RESTRICTED  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  TN/C/M/17 
16 June 2005 
 (05-2549) 
Trade Negotiations Committee 
28 April 2005  
 
 
 
MINUTES OF MEETING 
 
Held in the Centre William Rappard  
on 28 April 2005  
 
Chairman: Dr. Supachai Panitchpakdi (Director-General)  
 
 Subjects discussed
: Page  
 
1. Introductory statemen t by the Chairman...............................................................................1  
2. Reports by the Chairpersons of th e Bodies Established by the TNC...................................5  
3. Statements by participants..................................................................................................... 13 
 
 1. Introductory statement by the Chairman 
1. The Chairman
 said that he believed this meeting of th e TNC had a particular significance.  As 
he had pointed out in the fax he had sent to all participants, a la rge amount of activity was taking 
place over the period surrounding this meeting in some  key areas of work, including rules, agriculture, 
non-agricultural market access (NAMA), services, trad e facilitation and development.  This was a 
critical juncture in the preparations for the Sixth Ministerial Conference.  He had the sense that the 
negotiations were poised on a very fine balance, and the amount of progress made during this period 
in these key areas could well tilt the balance in one  direction or another.  Without good progress 
starting from now, Members might be faced with a ma jor problem in the lead up to the Conference.  
He was concerned that they were not making the progr ess needed to be able to  reach their July marker 
in good shape, despite the very hard work that  had been taking place across the negotiations.  The 
negotiating group Chairs had been pu tting in tremendous efforts, but as he had said before, the ability 
of the Chairs to guide progress depended fully on th e convergence that the participants were able to 
achieve. 
2. Since the informal TNC meeting in March there had been renewed contacts among some 
Members at a Senior Official level, and a number of Ministers would shortly be gathering in the 
context of the OECD meeting in Paris.  This politi cal-level interest in the negotiations had to be 
maintained, since it provided the impetus for work in Geneva.  Negotiators could only make progress 
if they had a basis of shared political understanding to work from.  His recen t contacts at Ministerial 
and Senior Official level had confirmed that th ere was a solid commitment to making the necessary 
progress by July, and to a successful outcome at  Hong Kong.  He had no doubts about this 
commitment, but had started to have doubts about wh at Members were going to be able to achieve by 
July. 
3. Turning to some specific areas to illustrate his point, he said that a very large amount of hard 
work had gone into the agriculture negotiations since the very start.  However, negotiators had not yet TN/C/M/17 
Page 2  
 
 passed through the first gateway issue, conversion to ad valorem  equivalents (AVEs), which was only 
the first issue on the first pillar.  Although good prog ress had been made on this issue, there had been 
a fairly serious setback but Members had to, and would,  resolve this.  It was simply not credible that 
this issue could torpedo the Round and a solution needed to be found urgently.  He urged all participants to make every move to assist the Agri culture Chair in his strenuous efforts to find it and 
had no doubt that they would.  Members should also not overlook the importance of the issue of 
cotton.  In their work in that respect, they had to  bear in mind the recent Declaration by the Ministers 
of Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali and Chad, in which they  reaffirmed their determination to work in such 
a way as to ensure that the resolution of the co tton issue was one of the successes of the Hong Kong 
Ministerial Conference. 
4. The NAMA Negotiating Group had moved fo rward and there was a good number of 
proposals on the table.  Members needed now to  draw the line on the submission of new proposals 
and move to substantive discussions on the basis of what was on the table.  They simply could not afford to wait for agriculture to move forward be fore making progress here – again, time was of the 
essence.  In some four weeks' time the May deadline for services would be upon Members and yet 
these negotiations still did not see m to have gathered the much needed momentum.  Members 
urgently needed not only more offers on the table, but also substantive improvements in those already 
submitted.  The rule-making parts of these negotiations should also not be neglected. 
5. In the area of development, the Work Pr ogramme on Special and Differential Treatment 
(S&D) seemed to be encountering difficulties and he was aware of the efforts the Committee on Trade 
and Development (CTD) Special Session Chairman was undertaking to bridge the differences.  It was 
important that everyone involved demonstrated  flexibility and showed a greater willingness to 
accommodate the interests of one another.  In the ot her rules areas, including trade facilitation, much 
activity was taking place, with many new proposals bei ng submitted.  With such a wide range of ideas 
on the table, it was now important to try to consolidate them to prepare the ground for progress in these areas. 
6. All of this made a rather worrying overall picture.  Looking across the board, Members did 
not seem to be making the progress they needed, and th ey only had less than three months before the 
July TNC meeting.  He had certainly toned down th e optimism he had had earlier this year.  He was 
not pushing the alarm button now, but his finger wa s hovering over it.  Members simply could not 
leave too much to the autumn.  Consensus could not be built overnight and if Members did not kick start the process towards it rapidly, they could be  facing serious problems.  Progress was needed now 
in all the key areas. 
7. To help guide Members forward, he wished to make three points.  First, Members needed a 
balanced approach in the weeks ahead.  They were  all aware of the negative linkages that could be 
made at the first sign of trouble in any given area, a nd he urged them to try to avoid doing this.  They 
were beyond the framework stage now.  The framewo rks were there and had been agreed.  Members 
had to start moving ahead across the board, starting with NAMA.  Second, he had the impression that 
there was a real need for a greater sense of urgenc y.  Earlier in the year, some had warned that 
Members should not let themselves slip into a patte rn of just continuing their technical work ad 
infinitum and everyone had agreed that they needed to move to real negotiations.  Despite some initial 
signs that Members were about to start really nego tiating on substance, they seemed to have stalled at 
the first difficult issue confronting them and they ju st could not waste time in this way.  Third, 
Member had to be more result-oriented and show a greater unity of purpose at every level of their 
work.  It had struck him that compared to the same period the previous year, there did not appear to be 
the same degree of coherence among the membership  when it came to putting into practice the aims 
they all subscribed to.  Members had to start to see results emerging from their work which lived up to 
their shared commitments.  TN/C/M/17 
 Page 3 
 
 
 8. There was a high degree of convergence on the need  to maintain the objectives for July in 
terms of the five areas he had set out in February  and to move forward accordingly.  However, he 
would not like to have to report in July that, despite  the huge amount of hard work that had been done 
on all sides, there were still no results.  That w ould be a major setback for everyone in Geneva.  
Members were at a difficult point in the negotiations but they all knew what had to be done, and they 
should not waste any of the limited time ahead of them. 
9. Turning to implementation, he said he wished to make an interim report on the work he had 
been undertaking in this area in his capacity as Direct or-General, further to the reports he had made at 
the December and February meetings of the TNC.  In keeping with the July Decision, he had 
continued with his consultative process on all outstanding implementation issues under 
paragraph 12(b) of the Doha Ministerial Declaration,  including on issues related to the extension of 
the protection of geographical indications (GIs) provi ded for in Article 23 of the TRIPS Agreement to 
products other than wines and spirits.  This pro cess was being undertaken without prejudice to the 
positions of Members in conformity with the July Decision. 
10. As Members were aware, he had been asked  to report to the TNC and General Council no 
later than May.  To date, the work had continue d on two tracks, the first covered all outstanding 
paragraph 12(b) implementation issues except the GI extension issue, and the Chairpersons of 
concerned WTO bodies who were acting as his Friends  had continued their consultations.  He was 
grateful for their efforts on his behalf and he would be meeting with them very shortly to prepare his 
report on the issues in this area.  The second track was the GI extension issue and he understood that 
Mr. Thompson-Flôres had recently held his third tec hnical-level consultation.  Mr. Thompson-Flôres 
had informed delegations that he intended to report to him reflecting the different views of Members.  
He also understood that it had been agreed that th e Secretariat would prepare a compilation containing 
factual information on the issues raised and vi ews expressed on extension issues in the TRIPS 
Council's work in 2002 and in the subsequent work th at had taken place in this area.  He was hopeful 
that in his report in May on all outstanding impl ementation issues under paragr aph 12(b), he would be 
able to reflect progress in at least some areas.  But as Members knew, any Chair could only report the 
convergence achieved by Members. 
11. Reverting to his introductory statement as TNC Chairman, he said he wished to add some 
personal remarks, in a rather straightforward manner.   He fully agreed with what many delegations 
had been saying that Members might not be making pr ogress but they were not in a crisis mode.  But 
he could not just wait until they were in a crisis and then have to explain to them why and what 
needed to done to get out of it.  So he wished to  give Members the warning that they were very close 
to a crisis.  At the previous month's Heads of Delegations meeting, he had tried to compare the 
situation this year with that at the same time last year and had expressed his feeling that quite a 
number of crucial elements were mi ssing.  He had also warned that by May, if Members were not 
really making substantive progress, they would be in a real crisis.  It might be too late to begin the 
warnings in May and try to find solutions only then  so he believed Members needed the warning now. 
12. At the current pace, Members were not going to make it by July, and neither by December 
and he asked them to prove him wrong.  On the AVE issue, Ministers had said that they had given instructions, that it was partly technical and partly political, and that it should be solved by the end of 
March or maybe the first few days of April and it w as almost May.  There would be some attempts to 
resolve the AVE issue in Geneva, and then in Paris, but as many had told him, it could not just be left 
for Ministers to solve.  Negotiators had to solve it and do so before the Ministers gathered.  He 
wondered what the delay on this issue, which was sm all and yet also big, by maybe a month, or a 
month and a half, would mean for the deadlines on ot her issues and for July.  This did not give him 
any sense of optimism, on the contrary. TN/C/M/17 
Page 4  
 
 13. In his recent consultations, many Members had told him that they did not feel that the right 
kind of progress had been made in another key area – NAMA.  Everyone agreed that efforts had been 
made to submit as many proposals as possible.  That might be part of the solution, but it might also be part of the problem, because Members could have too many options and be unable to reach convergence on any particular solution in time.  His thinking was that Members had all agreed that by 
July, they needed to see at least the formula, plus  flexibility, otherwise it would be quite a daunting 
process to prepare for Hong Kong, but they were not  moving in that direction.  Some Members had 
even said that they should not be expected to  move in NAMA if they did not see substantive 
movement in agriculture, despite his often repeated  view that work had to move in all areas.  If 
Members were stuck in one area, they had to find a way to keep moving in other areas, otherwise they 
would be stuck forever. 
14. The truth was, and everyone knew this as well as he did, that when the May deadline for 
services came around, not everyone would be on board, leaving the least-developed countries (LDCs) to one side.  There were still more than 30 countries waiting in the wings – what for, he did not know.  
He did not understand how Members could get to th e end of the Round without everyone participating 
in all negotiations, especially services.  This area might not be the key to the Round, but it was a 
highly important area of the negotiations and Memb ers did not seem to have a collective will to 
participate.  He feared that they would miss the d eadline in this area, but it was not the end of May, 
and Members could still prove him wrong.  He had b een in contact with capitals, but he still could not 
see the right kind of engagement in this area at that le vel.  Political staff in cap itals had to be engaged, 
otherwise there would be no coordina tion.  Delegations in Geneva had tried their best, but capitals had 
to pull their act together, otherwise Members would not be able to make it by May. 
15. On rules, progress had been made and a lot of wo rk had been done.  He had tried to relay to 
negotiators the views he had heard from Ministers a nd Senior Officials when he had participated in 
meetings with them.  Seemingly the level of exp ectation they had was somewhat different from the 
expectations in Geneva.  They were talking about  seeing the scope of the negotiations in some key 
areas by July, while some delegations expected to see text-based negotiations on all key areas in rules 
starting in July.  Last but not least, development.  He did not know where Members were headed in 
this area, despite the monumental efforts that th e CTD Special Session Chairman had been making.  
For close to two years, delegations had been discu ssing procedure, but they had been mandated by the 
July Decision to make clear recommendations for a d ecision by July and he would have to report on 
this to the General Council.  He could not make  a report which just copied the paragraphs on 
development from the July Decision, but it began to  look like it was going that way.  This would be 
the undoing of the Round. 
16. He believed it when Members said that they wa nted to have results in December and that 
results would also be needed by July.  But he did not think he and the Chairs could produce results for 
them by July.  At the current rate, there would be  no results but only some reports stapled together 
that would be a reflection of hard work.  Again,  he asked Members to prove him wrong, because he 
believed that they had not lost hope.  They had ju st begun the fight, and he knew that they all were 
looking for real result-based outcomes in July.  He did not want to see the so-called "July 
approximation" turn into something like what he would call "a primitive approximation" that would 
not lead Members anywhere.  He asked delegations to  reflect upon what he had said.  He believed that 
Members were close to a crisis unless they changed g ear now and worked together with the Chairs, so 
that they could have a good result-based report by July. 
17. The Trade Negotiations Committee took note
 of the Chairman's statement.  TN/C/M/17 
 Page 5 
 
