRIATELY REFLECTED  
148. The Chairman  recalled that at the last meeting of  the Committee discussions were held on 
how best to move forward on the paragraph 51 ma ndate.  A number of Members shared the concern 
that perhaps the Committee was not making the best u se of that mandate and indeed it was clear that 
all Members did not have a common view as to how paragraph 51 might be used.  He also recalled 
that a few proposals had been put forward as possible ways of moving forward on that issue.  Among 
those was an idea proposed by the delegation of Ca nada to look at the relation between sustainable 
development objectives and the issues of preference er osion, as well as the loss of revenue available 
to governments because of tariff reductions.  He sai d the delegation of the European Communities had 
provided some suggestions concerning the possibilit y of holding a discussion on rules and technical 
barriers to trade, items which were described as bei ng very technical but interesting in so far as they 
could expand the Committee's understanding of the i ssues.  The Chairman also sought the Members' 
views on whether the July Package presented any stimulus for debate on other issues.  WT/COMTD/M/50 
Page 32  
 
 149. The representative of Canada
 informed the Committee that there would be a seminar on  
preference erosion, and loss of revenue to be held in conjunction with Geneva Week in the Spring.  
The Government of Canada and other donors were  providing some funding for this event which 
would be coordinated with the WTO and the World Bank.  The delegate of Canada invited Members 
of the Committee to attend this seminar.   
150. The representative of Egypt  suggested trade facilitation and its developmental aspects as one 
of the topics that might be included in the discussion. 
151. The Chairman  welcomed the suggestion and requested the views of the Secretariat on how 
this subject could be addressed in the CTD. 
152. The Secretariat  said it could organize a presentation on how trade facilitation was going to be 
dealt with in the negotiations. 
153. The representative of Venezuela  said his delegation attached great importance to 
paragraph 51 as the issue of sustainable developmen t was covered in Venezuela's Magna Carta.  He 
recalled that three years had passed since D oha and that both the Committee on Trade and 
Environment and the CTD had come up against some difficulties in identifying how best to tackle the 
issue.  These difficulties stemmed mostly from the Members.  He was of the view that among the 
Members there were different approaches on how best to tackle paragraph 51 and suggested concentrating the debate in the CTD and the Co mmittee on Trade and Environment on three points: 
the first, on the development and environmental aspect s in the negotiations.  Second, having a debate 
on these elements and third, ensuing that sustainabl e development was appropriately reflected in the 
negotiations.  He said the discussions should be st ructured in both Committees. Otherwise,  it would 
be very difficult to follow the general outline that  had been imposed on Members to ensure that the 
negotiations appropriately reflect ed sustainable development.  
154. The Chairman
 said that Venezuela's position had been well noted by the Committee, 
discouraged further discussion on the question of pr ocess and suggested to moving on to identifying 
the substantive issues to be discu ssed as had been done by Egypt.   
155. The representative of Cuba  agreed that the Committee shoul d move on to discuss the more 
substantive issues and was of the view that Venezuel a's proposal could help to structure the work of 
the Committee and help to link the results in the Committee with negotiations in other WTO bodies.  
156. The representative of Venezuela  proposed directing the focus of debate to issues concerning 
the relation between development and environment.  He suggested that the Secretariat should 
coordinate and exchange informa tion with the Committee on Trade and Environment and referred to a 
recent seminar held under the auspices of the Co mmittee on Trade and Environment where the issue 
of sustainable development was extensively discussed .  In his view, it was important before opening 
discussions on any new issues to know what prog ress had been made on previously discussed 
subjects.  He also requested Egypt to clarif y what it believed was the relation between trade 
facilitation and paragraph 51.   
157. The Chairman  informed the delegate of Venezuela of his recent consultations with the 
Chairperson of the Committee on Trade and Environment and noted that both Committees were at a similar stage in their work on paragraph 51.  Howeve r, he disagreed with Venezuela's view that trade 
facilitation was not an appropriate issu e to be discussed under paragraph 51. 
