. /.  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  WT/MIN(05)/ST/125 
17 December 2005 
 (05-6140) 
MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE 
Sixth Session Hong Kong, 13 - 18 December 2005 Original:   English 
 
  
MYANMAR 
 
Statement by HE Mr Tin Naing Thein
 
Minister for Commerce  
   I feel highly honoured and privileged to address the plenary of the Sixth Ministerial Conference of the WTO. 
 
 I should also like to associate myself with  previous speakers in expressing our deep 
appreciation and thanks to the Government of the special Administrative Region of Hong Kong, 
China for the excellent arrangeme nts made for this Conference. 
  On this occasion, my delegation would like to  warmly welcome Saudi Arabia and Tonga as 
new Members of the WTO family. 
  At this historic and crucial Conference, it is  important for every Member country to display 
strong leadership and sincere political will in or der to produce results which would facilitate the 
successful conclusion of the Doha Development Round in time. 
 
 The ongoing negotiations on many important issues are facing difficult challenges, out of which, those on agriculture, which are of signifi cant importance to my country, are fragile and 
politically sensitive.   From Myanmar's perspective, agriculture is the mainstay of our economy.  Our economy is 
mainly based on the export of primary agricultural products.  In this context, market entry and 
sustainability of market opportunity for agricultu ral products remain a major issue of concern for 
Myanmar.  Supply side constraints such as technical requirements and capacity-building to produce value-added goods are difficulties facing us domestica lly, while lack of competitiveness to enter new 
export markets and the viability and sustainability of  existing markets are obstacles facing developing 
countries. 
  In the light of these constraints, Myanmar s upports efforts in the WTO to make significant 
reductions in the domestic and export subsidies in the agricultural sector and for their effective and 
efficient implementation in a timely manner. 
 
 Myanmar welcomes the decision of TRIPS C ouncil adopted on 29 November this year, for 
the extension of the transition period for LDCS.  Since we have made commitments under the TRIPS 
Agreement, arrangements are under process to finalize the required legal system to protect the intellectual property rights.  In this regard, we en courage the acceleration of the technical assistance 
provided by the WIPO and WTO with a view to undertake a systematic implementation. 
 
 In the services sector, Mode 4 is the major fo cus for LDCs in the services negotiations.  As 
you are aware, other modes of supply are underdevel oped for the LDCs export capacity.  Although we WT/MIN(05)/ST/125 
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 agree that the liberalization of services trade will contribute to the development of the economy of 
countries, the developing countries and particularly the LDCs are however, unable to move forward in 
their efforts to further liberalize this sector in  the absence of guarantees for technology transfer and 
investment in infrastructure development.  
 Myanmar is actively participating in the activitie s of trade facilitation in the South-East Asia 
region and we believe that this issue plays a vita l role for the world's trading cooperation concerns. 
Sufficient technical assistance and capacity-building projects are required for our officials to better 
understand trade facilitation measures.  
 Myanmar believes that the accession process of th e LDCs should be accelerated so that they 
become fully-fledged Members of the WTO in their own right.   Special and differential treatment is a significant factor of the developing countries and especially the LDCs in their implementation of  WTO obligations.  The narrower the gap of 
development between Members, the lesser the provision of S&D treatment.  To narrow the 
development gap, exports of devel oping countries and LDCs in particul ar should be treated as special 
cases.   I wish to conclude my statement with a note of cautious optimism for the successful conclusion of the Doha Development Round by the end of 2006 and towards this end, I sincerely hope 
that the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference would contribute in an important way. 
  
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