 
 2. Reports by the Chairpersons of the Bodies Established by the TNC 
18. The Chairman  noted that written reports had been circulated in the following official 
documents: 
Special Session of the Committee on Agriculture:  TN/AG/16 
Special Session of the Council for TRIPS   TN/IP/12 
Negotiating Group on Market Access:    TN/MA/15 
Negotiating Group on Rules:     TN/RL/12 Special Session of the Council for Services:   TN/S/19  
19. Ambassador Ahmad (Pakistan), Chairman of the Special Session of the Council for TRIPS
, 
said that his report on the last meeting of the Sp ecial Session which had been held on 11 March, was 
contained in document TN/IP/12.  This report was ve ry similar to his earlier one.  He nevertheless 
wished to add a few comments.  As his report had indicated, a group of 12 Members, including Argentina, Australia, Canada and others, had presented, in document TN/IP/W/10, their thinking in 
draft legal terms.  In his view, such texts were very useful in clarifying delegations' thinking and 
proposals and were to be welcomed. 
20. However, neither this text nor the interventi ons of other participants had indicated new 
developments that might serve to unblock these negotiations.  As agreed , he would be holding 
consultations on how to proceed prior to the 16-17 June meeting of the Special Session, which was 
the last meeting scheduled before the July first approxi mations exercise.  In this context, he wished to 
reiterate what he had said at the last TNC, that it would be necessary for delegations to show greater 
flexibility than had been the case hi therto if they were to make any contribution to the first 
approximation that the Chairman was seeking from the negotiating groups by the beginning of July. 
21. Ambassador Spencer (Australia), Chairman of the Special Session of the Dispute Settlement 
Body , said that in his statement at the last TNC he ha d indicated that Members needed to shift gears in 
the DSU negotiations if they were to have a positive result to report to Ministers in Hong Kong.  His 
group had since been making some advances in that direction, although the progress it had made 
remained rather modest. 
22. Since the last TNC, the Special Session had met twice, on 28 February and on 4-5 April.  
Over this period, four new contributions had been put forward, building on previous work.  At the 
28 February meeting, he had outlined a proposed course of action for the coming months, involving 
the continuation of Member-driven efforts and a process of informal meetings, to provide a 
framework for the discussion of contributions from Me mbers.  This approach had been implemented 
at the following meeting on 4 and 5 April, and four  contributions from Members had been discussed.  
These discussions had been reasonably constructive and focused.  In his opinion, the group had 
succeeded in clarifying a number of issues and in mo ving the process forward.  At the same time, the 
discussions also confirmed that differences remained  as to how the DSU could best be clarified and 
improved. 
23. The Special Session would be holding its next mee ting on 9 and 10 May, and he expected that 
at that meeting, the group would continue to pursu e the course of informal discussions initiated in the 
previous month.  Some delegations had indicated  that they intended to submit new contributions, 
therefore he expected that the group woul d have something substantive to discuss. 
24. In closing, he said that the group had not focused specifically on the form of any input it 
would make for a July package because it had concentrated on substance.  There was some 
encouragement to be taken from the recent submissi on of several contributions reflecting efforts by 
Members to engage informally with other par ticipants and the willingness of other Members to TN/C/M/17 
Page 6  
 
 respond to these contributions and to  engage.  But this process would certainly need to accelerate and 
deepen, if the group was to deliver an outcome. 
25. Ambassador Ali (Bangladesh), Chairman of the Special Session of the Committee on Trade 
and Environment , said the Special Session had had a meeting in February and since then, there had 
been no major developments.  However, there had be en increased engagement by the Members.  The 
Chairman and the Secretariat had presented a pape r outlining all the proposals made with respect to 
environmental goods and Members were expected to respond.  The group was looking forward to 
more engagement particularly on  environmental goods and also to new contributions by Members. 
26. Ambassador Noor (Malaysia), Chairman of  the Negotiating Group on Trade Facilitation , said 
that since his last report to the TNC, the Group ha d met once in formal session on 22 and 23 March.  
The main purpose of that meeting had been to  provide Members with another opportunity to 
contribute to the agenda of the Group as set out in  the Work Plan adopted last November.  Members 
had prepared 11 new submissions for that meeting, sponsored by a total of 12 delegations.  Additional 
ways of responding to Annex D's call for clarifyi ng and improving relevant aspects of GATT Articles 
V, VIII and X had been proposed.  He was please d to report that there were as many developing-
country sponsors as authors from the developed world. 
27. Reference had also been made to the other elemen ts of the mandate, particularly with regard 
to cost implications, S&D treatment, and technical  assistance and capacity building.  All of them 
would continue to be key items on the Group's age nda, and required further attention.  Ideas on how 
to advance the Group's work had also been offered in  the form of verbal inputs, in reaction to the 
written proposals and by proposing additional ways forw ard.  Contributions had further been received 
from participating international organizations, especia lly with respect to the identification of trade 
facilitation needs and priorities, cost implications  and matters related to technical assistance and 
capacity building.  Tools were now available to support Members in their work on these areas, and he 
was pleased to see those initiatives being well received.   All of them were closely aligned to the 
Group's work to ensure an effective and coherent outcome. 
28. Additional input was underway and would be taken up at the next meeting, from 2 to 4 May.  
For the May meeting, it was anticipated that propo sals on GATT Article V would be tabled, allowing 
for balanced progress in all areas of the negotiating m odalities for trade facilitation.  On the whole, it 
was his sense that Members were making good progress and succeeding in identifying areas of common ground, and he wished to express his th anks to Members for their continued support.  
29. Ambassador Valles Galmés (Uruguay), Ch airman of the Negotiating Group on Rules
, recalled 
that the work in his Group was divided into an ti-dumping, subsidies and countervailing measures 
including fisheries subsidies, and regional trade agreements (RTAs).  In the first two areas, discussions had taken place in formal meetings, informal meetings and consultations among 
delegations.  At the last meeting, the Group had anal yzed 12 documents in total, some in informal 
mode and others in formal session.  Plurilateral cons ultations had also taken place in order to allow a 
detailed exchange of views on an informal proposal  on an anti-dumping issue that had already been 
the subject of intensive formal and informal di scussions.  He hoped to hol d consultations on other 
issues, whether relating to anti-dumping or other aspec ts of the mandate, as part icipants advanced and 
refined their ideas and, by preference, reflected th em in concrete drafting suggestions to facilitate 
discussion.  The frequency and intensity of his co nsultations would depend upon the pace at which 
participants moved forward their refined proposals,  and the number and identity of the delegations 
invited would depend upon the issue and his assessment  of the participation necessary to ensure the 
best possible discussion of that issue. 
30. Given the size of the task ahead, he was prepared  to make available for consultations as much 
time as might be required.  In the interest of tran sparency, he wished to reiterate his intention that  TN/C/M/17 
 Page 7 
 
 
 these refined proposals be submitted and considered  in informal plenary sessions before being 
discussed in consultations.  He would of course report back to the Group regarding these discussions, 
but he also expected the assistance of all particip ating delegations to keep  other delegations with 
shared views fully appraised of the discussions. 
31. He was pleased to report that the Group was al so gaining some momentum in areas of the 
mandate other than anti-dumping, which helped to gi ve an overall perception of balance.  In the area 
of subsidies disciplines, participants had submitte d a number of additional elaborated proposals for 
discussion at the informal session.  In the area of fisheries subsidies, the Group had received and 
considered in informal plenary session its first info rmal paper.  Two important documents had also 
been analysed in formal sessions.  In this regard, he was encouraged that participants seemed prepared 
to put aside for the moment certain fundamental que stions about the structure of any new disciplines 
on fisheries subsidies and focus on examining specific types of measures and how they might be treated under such disciplines.  In general, the Group was making good progress, but much remained to be done. 
32. Turning to RTAs, he said the Group's work on systemic issues had also gained a certain 
momentum following a participant's proposal on the in terpretation of the concept of "substantially all 
the trade".  This proposal, made shortly before the Group's last meeting, had already generated a 
preliminary but detailed discussion and it would be further discussed at the Group's next meeting.  
Work on RTA transparency was progressing on the basi s of two informal papers, one by the Chair 
and the other by the Secretariat regarding issues rela ted to the submission of trade information and the 
factual presentation of RTAs. 
33. Overall on RTAs, a substantive and detailed debate had now been launched on systemic 
issues, but it was only at the beginning.  Progress wa s being made on transparency questions and he 
was very optimistic at this.  However, participants  had yet to arrive at a consensus view on some 
issues related to transparency a nd to reach common ground on systemic issues.  There had been 
movement, but perhaps action was missing. 
34. Mr. Ismail (South Africa), Chairman of the Special Session of the Committee on Trade and
 