158. The representative of Kenya
 said her delegation did not have a problem with discussing trade 
facilitation. However, given the fact that the ne gotiating group on trade facilitation had just been 
established, she said she was not su re what there was to be discusse d.  Paragraph 51 was supposed to  WT/COMTD/M/50 
 Page 33 
 
 
 mandate the Committee to monitor the development dimension of the DDA but there should also be 
some results after the debates in  the Committee.  Some guidance on the issue of process was required  
to ensure that the negotiations appropriately reflect ed the objective of sustainable development.  She 
suggested discussing issues such as market access, agriculture and services and delivering the results 
of the discussions in the Committee to the respective negotiating group.  
159. The Chairman  noted that the issue of process had been debated at length and urged Members 
to move on to a substantive discussion.  He also recognized that Kenya had a valid point regarding 
discussion on trade facilitation. 
160. The representative of Egypt  said that putting a new topic on the table may help the Committee 
to identify an innovative way to structure the deba te under paragraph 51.  He considered that any 
topic that was discussed in the WTO had an im pact on development and as such an impact on 
sustainable development. 
161. The representative of Venezuela  read out the mandate in paragraph 51 and expressed concern 
that the debate in the Committee would be diverted to issues that were not related with paragraph 51.    
162. The delegate of Canada  supported Egypt's proposal and noted that the issue of trade 
facilitation should be handled in a manner similar to  all other issues that had been discussed in the 
past. 
163. The representative of Trinidad and Tobago  was of the view that both the issues of trade 
facilitation and trade and environment merited di scussions in the Committee as well as the other 
issues mentioned by the representative of Kenya.  The representative said such discussion should be 
results oriented and focus on the developm ental aspect of each of the topics discussed. 
164. The representative of the European Communities  supported the idea of having a presentation 
on the issue of trade facilitation, and returning to some of the issues that had been already discussed.  
He noted that the issue of trade facilitation had b een discussed in the WTO for some time already, 
although not in a negotiating format, and was certain that the Secretariat would be able to summarize 
some of the points that had been made in t hose discussions until now and provide insight on the 
relevant aspects of the upcoming negotiations.  He also agreed with Venezu ela that there should be 
frequent contacts between this Committee and the Committee on Trade and Environment so that each 
was aware of the progress made in discharging the mandate given by paragraph 51. 
165. The representative of Zimbabwe  noted that her concerns had been well articulated by 
Venezuela and that process was an important issue.   Otherwise, she said future discussions might run 
into problems. She was also pleased to hear th at consultations with the Committee on Trade and 
Environment were continuing.  
166. The representative of Venezuela  explained that his delegation sought to ensure that the 
Committee on Trade and Environment and the CTD worked  together step by step to fulfil the mandate 
provided in paragraph 51.  He also informed the Co mmittee that recent consultations had been held in 
Geneva in the Committee on Trade and Environment.   The issue discussed in the consultations was 
the implementation of paragraph 51.  He noted that the consultations had proved to be very useful and 
said it was agreed to propose to the Committee on Trade and Environment to hold a second seminar to identify the development aspects linked to envir onment.  Venezuela opposed the discussion of trade 
facilitation under paragraph 51 until such time that so me justification was provi ded in support of the 
suggestion.  The Venezuelan delegate also ma de reference to the Millennium Summit and the 
Johannesburg Summit where Heads of State identified in a very precise manner the relationship 
between trade and environment and sustainable deve lopment.  He suggested that any seminars or 
discussions held in the Committee should fall in line w ith what was said by th e Heads of State at the WT/COMTD/M/50 
Page 34  
 
 above mentioned Summits.  He also proposed to  have a joint meeting between the Committee on 
Trade and Environment and the CTD to unify criteria and to narrow down an approach in the different 
perceptions on the issue of paragraph 51. 