Development , said that he had not submitted a written re port and would therefore be making an oral 
report to the TNC.  At the last TNC, he had info rmed Members of the elements of the conceptual 
approach that he had put before them in an attempt to take the work on S&D forward.  At the formal 
meeting of the Special Session held on 8 February, Members had discussed the approach and had stressed the need to begin examining the remaining Agreement-specific proposals.  In this context, the 
LDCs had proposed, and Members had agreed, that the Agreement-specific proposals tabled by the 
LDCs should be addressed as a matter of priority.  However, since a number of Members still had 
concerns on some of the other elements of the appr oach, he had decided to hold further consultations 
with them and to brief the membership on the elements. 
35. He had had the occasion to brief Members and discu ss this approach at various forums – such 
as the Informal Group of Developing Countries and other groups including the African Group, the 
LDC Group, the Caribbean Group and the OECD countri es.  Subsequently, on 16 March, he sent out a 
detailed fax on how he intended to address the re maining Category I and III Agreement-specific 
proposals in the two thematic clusters suggested in his conceptual approach.  These two clusters relate 
to enhanced flexibility for developing countries in  WTO rules and enhanced technical assistance and 
capacity building for developing countries.  His intention had been to discuss the remaining 
Agreement-specific proposals in each of the cluste rs along with the underlying cross-cutting issues 
related to that thematic cluster in a seri es of two-day meetings in April and May. 
36. At the 20th Special Session on 6 April, some Members had expressed concerns with the 
approach and about the balance and sequencing of th e agenda.  At that meeting, it had became clear TN/C/M/17 
Page 8  
 
 that Members were not going to make much progr ess and he therefore decided to suspend the meeting 
and consult with them in order to seek guidance on how to proceed.  Since the suspension of the 
meeting, he had been consulting with various groups of delegati ons with a view to identifying 
elements of an acceptable agenda to enable Member s proceed with their work  in the Special Session 
at their next meeting scheduled for 10 May.  He wa s confident that Members would be able to resolve 
the matter and was in the meantime holding further consultations. 
37. At a recent Senior Officials meeting, he had a ppealed to the developed countries to put the 
"ghost of differentiation" to rest.  As Chair, he would not be discussing this issue in the Special Session as it was not part of the agenda, nor would he allow it to be brought in through the back door.  He had also appealed to developing countries to be flexible and consider the issues on their merits.  
He had urged all Members to consider these issues as being of a systematic nature.  The challenge was 
to ensure that the WTO was seen to be fair  and balanced by the majority of Members. 
38. He said that he remained fully committed to  facilitating a positive and significant outcome in 
these negotiations that he had been entrusted to chai r.  However, in order to succeed, he would need 
the fullest cooperation and engagement of Member s.  In order to make progress on the complex 
challenges that faced them, Members had to aban don their fears and address these challenges with 
their hopes and aspirations. 
39. Ambassador Jara (Chile), Chairman of the Special Session of the Council for Trade in 
Services  said that the last meeting of the Special Sessi on had been held on 21, 22 and 25 February and 
the report was out.  That session had been left ope n and the group had met again the previous day 
because there were outstanding issues such as co nsideration of new proposals and undertaking a 
further review of the progress of the work in services.   He therefore wished to update his report to the 
TNC. 
40. Little had changed in terms of the numbers of  offers and their quality as the Chairman had 
indicated in his opening remarks.  There had been  one new offer from Honduras.  The total offers 
received were 52, representing 75 Members, not incl uding LDCs, leaving 40 offers outstanding.  This 
was very unsatisfactory.  On the rules side, there were some improvements to report which he wished 
to refer to later.  Members were thus very late in terms of the initial offers.  He once again wished to 
recall that the deadline had been over two years ago – March 2003.  Last July, in the Decision, it had 
been agreed that Members who had not submitted initial offers had to do so as soon as possible.  
There were still, as he had indicated earlier, an im portant number of Members who had to submit their 
initial offers.  There was now a deadline of May 2005 when Members were to submit their revised 
offers.  It was expected that there would be more  offers from several Members as they had indicated 
at the previous day's session.  It was also expected that these revised offers would be improvements – how much, was still not known. 
41. It took a considerable amount of time and effort to make offers and this was basically done in 
capitals.  This included studying the commercial opportunities that might arise from the specific 
commitments contained in the offers and arranging  bilateral request and o ffer consultations.  The 
Special Session would have to report to the TNC in the fall, which left six short and pressured months 
for Members to conduct the tremendous amount of work  in capitals and in Geneva.  This had to be 
completed in time and it was thus essential that w ithout any further delay, the outstanding initial 
offers were submitted and that there was a timely su bmission of revised offers in the month of May. 
42. The next meeting of the Council would be in June and presumably by then, Members would 
have had the opportunity to make their individu al – and he wished to underline – individual 
assessment of the quality of offers.  The group woul d be undertaking consultati ons over the next days 
on the development of tools that might assist Memb ers in making their individual assessments.  At the 
June meeting, he would receive the views of Memb ers about their perceptions of the quality of the  TN/C/M/17 
 Page 9 
 
 
 offers that had been submitted.  This hopefully would allow him then to report to the TNC about 
Members views in terms of the quality of the offers.  This report from the June cluster, which he also 
called "a reality check", would in his view be an essential element in term s of organizing the work 
after the summer break and in terms of providing Members with a global view of the services negotiation which then had to be appreciated in th e context of the entire negotiations under the single 
undertaking. 
43. Since the beginning of the year he had invited Members to think about the Hong Kong 
Ministerial Conference in terms of what they want ed, required or needed as an output.  A general 
point of departure had been that the request-offer process was not efficient.  It was not working the 
way Members wished it to – it was only yielding ve ry limited or mediocre results.  This was the 
conclusion of many, if not all par ticipants.  If, in May Members improved the situation with improved 
offers, they would need to do no more than just plod on.  But if they were still facing a very poor situation in terms of quality and/or numbers, then  in his view, changes would be necessary and Hong 
Kong would be the opportunity to make them and provide the appropriate political guidance to the 
negotiations.  The idea of having benchmarks at Hong Kong to assess progress in the services 
negotiations had arisen.  However, the group would have to be very prudent and cautious so that this 
process did not distract the negotiations or divert th e work in capitals in terms of improving offers.  
But, the group had to think ahead, because it took a long time to make changes or use the appropriate 
tools and instruments and seek political guidance from Ministers.  Perhaps what Members needed and 
he wished to underline perhaps, was an instrument  – something which would allow them to drive the 
process to meet an acceptable level of ambition to contribute to a balanced single undertaking 
package.  This instrument, or whatever it might be called, could be a combination of several things 
and might not be formal but rather a loose politi cal understanding of where Members were heading. 
44. As the group completed the work it had initiated in February, it had in the previous day's 
meeting considered a number of proposals and had had substantive discussions on several of these.  
He did not wish to go into the details, but there were many new ideas and some of these had resulted 
from the informal work of groups of Members that  had built little coalitions around sectors of their 
interest. 
45. On LDC participation and the negotiations, the group had been consu lting very intensively 
and it was organizing a day or two in  the June cluster that would be reserved to the attention of LDC 
concerns and requests.  Informal open-ended meetings would also be held to consider some ideas that 
LDCs had in terms of implementa tion of LDC modalities.  The group had also been requested by the 
Chair of the CTD Special Session to consider certain  proposals on S&D.  This was work in progress 
and would need further meetings and consultations.  He  hoped to be able to report to the Chair of the 
CTD Special Session soon. 
46. On the rules negotiations, this process was larg ely demand driven and was undertaken largely 
in the subsidiary bodies.  There had been a series of new proposals submitted.  Both the working party 
on GATS rules and the working party on domestic re gulation had been meeting in informal mode 
between clusters in order to take up these new pr oposals.  Despite the dissatisfaction of some 
Members in terms of the pace of progress, he  considered these new proposals as a positive sign 
although more effort and time woul d be required.  He wished to underline that the Chairman of the 
Working Party on Domestic Regulations had at the previous day's session on the progress that had been made.  New proposals touching on licensing pr ocedures, horizontal disciplines on transparency 
and on professional services had recently been submi tted.  Members appeared willing to build on the 
progress made to date and they could not afford to lose momentum.  He was encouraged by this progress and believed the group would have positive things to report, at least on the domestic 
regulations negotiations. TN/C/M/17 
Page 10  
 
 47. Ambassador Jóhannesson (Iceland), Chairman  of the Negotiating Group on Market Access
, 
said that Members were in the middle of a NAMA week  and he wished to give his perceptions as to 
where they stood in their work.  It had been a very intensive week and there was a general sense in the 
Group that it now had a good basis for discussions on the formula.  Remarks had been made by some 
delegations that a universe of proposals and ideas was now on the table and the challenge was not to 
get lost in this universe but rather to navigate to  a place where all Members could co-exist, be it in an 
imperfect world, but where everyone was at least equally unhappy. 
48. He thanked the delegations that had heeded his ca lls for input in such a rapid fashion.  Five 
proposals had been presented since the beginning of  March.  Four of these had already been 
thoroughly discussed at the 14-18 Ma rch meeting and the fifth one from Argentina, Brazil and India 
(the ABI paper) which had been tabled recently, ha d been discussed intensively at the present session 
of the Group’s meeting.  A thorough discussion of all five proposals had therefore taken place in an 
open-ended session in Room D.  He wished to co mmend delegations for using the opportunity to the 
fullest to examine these proposals and probe into  their different properties, thereby elevating 
Members' understanding of each others positions. 
49. Turning to substance, he said that the NAMA  week would conclude the following day with a 
wrap up session in the afternoon.  The discussions in  the week had so far focussed on the ABI paper 
which was addressed the formula and treatment of  unbound tariff lines.  The Group had had very 
good discussions on sectoral initiatives.  Discussions had also taken place on non-reciprocal preferences and non-tariff barriers (NTBs).  Othe r issues which were also considered or to be 
considered in the Group included elimination of low duties, comprehensive data coverage and ad 
valorem  equivalents.  So far his assessment of the discussions was that it seemed Members had 
accepted the use of a non-linear formula and more particularly, a Swiss or a Swiss-type formula.  Discussions on the formula appeared to revolve around the issue of the coefficient and, more 
specifically, the numbers, criterion used to establis h such coefficient/s and whether or not the 
coefficient should be independent from flexibility.  There was a significant divergence of views about 
the coefficient which was implicitly tied to the ob jectives of the NAMA negotiations.  To illustrate 
this point without going into too much detail, he said that the ABI paper proposed that the coefficient should be determined independently of flexibilities,  whereas the other four proposals, namely from 
the EC, Norway, the United States and Chile, Co lombia and Mexico foresaw a more direct 
relationship between flexibilities and the determinati on of the coefficient which would determine the 
level of ambition.  Members would need significan t effort to reach the necessary convergence.  He 
wished to emphasize that he did not have a magic formula and was relying on Members to do the 
necessary to build enough convergence on which the fo rmula could be built, and more specifically the 
coefficient or coefficients which would satisfy all of them. 
50. Turning to the treatment of unbound tariff lines, there were still significant differences first on 
whether there should be 100 per cent binding, sec ondly on whether newly bound rates should be the 
base rate on which further formula cuts would take  place or whether such newly bound rates were in 
themselves a final binding and thirdly on the meth odology used to establish the base rate or final 
bound rate.  On sectoral initiatives a useful discu ssion based on a paper from the United States on the 
notion of critical mass had taken place with some cl arifications made on different elements of that 
particular proposal.  A proposal by the United Arab Emirates on raw materials had also been 
presented.  An exchange on non-reciprocal prefer ences had also taken place and the discussions had 
clearly demonstrated the sensitivity and importance of this issue.  It was going to be quite a challenge 
for the Group to address this problem in a manner that would be satisfactory to all concerned. 
51. Turning to NTBs, he said that if the Group was to make progress on this front, it needed 
specific proposals on how NTBs should be treated in the context of its work.  Such papers should 
identify the problem and propose solutions.  NTBs  were by nature quite complex and the Group 
needed time to address them adequately.  In the same way that he had appealed for proposals on the  TN/C/M/17 
 Page 11 
 
 
 formula, he wished to use this opportunity to app eal for inputs on the NTBs which had been proposed 
for negotiation in the NAMA group.  In conclusion, he  said some concerns had been raised regarding 
transparency and these should be addressed. 
52.  Ambassador Groser (New Zealand), Chairman of the Special Session of the Committee on 
Agriculture , said he agreed with the Chairman that Member s were not at a crisis but a crisis was very 
close.  The negotiating groups were at different points on the way to Hong Kong, and the Chairman 
could not actually do a whole lot about this because he knew that his control over the Chairs was in 
fact, in the real word, limited.  He was relying on them to make prudent judgements on his behalf, but ultimately his responsibility as Chairman of the TNC was to ensure all negotiating groups were 
brought into safe political harbour by the end of July  and he was starting to get very concerned about 
this.  He said that he understood and shared the Chairman's concern because ultimately the Chairman 
was responsible to the membership. 
53. As agriculture Chair, he was stuck in front of what he thought was a small iceberg that could 
be swept away with a very modest political current .  But it had to be swep t away and everyone was 
working hard but they were not quite sure how to do it.  He was quite confident that if this could be 
done, his group could give a very good result in agriculture by July.  He wished to sketch out in 
highly general terms what the group could produce in terms of a first approximation by July.  He 
could see a very solid outcome on export competition.  He could see the emergence of what he would 
call "quasi-legal" texts on export credits – less th an 180 days.  He had been very concerned until 
recently that he could see no way through the food  aid issue, given the hard line position of the 
demandeurs and the deep concern of developing co untries for whom emergency food aid was a very 
important issue but he felt much more confident now as a result of the last discussions in Room D.  
Equally he could see a solid result on the third part of parallelism in export competition – State 
Trading Enterprises (STEs).  The United States had been extremely helpful in giving Members an 
agenda of first issues in this area that they coul d focus on and he was extremely confident that if the 
overall political management allowed it, he could deliver a very solid result on export competition.  
But Members had to find the maximum possible level of ambition – elimination. 
54.  On the second pillar, internal support, he coul d see a very solid result, not quite as solid as 
that emerging in the export competition pillar, bu t definitely going beyond July 2004.  This he 
attributed to the flexibility shown largely by the Eu ropean Union for reasons relating to their internal 
reform process.  Members were in a position to more  or less nail down the concept that greater efforts 
would be made on the basis of absolute, not relative levels of subsidization.  This almost, but not 
quite, defined the numbers of tiers, and if he could only be freed from the curse of the AVE issue, he 
would start an informal discussion on the shape of the tiered formula for cutting trade distorting support.  He could absolutely see the basis, not for a final deal but for taking the Green Box further, 
that would be consistent with the underlying development objectives of the Doha Round, but yet 
would also be consistent with the highly specifi c language of paragraph 16 of the framework in 
Annex A of the 2004 July Decision. 
55. With respect to the Blue Box, his instinctive f eeling was that this was very political and one 
would probably need to see some greater shape on the real level of ambition on the overall cut in trade distorting support before Members could really nail that down, but the group would do its best here as 
well.  He could say more, but what he was really trying to say was that there was another picture out 
there of a very solid package.  He had told th e agriculture negotiators on many occasions that the 
political model that he had been following since Se ptember was that this was essentially a rather 
technical phase of the negotiations.  It was the resp onsibility of the negotiators and of the Chair to 
deliver, by the end of July, a platform for very politi cal decisions that Members would start to look at 
from mid-September onwards.  He had had the usual difficulty in getting his point across on an STE related issue – the use of monopoly powers.  A political  question like that could not be divorced from, 
for example, the question of the date for elimination of export subsidies.  If one did, he could tell now TN/C/M/17 
Page 12  
 
 that the answer would be no.  If the question was ask ed later, he did not know what the answer would 
be.  This was a question of judgement and he was trying to complete, by the end of July, a largely 
technical phase.  Within every single technical s ubject in agriculture, one could find deep political 
questions if one went looking for them.  But ultimatel y, responsible negotiators needed to develop the 
basis on which their political leaders could be asked th e right questions.  That was the strategy he was 
following. 
56. While he could see a very solid result in the other two pillars, market  access remained stuck 
because of the AVE issue.  He had said time and time again that he could not put anything down that 
had any semblance of balance if it showed that no progress whatsoever had been made on market 
access since the framework.  In this pillar of the negotiations were issues of deep concern to the 
membership:  addressing the matter of the erosion of  preferences;  tropical products;  how to get 
operational S&D treatment that was fair, balanced a nd in line with the mandate;  and how to give 
developed countries with highly sen sitive products some flexibility, which was consistent with the 
agreement in the framework that there still had to be substantial improvement for each product.  These 
were deeply political questions of great importanc e to the membership and Members had not even 
started to address these while they were stuck on the AVE issue. 
57. Turning to cotton, he said that according to th e agreement last July, this issue had to be 
negotiated ambitiously, expeditiously and specifically  within the agriculture negotiations.  For those 
who thought that this was just a game, he wished to  repeat yet again the statistics he had used in an 
earlier meeting, and asked delegations to think about  the scenario he described.  The cotton price was 
heading south and the last time this had happene d, Benin, a country not much larger than New 
Zealand in population, 6 million people, had had another 335,000 people fall below the poverty line – 
real poverty, not New Zealand style where there were  safety nets and other procedures to help people 
through difficult adjustment to falls in agricultu ral prices.  The Ambassador of Benin and his 
colleagues from Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad and friends  in other countries such as Paraguay which also 
depended very much on this, knew that it was a serious problem within the framework of the 
agriculture negotiations focusing on the trade aspects.   He could not help Members through on this 
issue.  There were other ways to do it.  But he saw a linkage in the long-term between these 
catastrophic consequences of distortions in world ma rkets and what the agriculture negotiations were 
doing.  That was what kept him going personally and he wished it would inform other people's 
attitudes a little more precisely. 
58. There had been concerns expressed about the s ubstance of the AVE issue and also about the 
process.  He would not go thro ugh the substance again because he  had done this recently in the 
agriculture meeting.  His strong view was, and th e Chairman had also said it in his opening remarks, 
that it was inconceivable that this whole pro cess could grind to a halt because one set of people 
thought it should be based on splitting the difference between the unit values of two artificial price 
series and the others thought it should be based on the ad valorem  equivalents of the same two 
artificial price series.  This was inconceivable b ecause there was no political leader in the world who 
could ever explain something of this importance flou ndering on the reef of this abstraction.  This was 
impossible and therefore there would be a solution.   But like the Chairman, he was very concerned 
about the time it had taken and by the clear ev idence that, with some exceptions, some of the 
negotiators apparently did not unders tand the first rule of holes – when one was in a hole, one had to 
stop digging.  There was also a second rule of hol es which Members might need to reflect on in not 
too distant future – when one was in a hole, and somebody, perhaps the Chairman of a negotiating 
group, came forward and offered help to climb out  of the hole, one did not reject it because one 
wanted an air conditioned helicopter that would fit every bump in one's tariff line. 
59. The Trade Negotiations Committee took note  of the reports by the Chairpersons of the bodies 
established by it and of their statements.   TN/C/M/17 
 Page 13 
 
 
 3. Statements by participants 
60. The representative of Rwanda , on behalf of the African Group , said that from the reports by 
the Chairman and the Chairs of negotiating bodies,  Members still had to make much progress if they 
were to have a “first-approximation” by July a nd a successful Hong Kong Ministerial Conference.  
The development dimension was still lagging in all areas including those where some progress had 
been made.  Members needed to appraise their work  against the Doha mandate and the July Decision 
and to think of newer ways to effectively meet  these objectives, and show commitment to fulfilling 
the responsibility they had tasked themselves. 
61. The Group wished to stress that the July approximation should integrally consist of 
development components as this was the only way that  success could be achieved in Hong Kong.  It 
insisted on this because currently, Africa represented only 2 per cent of international export trade and 
was still suffering from poverty, disease, unemployment a nd low incomes.  This situation was critical 
and needed to be reversed.  Many African ec onomies were commodity dependent and relied on the 
export of a single or few commodities for which world prices exhibited a long-term decline and excessive volatility.  This was one of the major factors making it difficult for a number of African 
countries to raise the living standards of their people and the Group would be tabling a paper on 
commodities in the hope that this issue would be refl ected in the July approximation.  Other issues 
where the Group wished to see substantive progress by  July included addressing unfair trade practices 
arising from trade distorting subsidies, ensuring eff ective and meaningful flexibility in rules, a firm 
commitment to addressing supply-side constraints a nd implementation issues, particularly the TRIPS 
and Public Health issue. 
62. For these reasons, making the Hong Kong Ministerial deliver for Africa was the Group's 
major goal and an important yard stick for a balanced outcome.  Unfortunately, the on-going 
negotiations did not seem to be seeking to address th is objective.  For the Group, the success of Hong 
Kong would be gauged not just by the additional mark et access for a few Members, but rather by fully 
addressing the development concerns of its poor Members in line with the Doha Development 
Agenda (DDA).  In this regard, the outcomes in agriculture, NAMA, services, rules and trade 
facilitation had to be driven by development needs and priorities.  This could be done only through 
real commitments, development-oriented decisions and concrete actions that resulted in tangible 
benefits.  The first signs of such commitments  should appear and be apparent in the July 
approximation.  She said that first, the July a pproximation had to be clear and specific on core 
modalities including flexibilities at the same level of specificity.  Second, Africa needed policy space 
to facilitate development because of the reasons a bove-mentioned.  Third, both enhanced capacity-
building and market access were needed to address supply-side constraints and promote 
diversification so as to overcome the problem of commodity dependency.  This could be achieved if 
negotiations moved forward in addressing the Group's de velopment concerns and needs in all areas of 
the DDA. 
63. The Group's intention was not to go into deta ils on each issue under the negotiations but 
rather to highlight in general term s its expectations for the July approximation.  On agriculture, it was 
unfortunate that the issue of AVEs was taking so much  time at the expense of other important issues.  
The Group wished to see an all inclusive process of consultation on this issue and an urgent acceleration of these negotiations in order to achie ve concrete progress both on core modalities and 
flexibilities at the same level of specificity.  As agri culture was of great importance to countries in the 
Group, their needs and concerns on food security, livelihood security, rural development and import 
financing facility had to be taken into account.  Sim ilarly, there was an urgent need to move to the 
other pillars to address the crucial issue of all trad e distorting policies.  On cotton, the Agriculture 
Chair had pointed out the dramatic consequenc es of continuous trade distortion.  Given the 
importance of this sector in the economy of many African countries, there was urgency in addressing 
this issue ambitiously, expediti ously and specifically both on the trade and development sides. TN/C/M/17 
Page 14  
 
 64. On NAMA, the Group welcomed the submissions  by various Members on the formula but 
also wished to stress the need for convergence on this issue before July.  Any outcome had to ensure 
that market access for African exports was not er oded and, in addition, the formula and other 
approaches should not lead to further de-industrializa tion of the continent.  On services, the Group 
called for significant market access in areas of its export interest, particularly in mode 4, tourism, 
construction and professional services, including in skills other than professional skills.  Technical 
assistance to enable countries in the Group to car ry out assessments and improve their regulatory 
regimes was also needed.  These we re essential and prerequisite in enabling African countries respond 
to the requests that they continued to receive. 
65. Regarding trade facilitation, the Group welcomed the submissions presented by several 
Members on Articles VIII and X and recently on Artic le V of GATT 1994.  It was still examining the 
cost implications of such submissions and had recently submitted an initial paper outlining ways of 
addressing cost implications, possible ways of su pporting trade facilitation needs and priorities of 
Africa as well as S&D treatment.  It wished to reiterate the importance of technical assistance and 
capacity-building support during the negotiations and at the implementation phase in line with the 
Annex D of the July Decision. 
66. On TRIPS and Public Health, the Group wished to recall that Ministers had directed the 
TRIPS Council to find an expeditious solution for t hose countries with insufficient or no capacity to 
manufacture pharmaceutical products.  It believed that  the Decision on TRIPS and Public Health lay 
at the heart of the DDA.  To date, the TRIPS Council had not been able to realize this objective and at 
its last session, the proposal to implement para graph 11 of the 30 August 2003 Decision had failed to 
materialize.  The Group therefore wanted more de monstration of commitment, including political will 
so as to conclude an amendment by the next Ge neral Council.  The last TRIPS Council meeting had 
asked its Chairman to conduct consultations but to  date these were still being expected.  The Group 
therefore urged the new Chairman of TRIPS Council to  hold intensive consultations for that purpose. 
67. On S&D, there was a need to speed up th e work on Agreement-specific proposals with 
priority being given to the LDC proposals.  The Gr oup recognized and supported the tireless efforts of 
the Chair of the CTD Special Session but believed that he had conducted e nough consultations to 
move forward on these issues from the next meeting.   It hoped that before July, progress would be 
made so as to be able to make concrete reco mmendations to the General Council.  Similarly, 
proposals under category II should be given the same priority in line with the July Decision. 
68. Last but certainly not least, transparency and in clusiveness were core principles of the entire 
WTO and therefore had to guide the negotiations towards the July approximation and the Hong Kong 
Ministerial Conference.  She concluded by re-empha sizing the need to put development back in its 
right place which was at the core of each area of the negotiations and at the core of the DDA work 
programme. 
69. The representative of Benin
, on behalf of the ACP Group , said that the Chairpersons' reports 
showed that all delegations had to work harder if they wished to reach the July approximations.  He 
associated the Group with the statement by Rwanda on behalf of the African Group.  He wished to 
give the views of the ACP Group on the state of play in the negotiations.  In the area of agriculture, the issues covered in March and April in the contex t of the Special Session had been extremely useful 
and had enabled the Group to elaborate further on pr eferences, among other issues, in accordance with 
the mandate in paragraph 44 of the July Fram ework which recognized the importance of long-
standing preferences.  Given that the majority of Members had accepted that the results of these 
negotiations should not lead to the disappearance of  certain types of agricultural production, a global 
approach aimed at maintaining local production and limiting preference erosion for weak and vulnerable economies was of paramount importance.   Furthermore, given the possible negative  TN/C/M/17 
 Page 15 
 