167. The representative of Cuba
 was of the view that all WTO issues and subjects were linked to 
development.  The Committee should act as an umbre lla to guarantee that the development dimension 
was present in each of the negotiations.  Although su stainable development was linked to the issue of 
the relation between trade and environment and de velopment, she saw no obstacle in also discussing 
other issues that were currently being negotiated in the WTO. 
168. The representative of Venezuela  clarified that he was not opposing that the Committee 
discuss the issue of development.  However, th e mandate under paragraph 51 directed the Committee 
to focus its discussions on issues contained in pa ragraph 51 and not other issues also related to 
development.  In his view, para graph 51 was about paying special attention to the negotiations on 
trade and environment and trade and development so as to address sustainable development in both negotiations.   
169. The Chairman
 offered to consult privately with the de legation of Venezuela on this issue to 
better understand its concerns. 
170. The Secretariat  suggested to hold consultations am ong interested delegation on how to 
continue the process under paragraph 51.  
171. The representative of the United States  said consultations would be helpful to identify the 
next project that the Committee should undertake to advance work under paragraph 51, including 
Venezuela's proposal, but that work should not fo cus only on environmental issues.  Rather, the 
Committee should continue to look at how the devel opment dimension is being taken into account in 
each of the different negotiating groups.  This co uld include trade facilitation as suggested by Egypt 
and encourage Venezuela and other delegations to co me up with positive ways to continue to examine 
the link between trade and environment and sustai nable development without duplicating the work 
that was being done in the Committee on Trade and Environment. 
172. The representative of the European Communities  informed the Committee that in the context 
of the Committee on Trade and Environment's work on paragraph 51, the European Communities had proposed holding a seminar to discuss the environmen tal aspects of sustainable development.  This 
would be a way of enriching and bringing to th e table ideas and information relevant to that 
Committee's work under paragraph 51.  This propos al was still under discussion at this time and it 
was hoped that Members would be able to agree.  He said it may be a good idea to widen the scope of 
the seminar to include also the developmental si de of sustainable development, but any possible 
request on this matter would have to be considered  in due course.  He also noted that although the 
Committee and the Committee on Trade and Environmen t had elected different paths to discharge 
their mandate under paragraph 51, the lines of co mmunication should remain open and coordination 
was necessary between the two bodies with the possibility of maybe holdi ng a joint event on this issue 
in the future. 
173. The representative of Mauritius
 commended the Secretariat for its neutral and practical 
approach on this issue.  He also noted that this  issue may have been included in the agenda of the 
work of the Committee but it would seem that di fferent Members had diffe rent understandings of 
what was involved and that this may be the source of the current problems.  These problems should be 
ironed out in the consultations.  There seemed to be  a consensus that the Committee could do work on 
the links between development and the environment but said there was no consensus on what other 
issues could be looked at under paragraph 51.  He  understood the Committee to serve as a forum for 
exchanging information and ideas on sustainable de velopment in all areas of the negotiations which  WT/COMTD/M/50 
 Page 35 
 
 
 would later be taken up to the bodies where the differe nt negotiations were taking place.  In his view, 
the Committee was not a negotiating forum, but it coul d discuss all of the issues that were in the 
negotiations in the context of development. 
174. The representative of Venezuela  supported the idea for informal consultations and requested 
to include in the agenda of those consulta tions an item on the scope of the mandate under 
paragraph 51.  
175. The Chairman  noted that there seemed to be con sensus to hold the proposed informal 
consultations as soon as possible.  He also mentione d that it was not his intention to hold up the work 
of the Committee and therefore requested Venezuela to clarify its position on whether trade facilitation could be discussed in a future meeting of the Committee. 
176. The representative of Venezuela
 replied that it was not Venezuela's position that only 
environment and no other subjects could be discussed in the context of paragraph 51.  However, he 
believed that it was better to wait until after the c onsultation before agreeing to any new issues being 
discussed.  
177. The delegate of Kenya  supported having informal consultati ons and noted that she read the 
mandate in paragraph 51 to mean that the Committe e should look at the developmental aspects of the 
whole of the negotiations and not just environment. 