 
 implications of conversion to AVEs, the Group calle d for a more open and inclusive discussion with a 
view to ensuring that AVE conversion covered trade preferences. 
70. It had to be recognized that the ACP Group included the majority of net food-importing 
developing countries (NFIDCs), LD Cs and vulnerable economies.  Concerning food aid, the question 
should be examined according to a global appro ach which included export credits, state trading 
enterprises, special products, the special safeguard mechanism, the capacity to supply food products 
and domestic food production.  The Group believed that until new rules were adopted, Members 
should, while still continuing to ensu re the flow of true food aid, make the necessary arrangements so 
as to avoid the possible distortive effects such aid disciplines could have. 
71. Turning to cotton, he said the elements of th e modalities for the treatment of the cotton issue 
had recently been submitted to the Sub-Committe e on Cotton in document TN/AG/SCC/GEN/2 dated 
22 April 2005.  These modalities aimed to ensure th at the results of the negotiations corresponded to 
the July 2004 Decision, which stipulated that  the cotton issue should be addressed ambitiously, 
expeditiously, and specifically.  They also aimed to speed up the negotiating process with a view to 
reaching a decision on cotton by July 2005 in c onnection with the first approximations of the 
outcomes on this issue.  These elements of modalities would be discussed at the meeting of the Sub-
Committee on Cotton to be held the following day.  Furthermore, in order to curb the serious socio-
economic consequences for agricultural communitie s stemming from consecu tive losses of income, 
an emergency fund should be established.  The Group was counting on the support of Members to 
avoid Africa undergoing yet again a serious econom ic catastrophe, which would be the plain and 
simple disappearance of the cotton sector in this part of the world. 
72. In the area of NAMA, the concerns of the ACP Group were well know.  The principle of less 
than full reciprocity as well as S&D had the potenti al to give the Group the comfort and flexibility 
which it needed in these negotiations .  In accordance with the provisi ons of paragraph 16 of Annex B 
of the July 2004 Decision, the Negotiating Group had been instructed to take into consideration the particular needs that might be raised by Member s concerned by non-reciprocal preferences and those 
Members that currently depend largely on revenue from tariffs. 
73. With respect to preferences, the negotiations during the March week of meetings had offered 
the opportunity to the ACP Group to make concre te proposals on non-reciprocal preferences by 
putting on the table a methodology allowing for th e identification of a common list of products 
affected by preference erosion, independent of the type of preferential arrangement.  It hoped that the 
technical discussions on this matter would lead to the useful results that th e Group was looking for.  
The Group wished to reiterate that a balanced result within the negotiations on NAMA could be 
reached by seeking a solution which reconciled prefer ence erosion with other elements such as the 
formula, sectoral initiatives and NTBs. 
74. Turning to TRIPS and Public Health, he said that the ACP Group wished to reaffirm the 
importance of the Decision of 30 August 2003 on th e Implementation of Paragraph 6 of the Doha 
Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health.  Given the crucial importance of public  health problems, the 
Group was committed to working in close collabora tion with all Members to facilitate access to 
medicines for countries which did not have manufacturing capacities for medicines or which had insufficient capacities.  In this respect, the Gr oup supported the proposals by the African Group aimed 
at ensuring a predictable and multilateral regime on this matter. 
75. In services, despite their inadequate technical cap acities together with the different constraints 
which limited their effect ive capacity to take part in the re quest/offer process, the ACP countries 
continued to have a major interest in the negotia tions.  This was particularly the case because, since 
the liberalization of services carried out thus far,  it had not been possible to correct the existing 
imbalances in production capacity, efficiency an d competitiveness among Members.  Furthermore, TN/C/M/17 
Page 16  
 
 very few Members had made offers in areas of particul ar interest to ACP Members, including mode 4.  
The Group, however, wished to reiterate its willingness to engage further in the process, and to stress 
the need for technical assistance to be able to identify the costs and benefits of liberalization and its 
commitments, and to have a framework for strong dom estic regulation so as to be able to face up to 
market opening.    Furthermore, particular  attention should be paid to S&D treatment. 
76. The ACP Group was very concerned at the lack  of progress in the review of the rules 
governing S&D treatment, and the need for an early  harvest with regard to the Agreement-specific 
proposals.  The Group wished to repeat its hope that  all Members would engage so that the review 
could be completed by the deadline of July 2005.   The Group sincerely appreciated the efforts 
undertaken by the Chairman of the Special Session to  move the process forward and to give particular 
and priority attention to the proposals by the LDCs. 
77. The question of the treatment granted to LDCs in the WTO in general was important for the 
ACP Group.  In this respect, it was essential that, in the drafting of modalities, targeted measures were 
foreseen to support diversification of the production and exports of LDCs.  It was also important to ensure free border access without quotas for products  coming from LDCs and the reduction of NTBs 
which affected their exports. 
78. The ACP Group also gave particular attention to  developments in the negotiations on rules in 
general and on disciplines governing RTAs in partic ular.  Taking into account the necessary flexibility 
through appropriate S&D treatment  in provisions relating to RTAs would enhance a smooth and 
gradual transition and adjustment of the econom ies of the ACP countries to a more open and 
competitive trading environment.  The Group was co mmitted to working closely with all Members to 
improve Article XXIV of GATT 1994 with a view to harmonizing its provisions with the ACP 
countries' development needs. 
79. On trade facilitation, the work accomplished t hus far by the Negotiating Group had allowed 
some progress, facilitating a collective assessment of  concerns, needs and priorities, including those 
of ACP States.  Beyond the scope of the negotiatio ns, trade facilitation also implied, amongst other 
things, institutional development, training of human resources and the improvement and 
modernization of systems.  To this end, the questions of S&D treatment, technical assistance and 
capacity building support remained major components which needed to be taken up on a priority 
basis.  The Group believed that substantial pr ogress could be made in this area through a multi-
sectoral approach involving donors and in coopera tion with competent international institutions. 
80. In conclusion, he said it was obvious that, in  order to obtain positive results in the first 
assessments in July, delegations had to step up thei r technical work and move more rapidly to real 
negotiations.  Members had only three months to tr anslate their collective determination into real 
results in Geneva.  As a number of mini Minister ial meetings were foreseen, the ACP Group wished 
to reiterate its call for a more transparent and incl usive process, so that its needs and concerns could 
be better taken into account.  These were the AC P Group's expectations of the Doha Round, the 
development Round. 
81. The representative of Mexico
 said that from the Chairman's assessment of the negotiations 
and the reports by the Chairs of the negotiating b odies, it was clear that Members were falling behind 
in all of the negotiating areas.  Despite the efforts in  Geneva and at the various  Ministerial and Senior 
Official meetings, progress had been minimal or nonex istent.  Mexico believed this was not a crisis, 
but Members were moving towards one with a great d eal of determination and they should turn their 
determination to avoiding a crisis. 
82. Over the last month, the traditional negotia ting principle that nothing was agreed until 
everything was agreed had been changed to no thing would move forward until everything moved  TN/C/M/17 
 Page 17 
 
 
 forward.  The result of that philosophy was that everyone's attention had been focussed on resolving 
the AVE issue.  When it seemed to have been so lved, everyone was pleased, but it was only when it 
was known that it was not solved that they starte d to negotiate.  This was a negation of what 
negotiations should be.  Without a resolution of the AVE issue, there would be no basis for the 
agricultural market access negotiations.  But as both the Chairman and the Agriculture Chair had said, 
Members were falling behind because they did not have that basis.  Although this appeared to be a 
rather simple issue, it was delaying all the areas of  negotiation, which was why it had to be solved. 
83. Above and beyond that issue, if the negotiations  were to conclude in 2006, there would be a 
large number of technical questions to be addressed a nd some political decision to be taken.  Meetings 
of Ministers and senior officials were costly undertakings, but if officials at these levels were not 
given the elements they needed in order to prov ide guidelines for the negotiations and to take the 
political decisions that were needed, delegati ons would not be able to fulfil their duty. 
84. Turning to NAMA, he said that with the propo sals on the table, Members could move forward 
quickly.  However, they would first have to devote their efforts to finding solutions for the formula 
and for the question of flexibility.  They would have to take into account the importance that bound 
rates had for some countries and preference erosion for others.  His delegation was optimistic that 
important results could be achieved in July, if that was what was wanted. 
85. In services, the picture was not so complete.  Mexico believed it was necessary to find an 
indicator with which to measure the different conces sions which would be made.  It would be hard to 
find such an indicator, or benchmarks, but Members had to try.  This, however, should not distract 
them from their main task, which was improving the offers, because the numbers of offers mentioned 
at the present meeting were disappointing. 
86. On agriculture, the Special Session Chair ha d been extremely clear, and his delegation 
appreciated his optimism in certain areas of the agriculture negotiations and believed that positive 
results could be achieved if participants dedicated  themselves to discussing the main points.  Turning 
to rules, his delegation agreed with the comment by the Negotiating Group Chair that there had been 
movement, but perhaps action was missing.  Some  178 proposals had been submitted and perhaps the 
time had come to make a compendium of the propo sals grouped by issue so that a more productive 
discussion could be undertaken.  On trade facilitati on, he said this was the only area where Members 
were really moving forward and these negotiations were on the right track. 
87. For the Doha Round to become a genuine devel opment round, it was vital that the results at 
the end of the negotiations had to enable more fa vourable conditions and legal security in market 
access for agricultural and industrial products, ser vices and modes of supply for all developing 
countries.  In addition, solutions had to be f ound for the main problems faced by LDCs.  Mexico 
urged that this aim be turned not simply into an advertising slogan, but rather into action. 
88. The representative of Cuba  associated her delegation with the statements by Benin on behalf 
of the ACP Group and Rwanda  on behalf of the African Group.  She said that at previous meetings of 
the TNC her delegation had not shared the opt imism which the Chairman had shown on the 
negotiating process.  However, on this occasion it did fully share the Chairman's concern at the lack 
of progress and the little time remaining before July.  The Chairman's assessment had been realistic 
and his call to negotiators had been timely.  Her de legation also shared the Chairman's view that in 
agriculture there had been backward movement.  Th e AVE issue had not been resolved and this was 
essential to be able to move forward on the formula and the other elements of the negotiations.  The 
cotton issue required an urgent solution which w as satisfactory to African countries which depended 
almost solely on this product for income from expor ts.  In addition, her delegation agreed with the 
African Group on the need to examine the issue of  the deterioration in the terms of trade for TN/C/M/17 
Page 18  
 
 commodities, since the economies of many less developed countries depended on their 
commercialization. 
89. Turning to services, she said that although it was true that more offers were needed, there was 
also a need to improve the existing offers.  Cuba was working on the final elements of its offer and 
hoped to submit it shortly.  As the Services Chai rman had observed, this process took time because 
the trade opportunities had to be studied. 
90. In the NAMA negotiations, the meetings taking  place during the current week showed the 
difficulty the majority of Members had with the proposals or positions of those who had benefited most from the existing trading system.  Issues such  as tariff reductions, sectoral initiatives, and the 
treatment of preferences and low tariffs had brought to light important divergences between 
participants.  The differing realities of the econom ies which were taking part in these negotiations 
were clear, and in Cuba's view, the only way to move forward in would be through a view which took 
into account these realities.  One should not underes timate the concerns of those who had a smaller 
part of world trade.  Cuba did not agree that liberalization was a panacea because in some regions, 
including its own, the reality was quite the contrary .  One question which needed to be asked in these 
trade liberalization negotiations, which was also a co mponent to be incorporated into them and which 
was not outlandish, was who was going to be responsible for and who was going to compensate those economies who had followed the dogma of the benefits  of liberalization but who had only met with 
negative results in the end.  The poor could not be allowed to face even worse conditions. 
91. Turning to S&D treatment, she said that the Chairman had eloquently described the real 
situation in this area.  Despite the efforts of the Special Session Chairman, no progress had been 
made.  The small amount of time available for formal  meetings on this subject had been taken up with 
procedure, and Cuba believed the time had come fo r developed countries to show the political will to 
respond to the proposals submitted by many developi ng countries.  In other development-related 
areas, such the Working Groups on Trade, Debt a nd Finance, on Trade and Transfer of Technology 
and on Small Economies, the situation was the same, as also in the case of an expeditious, predictable 
and multilateral solution to the issue of TRIPS and Public Health for countries which had insufficient 
manufacturing capacities for medicines. 
92. The success of the Sixth Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong depended on development 
being placed at the heart of the process.  This wa s not asking for much, but it concerned millions of 
people who lived in extreme poverty and who did not have safe drinking water in the 21st Century – 
women children, old people and human beings in ge neral who died every minute of every day through 
the lack of a vaccination or a meal. 
93. If solutions could not be found to these devel opment problems, one coul d not have high hopes 
of the existing multilateral trading system and of the usefulness of the WTO to raise the living 
standards of all of its Members, as set out in the Marrakesh Agreement and in the Doha mandate. 
94. The representative of Zambia
, on behalf of the LDC Group , associated the Group with the 
statements by Rwanda on behalf of the African Group and by Benin on behalf of the ACP Group.  
She wished to state at the outset that the concerns  and needs of the Group in almost all areas of the 
DDA – agriculture, NAMA, services, trade facilitati on and development-rela ted issues – were well 
known to the membership and she would not delve into them.  At the informal TNC in March, 
Members had been given two markers as possible in dications of some progress in the Round: the May 
deadline for services and the July deadline on S&D treatment.  This had been on the assumption that 
there would be considerable levels of progress in the other key areas, particularly agriculture and 
NAMA.  Unfortunately, what Members were faced with at this point in the discussions under the 
various negotiating bodies, for example in NAMA, agriculture and S&D treatment, painted a rather 
gloomy picture as to whether they would achieve  their goal for a positive and meaningful first  TN/C/M/17 
 Page 19 
 
 
 approximation by July.  Members had set out ambiti ous targets for themselves after adopting the 2004 
July Decision, but they seemed to be heading towards a different direction. 
95. A good number of Members had begun to wonder whet her all of them had agreed that this 
was a development round in which the needs of de veloping countries, and particularly LDCs, should 
take centre stage.  The positions that Members held  as they negotiated trade-offs, the decisions they 
strived to arrive at, the agreements they endeavour ed to make, and the various concessions that had to 
be given, had a bearing on their levels of commitm ent to the Doha Ministerial Declaration.  If 
Members were to demonstrate sincerely a collective commitment to fair and meaningful international trade for all, including the weakest amongst them, th e mandate that had been clearly spelt out by 
Ministers in Doha had to be adhered to, in word but  more so in deed.  The credibility of the outcome 
of the negotiations would largely be determined by  the fulfilment of the commitments that Ministers 
had undertaken four years ago. 
96. The LDCs were looking for an even more inclus ive process that would carefully take into 
account, at each stage, their development priorities and needs.  Despite their limited and very often 
disadvantaged capacities, LDC delegations had spar ed no effort in participating and remaining 
positively and actively engaged in the process of ne gotiations under the various WTO bodies.  This 
had, however, not been an easy task  considering that effective particip ation implied, in practice, being 
able to identify one's main interests in the negotia tions and define appropria te strategies and positions 
to defend those interests.  The Group appreciated th e gesture of some Members to try and bridge the 
gap through the Technical Assistance Plan.  However, there was need for improved implementation of the Plan through intensified support to most LDC delegations taking into account the dynamic and 
rapid evolution of the negotiations, particularly at this advanced and very technical stage.  This 
certainly could not be matched with the lim ited technical expertise of LDC delegations. 
97. In conclusion, she said that although, the Group had not gone into substance in the areas 
where most of its interests lay, this should not be misinterpreted as an indication of its reluctance to 
secure meaningful gains from the Round.  At this critical stage, the Group felt that it should probably 
remind Members of their commitments at Doha a nd the need for re-dedication to the principal 
objective of the Round, which was, to fulf il the development dimension of the DDA. 
98. The representative of Singapore
 said that the present meeting of the TNC was timely.  His 
delegation agreed with the Chairman that what happened during this period could well tilt the balance 
in one direction or another.  Members had to avoid the temptation to be alarmist, but at the same time 
they had to be honest with themselves.  They were not where they should be, given that there were 
less than three months to July and to the July fi rst approximations and in this sense his delegation 
shared the Chairman's frustrations and anxiety.  The July first approximation was meant to be a 
critical transit stop to Hong Kong and at the very l east, Members had to sketch out in July the possible 
foundations of a deal in Hong Kong.  But at the curre nt pace, it was difficult to see how this would be 
possible.  It was not that Members had not worked  hard in Geneva or capitals, rather the problem 
seemed to be that they had not really begun to ne gotiate, and had not shifted significantly from merely 
stating their old positions and "wish" lists.  Th e net result had been a lack of convergence. 
99. Members had had two informal Ministerial mee tings and two senior officials meetings since 
January but they were still in this situation.  In  that sense, they had had enough political guidance, but 
this had not translated into concrete progress in Geneva and now expectati ons were focused on the 
Paris meeting, which would be cruc ial in terms of giving fresh political impetus.  The Paris meeting 
would be a test case in terms of the usefulness of mini-Ministerial meetings to the entire process.  
A Ministerial meeting would only help if there w as political will to solve problems.  His delegation 
was optimistic that in Paris, there would be a spirit of political engagement and political give and take.  
A few other informal Ministerial meetings we re envisaged in the second half of the year. TN/C/M/17 
Page 20  
 
 100. He wished to take up briefly agricultur e and NAMA which were the key areas where 
Members needed to show some progress by July.  On agriculture, Members were well past the date 
when they should have resolved the AVE issue and he agreed with the sentiments expressed by the 
Agriculture Chair.  Without a speedy resolution of th is issue in Paris in the next week, negotiations 
across all issues ran the risk of being paralyzed.  While this was obviously a complex technical issue, 
a political perspective was necessary in resolving it,  so that Members knew what was at stake – the 
future of the Round.  So far, it was the sense of his delegation that this political perspective was 
missing in the AVE discussions and he hoped that Members could inject su ch a perspective and 
introduce the larger political picture when this issue was discussed by Ministers informally in Paris. 
101. Turning to NAMA, he said it was politically true that without movement in agriculture, it was 
unrealistic to expect NAMA to progress.  It w as equally true that some progress in NAMA was 
ultimately necessary to sustain agri culture.  The encouraging thing about NAMA was that Members 
now seemed to have a universe of proposals on the ta ble in respect to formula.  However, it was not 
clear to his delegation whether Members were moving towards convergence or divergence on the 
critical issue of ambition and there was need for a political discussion.  A poor result in NAMA would 
weaken the development agenda of the Doha Round  and Members had to re-double their efforts in 
NAMA in recognition of its own merits.  His dele gation hoped this could be done in the remaining 
days of the NAMA cluster which was on-going.  In conclusion, he said that Members were not in a 
crisis, but if they did not take the opportunity to get of the current situation, they could well be deeply 
in crisis. 
102. The representative of Thailand
 said that her delegation agreed with the Chairman and the 
Chairs on their overall assessments of the state of the negotiations.  Thailand was firmly committed to 
the successful conclusion of the Doha Round and believed that a positive outcome from the Sixth 
Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong at the end of th e year would be a crucial milestone.  Thailand's 
view was that by July, the first approximations  should have some indications that gave the 
membership confidence that the outcome in Hong Kong would be a balanced one.  Thailand agreed 
with the Chairman that Members had so far b een working hard but had not made sufficient 
advancement.  They had only three months to produc e a meaningful first approximation.  Regrettably, 
Members had not found a compromise on the priority  issues that threatened progress since the last 
two TNC meetings.  Her delegation wished to urge  all Members to focus their attention on these 
issues with a view to making substantial progress by July. 
103. On agriculture, AVE conversion was the impor tant gateway issue for the market access 
negotiations.  Despite her delegati on's several calls to Members to treat it as a technical matter, the 
discussions had turned into give-and-take negotia tions.  Her delegation therefore believed that 
political intervention was necessary in order to break  out of the deadlock and re-confirm Members' 
commitment to real market opening.  It recognized the urgent need to complete this work, and urged 
key Members to show leadership and be more flex ible in the negotiations.  It was crucial that 
Members attained as accurate AVEs as possible so as  to apply a tiered tariff reduction formula, which 
would provide substantial improveme nt in market access according to the Doha mandate.  Besides the 
market access pillar, substantial progress in th e other two pillars was equally important for a 
meaningful and balanced outcome in July.  Her de legation was pleased that the Agriculture Chair had 
indicated that he was confident that there woul d be a solid result in domestic support and export 
subsidies and it hoped that this result would materi alize in due course after the gateway issues were 
agreed upon. 
104. Turning to NAMA, she said that although her delegation worked with an aim of achieving a 
high level of ambition in the NAMA negotiations, it be lieved that this had to be seen in the overall 
context of the negotiations.  An ambitious result in  agriculture would inevitably be reflected in the 
ambition in the NAMA negotiations.  On services, her delegation had learnt that there had been 
widespread discussion of the terms "benchmark" and "benchmarking" as a means to advance the  TN/C/M/17 
 Page 21 
 