178. The representative of Cuba  also supported the holding of nego tiations on this issue and agreed 
with Kenya on its interpretation of  the mandate in paragraph 51.  
179. The Chairman  proposed for a decision by the Committ ee that informal consultations on the 
Committee's work under paragraph 51 be held as soon as possible and requested those Members 
interested in participating in the consultations to make this interest known to the Secretariat. 
180. It was so decided .  
G. ELECTRONIC COMMERCE  
181. The Chairman  recalled that this was a standing item on the agenda of the Committee and  a 
suggestion had been made to remove it from the ag enda because of lack of discussion at previous 
meetings. However, this suggestion was not accepted.  He then asked if any delegation was prepared 
to take the floor and to suggest ideas on how to  proceed with work under this agenda item. 
182. The delegate of Tunisia  suggested inviting the Secretariat of the International 
Telecommunications Union (ITU) to brief the Committee on the latest developments in the 
preparation of the second phase of the World Summit of the Information Society that will take place 
in Tunisia in 2005.  
183. The representative of the United States  welcomed the proposal and noted that the invitation 
to speak should be narrowed to developments related to the role of electronic commerce in 
development.  In other words, elements of the wo rk of the World Summit of the Information Society 
related to development and trade.  
184. The Chairman  proposed that the Committee decide to invite the Secretariat of the ITU to 
brief the Committee on the latest developments in  the preparation of the second phase of the World 
Summit of the Information Society that will take place in Tunisia in 2005.  
185. It was so decided . WT/COMTD/M/50 
Page 36  
 
 H. G
RADUATION OF THE MALDIVES FROM LDC STATUS (WT/COMTD/W/128) 
186. The Chairman  recalled that this item was on the agenda of the previous meeting of the 
Committee.  It was agreed that the Chairman was to hold informal consultations on how to proceed 
with this issue.  Such consultati o n s  w e r e  h e l d  i n  J u l y .   I n  t h o se consultations, several delegations 
stressed the importance of ensuring a smooth transiti on to developing country status for the Maldives.  
Some delegations also had questions concerning the decision-making process at ECOSOC and about 
the timing for an eventual approval by the Genera l Assembly of the United Nations.  Others were 
concerned about which special and differential treat ment provisions applied to the Maldives and other 
LDCs and how graduated countries w ould be affected by the loss of entitlement to such provisions.  
The Chairman had requested the Secretariat to pr epare a non-paper of all special and differential 
treatment provisions now in force for LDCs incl uding provisions in the WTO Agreements, decisions 
taken either at the General Council or Committee le vel since the entry into force of the WTO on 
1 January 1995 and all decisions concerning LDCs taken at past Ministerial Conferences.  The 
Secretariat was also asked to come up with an  explanatory note on how ECOSOC arrives at its 
decision to graduate an LDC to developing country status.   
187. The Chairman  noted that it had been foreseen that  a representative from the Maldives would 
be present at the meeting, but unfortunately it had not been possible for the representative to make the 
trip to Geneva.  Therefore, he proposed to have the discussion under this item at a future meeting of 
the Committee.  
188. The representative of Canada  agreed with the Chairman's proposal. 
189. The representative of the United States  said she was happy to go along with the proposal to 
postpone this discussion.  In general, she also thou ght it would be useful to obtain more information 
on the trade policies of the affect ed countries to asses the benefits that would be lost and probably 
come up with an action plan for transition.    
190. The representative of Paraguay  suggested that the information papers prepared by the 
Secretariat be circulated as offi cial documents of the Committee. 
191. The Chairman proposed to circulate the paper on special and differential treatment provisions 
for LDCs and the background note on ECOSOC's gra duation process and to revert back to this item at 
the next meeting of the Committee. 
192. It was so decided .  
I. OTHER BUSINESS  
193. The Chairman  noted that no items had been raised under "Other Business". 
194. The meeting was adjourned . 
 
__________