 
 negotiations.  At this point, Members seemed to hol d different views on what benchmarks were, what 
form they would take and how to ensure that th e eventual translation of the idea of benchmarking 
would not upset the balance of the negotiations or  skew towards the interest of a small group of 
Members.  Her delegation wished to carefully reflect further and hear additional views of Members on possible collective tools that would help them to fa irly and effectively evaluate, analyze and measure 
the progress made in the services negotiations.  Rega rding rules, although work in the Negotiating 
Group, in particular on anti-dumping had progressed fa irly and constructively, Members had not yet 
begun real negotiations.  They could not afford to  prolong the clarification phase and should shift to 
text-based negotiations as soon as possible. 
105. Turning to development, she said the Doha ma ndate clearly stated that "all S&D treatment 
provisions shall be reviewed with a view to strengthening them and making them more precise, 
effective and operational." Presently, Members had not been able to sufficiently  achieve that stated 
goal through their discussions in the CTD Special Session.  Discussions still hovered around the sequencing issue of Agreement-specific proposals versus cross-cutting issues, as well as other conceptual themes and clusters that had been floated in the discussions, including situational 
flexibility.  Her delegation wished to highlight  the importance of Member-driven efforts and 
contributions in order to make progress on this issue.   It therefore maintained the view that priority 
should be given to the consideration of Agreement- specific proposals, especially those by LDCs.  It 
was the progress Members made in considering these proposals that would assist them in reaching the 
goal of making S&D provisions more precise, effectiv e and operational.  In addition, as development 
was placed at the heart of the Round, Members shou ld respect the needs and interests of developing 
countries and ensure that S&D treatment was an in tegral part of all issues in the negotiations, 
including agriculture and NAMA. 
106. In closing, she said that in order to ach ieve a balanced and ambitious Doha Round, 
compromise and willingness from Members, in particular strong leadership from major countries, was needed.  Although her delegation a ppreciated efforts in small groups to narrow down divergences and 
the result-oriented strategy, it was important that everyone was on board, that the sense of ownership 
was respected and that the principle of transp arency and inclusiveness was taken into account. 
107. The representative of Korea
 said that he agreed with the Chairman's assessment that the 
current situation was really worrying and if Member s continued to work at the current pace, they 
would be in a real crisis soon.  In this light, he wished to make comments on the issues that his delegation felt needed the immediate attention of the entire membership.  First, on agriculture, 
Members had a serious situation with regard to AVEs.  The issue deserved a thorough examination at 
the technical level, and his delegation did not wa nt a solution that was built solely on political 
expediency.  It looked forward to a real solution in  Members' continued effort in the next afternoon's 
meeting and also the following week in Paris.  He  also hoped that Members had learnt a lesson from 
this exercise that the transp arency and inclusiveness of the process mattered especially as they 
proceeded to the details.  As was seen in the AVE case, a process that did not allow participation of 
Members with vital interests, accounting for a significant portion of global trade, always carried the risk of endangering the negotiations at a critical point. 
108. On NAMA, as his delegation had stated at the NAMA meetings in the week, it preferred a 
Swiss formula that had a single coefficient with opt ions for flexibility.  Korea remained committed to 
sectoral initiatives and addressing NTBs which it believ ed were key elements to achieving ambitious 
results.  He wished to note that the equation of pains and gains applied within the boundary of the 
NAMA negotiations as well.  Since the average tariff  level of developed countries was already quite 
low, reducing or eliminating tariff peaks and escal ation in developed countries was a key to creating 
new market access opportunities for developing count ries.  But tariff peaks and escalation were 
mostly concentrated in politically sensitive sector s and Members needed to think hard whether 
politicians in developed countries would agree to reducing tariff peaks and escalation in sensitive TN/C/M/17 
Page 22  
 
 sectors where the expected gain was a mere paper cut in bound rates of developing countries.  At the 
same time, it had to be recognized that the impor tance of South-South trade had increased over recent 
years both in terms of its share in the global tr ade and in creation of new trade and jobs.  The 
principles of less than full reciprocity and S&D needed to be approach ed from such needs and 
perspectives.  No one could deny that these princi ples were prescribed in the Doha Declaration and 
the July Decision and had to be properly calibra ted to create market access opportunities for both 
developing and developed countries. 
109. Turning to services, he said his delegation wish ed to emphasize once again that all Members 
should present their initial or revised offers by May.   His delegation believed that it was important for 
all Members to make high quality offers that corresponde d, wherever possible, at least to their current 
market access level.  His delegation wished to enc ourage Members to start an internal assessment of 
the possible benefits and costs of undertaking furthe r liberalization in infrastructure services, which it 
believed was directly related to development goals in the services negotiations.  From the services 
Chair's report, he had detected concerns of some Members with the idea of benchmarks.  This, he believed, resulted from the lack of in-depth discu ssions on this matter.  It was up to individual 
Members to assess the offe rs on the table in accordance with their interests.  Sooner or later Members 
would also need to make a collective assessment and set the goals for the services negotiations.  His 
delegation believed that be nchmarks could be a useful tool and looked forward to more discussions on 
this issue. 
110. He said that his delegation had repeatedly st ressed that substantial results in the rules 
negotiations, especially in the area of anti-dumping, w as a key component of the final balance.  In this 
light, it remained concerned that Members did not have, as yet, a shared understanding on the goal for 
the Hong Kong Ministerial, let alone a target for July.  The nature and the rhythm of the rules 
negotiations might be different from the market ac cess negotiations, but nevertheless, Members would 
have to have an assurance that their interests in the rules negotiations would be duly addressed by the 
time of the Hong Kong Ministerial, and would achieve  the level of progress comparable to that of the 
market access negotiations.  The first step for such an assurance was to develop a credible roadmap to 
the Hong Kong Ministerial and beyond, before the su mmer break as a part of the first approximation 
exercise. 
111. Turning to development issues, he said that on the S&D negotiations, discussions at the senior 
officials meeting the previous week had indicated  a shared understanding on the need to restart the 
discussion on Agreement-specific proposals at the CTD Special Session and his delegation agreed 
with this approach.  On environment, he wish ed to note that the CTE Special Session had been 
working on developing a list of environmental goods .  Since liberalization of environmental goods 
was to be done as a part of NAMA negotiations, the CTE Special Session had to develop and hand 
over an agreed list of environmental goods to the NAMA Negotiating Group before the establishment 
of the NAMA modalities at the Hong Kong Ministerial.  To that end, the CTE Special Session should 
intensify its work in the coming months, includi ng by holding inter-sessional informal meetings. 
112. In conclusion, he said that it was true that Members had a tremendous amount of work to do 
by July and the recent bump in agriculture had added to their burden.  Howeve r, his delegation did not 
think that Members should lower their ambition yet, either for July or for Hong Kong. 
113. The representative of Bangladesh
 said that his delegation supported the statements by Zambia 
on behalf of the LDCs and by Rwanda for the Afri can Group.  He said that this TNC was being held 
at a critical juncture.  The Doha Round, had been  launched in November 2001  and was an ambitious 
undertaking with a wide range of issues.  Members were looking at fundamental reforms of the trade 
in industrial and agricultural goods as well as at rul es, services, the environment, dispute settlement, 
S&D treatment, GIs, and had added to all of this, trad e facilitation.  In addition, they had to deal with 
the range of miscellaneous issues that came up in  Ministerial meetings and during discussions in the  TN/C/M/17 
 Page 23 
 
 
 WTO.  The ambition in many of these areas was indeed high, in order for the Round to have 
substantive economic value. 
114. Members were now approaching the Sixth Minister ial and he agreed with the Chairman that 
one did not sense the feeling of urgency and activity  that was expected if they were to achieve a 
substantive outcome when they met in Hong Kong.  If the intention of the key players was to speed up 
the negotiations at the late stages, this woul d impose a heavy burden on Members with small 
delegations.  Turning to the question of level of ambition from the Round and its implications for the 
development dimension, he said that the text of the Doha Declaration indicated clearly that there was a very high level of ambition.  Trade liberaliza tion had potential to create economic opportunities that 
were important for many of the Members.  Elimin ation of export subsidies, significant cuts in 
domestic support and in tariffs, both in developed and in developing c ountries, could add billions per 
year to the global economy.  Dynamic gains fro m increased productivity and innovation, as well as 
gains from services liberalization and movement of temporary workers could provide Members immense opportunities. 
115. Doubts had already arisen about the gains and ma ny felt that the Doha negotiations were not 
on track to achieve an ambitious outcome.  Some felt that the present course of negotiations might 
lead to a minimalist agreement that offered little fo r development.  Members realized that even an 
ambitious outcome of the Doha Round that stimulat ed growth would not benefit every country.  Some 
would face significant transition costs, NFIDCs c ould suffer from rising food prices as subsidies in 
rich countries decreased and others, like Banglad esh, would see their preference margins being 
eroded.  Perhaps the rise in prices of commodities could help some commodi ty-exporting LDCs.  It 
would appear that adjustment costs for some countri es, with limited capacity to bear them, could be 
significant and they would require support and assist ance if they were to benefit from an ambitious 
outcome of the Doha Round.  This support had to come from both the multilateral trade rules and 
targeted assistance from the international community. 
116. The LDCs had been arguing for some time that  a fundamental issue for many of them was 
that they might not be able to take full advant age of trade opportunities being created because of 
significant supply-side and institutional constraints.   The LDCs' ability to compete in world markets 
had been undermined by the absence or inadequacy of the basic machinery of  trade, and a vibrant 
private sector.  The Round could deliver opportunitie s, but it was enhanced competitiveness that was 
key to integrating LDCs into global markets.  These were the development components of the Doha 
Round that Members were so keen to advance.  If the international community was serious about 
distributing the gains to countries at the fringes, th en the development dimens ion had to permeate all 
areas of the negotiations.  The targets of liberaliza tion had to be ambitious.  Simultaneously, adequate 
attention had to be paid to ensuring that the countri es at the margin, particularly the LDCs, were able 
to participate in the gains.  This should be in th e form of specific provisions in the Agreements, and 
programmes to complement them, and not through  "best endeavour" clauses.  The DDA had to be 
translated from rhetoric to reality, to serve development. 
117. The representative of the Dominican Republic
 said she wished to reiterate her country's 
commitment to working towards a successful conclu sion of this development round and a Ministerial 
Conference which would achieve concrete results in  December.  As the Chairman had pointed out, 
little time remained and all delegations needed to step up  their efforts, in particular on the main issues, 
so as to try to move ahead. 
118. In the negotiations on agriculture, her delegati on welcomed the work of the Special Session 
Chairman to try to make more substantive progress in this area.  In this respect, agreement should be 
reached as soon as possible on the methodology for the conversion of specific tariffs into AVEs.  However, speed should not be at the expense of adequate participation by delegations in the 
discussions or of the transparency of the process.  In this respect, her delegation hoped that, once the TN/C/M/17 
Page 24  
 
 methodology discussed in smaller meetings was presen ted to the wider membership, sufficient time 
would be given to other delegations to analyse in detail this important aspect of the negotiations and 
to have the opportunity of making contributions if necessary. 
119. Everyone was aware that the methodology chosen  would have repercussions on the formula 
and on the tariff reductions which w ould have to be applied, which is why this was a technical and 
delicate issue which had to be examined in capitals.  Furthermore, she wished to stress that, for the 
Dominican Republic as a small and vulnerable economy, the market access pillar was of paramount importance in the negotiations on agriculture.  In this respect, her delegati on hoped that appropriate 
S&D treatment would be granted in terms of ta riff reductions, special products and the special 
safeguard mechanism.  Furthermore, it hoped th at substantial reforms would be achieved in the 
domestic support and expo rt competition pillars. 
120. With regard to the negotiations on NAMA, he r delegation recognized that some progress had 
been made and that interesting proposals had been s ubmitted.  In this respect, her delegation wished to 
reiterate that tariff reductions s hould take place on the basis of bound tariffs, as agreed in the July 
Decision.  Furthermore, for countries such as th e Dominican Republic, with  a small and vulnerable 
economy, which had bound all tariffs at low levels , appropriate S&D treatment should be put into 
place, for both tariff reductions and sectoral approaches. 
121. As a small developing country, the Dominican Republic would accept a non-linear formula, 
but this had to include features which would enab le less than full reciprocity and also guide the 
negotiations to an adequate level of ambition, taking  into consideration the flexibilities, and be simple 
and easy to understand so as to ensure transparency. 
122. Turning to the negotiations on services, she poi nted out that the Dominican Republic, as a 
small developing country, had a v ital interest in services, which c onstituted approximately 57 per cent 
of its GDP.  Her country had already submitted its initial offer at the end of 2004, and was working 
hard on its revised offer.  It thus hoped to see the same approach from developed countries, so that 
revised offers would be submitte d with substantive improvements,  in particular in mode 4. 
123. Finally, she wished to draw attention to the Work Programme on Small Economies which was 
being carried out within the framework of the Committee on Trade and Development.  This Work 
Programme was a priority for the Dominican Republic and it hoped that the discussions would continue to advance and reach concrete results at the Ministerial Conference which would allow 
greater integration of small and vulnerable economies in the multilateral trading system. 
124. The representative of India
 said that the fast approaching summer break presented Members 
with a challenging timetable and to ignore the compe lling urgency of progress at this juncture would 
be irresponsible.  Members had to remember that they had to move forward together, or else the 
whole negotiation would falter.  The diverse cons tituencies in the membersh ip needed an assurance 
that their vital concerns would not be neglected.  Balanced progress was needed and Members could 
not afford to fall too far behind in any area of the negotiations. 
125. The unhappy situation facing Members in the nego tiations in agriculture had been flagged by 
many and further delay in resolving the present impasse could only damage the overall process.  A 
solution to the AVE could brook absolutely no delay.  India was encouraged by the recent momentum in the negotiations in NAMA.  The contours of the universe of proposals on the formula and other 
vital aspects of the negotiations were beginning to  emerge with some clarity and this momentum 
should be sustained to arrive at convergence.  Th is would require above all commensurate movement 
in the other areas, a scrupulous adherence to the ma ndate, and eschewing both unrealistic ambition as 
well as precipitating timelines.  TN/C/M/17 
 Page 25 
 
 
 126. Progress in the development cluster was on the other hand a cause for concern.  In the S&D 
cluster, there had been no serious discussion post-Ca ncun of the large number of proposals tabled by 
developing countries.  Indeed, in focusing on genera l principles and approaches, Members might have 
drifted away from the mandate and the need for c ourse correction was urgent.  While progress on the 
S&D cluster was important, the issue of developm ent had much broader dimensions and in that 
connection he wished to associate his delegation w ith the statement by Rwanda on behalf of the 
African Group. 
127. Time might have come for a comprehensive st ocktaking of the development agenda of the 
negotiations.  He wondered how we ll Members were progressing in providing real market access to 
products of interest to developing countries and how  sensitive had they been to the need to preserve 
and, where necessary, enhance policy space and flexibility for developing countries.  
A developmental audit of the nego tiations could not be postponed an y longer.  This would pave the 
way for work to begin in the coming weeks on the outlines of a credible deve lopment package for the 
Hong Kong Ministerial.  On implementation issues there was a mixed story.  The process had been engaged, but real results eluded Members and this would need to change.  India had a particular 
interest in achieving progress on the TRIPS/CBD issue and hoped that concrete indications of 
movement would emerge by the summer break. 
128. Lastly, he wished to say a word on the ser vices negotiations.  His delegation was anxiously 
waiting for the tabling of revised offers, foreseen for the end of May.  It hoped these would present 
opportunities of meaningful market access in sectors and modes of interest to developing countries.  Members could not wait to dream in Hong Kong, th e dream had to be in Geneva, now, and they 
needed to develop credible benchmarks for the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference.  It would bear 
repetition that meaningful results in services rema ined a core Indian demand in the negotiations. 
129. The representative of Honduras
 said that his delegation had often expressed it's country's 
commitment to reaching a successful conclusion of the negotiations of the Doha Round, in the belief 
that this was important for the economic growth an d development projects of all Members.  On this 
basis, he wished to make the following comments. 
130. In the agriculture negotiations, Honduras had been  participating actively and that was why his 
delegation wished to express its concern at the dir ection that the negotiations had recently taken.  
Since there was no efficient and effective system to inform all of the membership of the results of 
ongoing discussions, in particular in consultations w ith small groups, his delegation believed that the 
Chairmen of the negotiating groups, as well as the S ecretariat, should ensure that all Members were 
duly informed, with sufficient time in advance in or der to inform their capitals about meetings and 
take necessary decisions to the benefit of consensus in the negotiating process. 
131. As an agricultural country, Honduras attach ed great importance to the agricultural 
negotiations.  Nevertheless, it believe d that these negotiations would lead to results which, on the one 
hand, would oblige it to reduce tariffs even further a nd, on the other, would leave it continuing to face 
problems brought about by export subsidies and distorting domestic support, as well as tariff peaks 
and escalation on products of interest to it.  In these negotiations, appropriate solutions should be 
found for small economies such as Honduras, in orde r to better integrate such economies into the 
multilateral trading system. 
132. Honduras took its commitments in these multilate ral negotiations very seriously.  That was 
why, despite its scarce resources, it had made a major effort to submit its offer in the area of services.  
Nevertheless, it believed that a bala nce should be struck in the level of ambition across the different 
areas of the negotiations.  While the political will to  undertake substantive reforms in the agricultural 
sector did not exist in some countries, a country such Honduras could not be asked to make bigger 
sacrifices than it had already made. TN/C/M/17 
Page 26  
 
 133. The representative of the European Communities
 said that that the introductory statement of 
the Chairman had given a fair and accurate assessment of the rather gloomy state of play and the need 
for a greater sense of urgency.  The clock was ticking and all Members knew that there was little time 
available between the present and July and also between July and Hong Kong.  Since the July 2004 
Decision, a lot of useful technical work had been  done in agriculture, but also in NAMA, rules and 
trade facilitation.  Members were at a turning point in the negotiations, where an irresistible tendency 
of delegations to hold back and make negative linkag es in view of possible trade-offs at a later stage 
emerged.  Negotiators seemed to have a geneti c predisposition to backload the essentials of 
negotiations to the very last moment.  This had b een seen many times before and in practice it implied 
an accumulation of issues that the membership coul d not possibly cope with when it came to the 
defining moment. 
134. Collectively, Members had to find a way out of this conundrum soon, if they wanted to meet 
the ambitions that Ministers had set for Hong Kong and beyond.  The only way to do so was parallel progress across the board and acknowledging that nothin g was agreed before everything was agreed.  
Members might need a more precise political steer on th e level of ambition to achieve that.  This was 
precisely what was expected from the following week's Ministerial gathering in Paris on market 
access, rules and the development-related aspects.  His delegation's view was that, in all the three 
areas of market access – agriculture, NAMA and ser vices – the objectives had to be the same – real 
improvement in market access.  For NAMA, this meant eating into applied rates, for agriculture, 
substantive bound-rate reductions and tariff rate  quota expansion and for services, opening new 
business opportunities.  Development aspects had to be an integral part of each of these three sectors.  
Members had to live up to the expectations of the July Decision as far as S&D treatment and less than 
full reciprocity were concerned.  This was wh at the DDA was about and there was no doubt that 
Members would come to this.  In services, ther e was huge potential for developing countries in 
mode 4 and beyond.  The rules negotiations, including  trade facilitation, might be somewhat different 
from agriculture and NAMA where Members worked w ith a formula approach, but they were not less 
important in terms of trade liberalisation.  He ag reed with the Chairman that parallel progress in all 
these sectors would demand increasingly text-based negotiations and only then  could Members make 
progress.  By July, progress in all areas of the ne gotiations had to be such that all Members felt 
comfortable that an ambitious agenda in Hong Kong  could be achieved.  That was the very objective 
of the first approximation. 
135. He said that sometimes, and probably more often than not, it was difficult to draw a fine line 
between technical and more substantive political negotiations.  The AVE issue was probably a good 
example because it was an extremely technical and complex issue.  His delegation was determined to have this "iceberg" out of the wa y, which might require a fresh look at the issue from both sides of the 
spectrum.  There were different ways of handling an iceberg – the most obvious, being to get around 
it and head for safer waters.  If nonetheless Members had to go through the iceberg, every possible 
help from the Agriculture Chair was welcomed.  Hi s delegation was encouraged by the Agriculture 
Chair's optimism as far as progress was concerned in the other two pillars of the negotiations.  The 
European Communities attached much importance to a balanced approach overall, across the three 
pillars including the necessary parallelism within the export subsidy pillar.  His delegation also agreed 
with the Agriculture Chair's remarks on cotton.  Memb ers had to live up to the expectation of the July 
Decision, to deal ambitiously and expeditiously with the trade aspects of cotton as part of the 
agriculture negotiations.  On the development asp ects, the international community, including the 
European Union, had heard the appeals of cotto n producers.  The European Trade Commissioner, 
Peter Mandelson, had taken up the ch allenge while in Mali.  Members needed to get down to business 
on the trade side at the Cotton Sub-Committee meeting on the following day. 
136. On S&D, he said that his delegation hoped that the CTD Special Session would begin 
discussions on substance of the Agreement-specific pr oposals.  All Members were aware that in many 
cases, under the surface, were the questions of supply-side constraints and specific needs for  TN/C/M/17 
 Page 27 
 
 
 flexibility and they would eventually have to addr ess these issues as well.  He agreed with Bangladesh 
on the need for further engagement in the area of  environmental goods.  He once again wished to 
register that no progress whatsoever had been made on issues of interest to the European 
Communities such as on the multilateral register fo r wines and spirits and the extension of GI 
protection to products other than wines and spir its.  His delegation still hoped that Members would 
arrive at that point before the Chairman pushed the alarm bell. 
137. He said that his delegation like others was concerned about the overall progress so far and 
wondered how Members could avoid further back -loading of the negotiations.  What Members 
needed was a clear political steer to flesh out leve ls of ambition and to start assembling possible trade-
offs and that was the job of Ministers.  The Paris meeting had to give that steer and help Members to 
enter the negotiating mode that was need ed at this stage of the negotiations. 
138. The representative of Canada  said that her delegation agreed with the Chairman and the 
Chairs of the negotiating bodies on the sense of urge ncy and the need to pick up the pace of the 
negotiations if Members were to meet their goals  for July and December.  Nevertheless, Canada 
remained optimistic about the possibility of pr ogress in the weeks ahead.  Since progress was 
proceeding at a different pace in the various negotia ting bodies, the July firs t approximation could not 
be expected to be uniform in all areas.  However, it was a very useful exercise for further work, so 
that by Hong Kong, Members arrived at a balanced  package.  Members had to be involved in this 
process not only to support the Chairs in their wo rk but also to engage in the necessary dialogue 
between themselves in order to ensure that their interests were reflected well in advance of the 
December meeting. 
139. The representative of Chinese Taipei  said that it was the hope of the membership to table the 
first approximation of modalities by the end of July  leading to an agreement on the full modalities by 
the Hong Kong Ministerial.  However, it was his de legation's feeling and also based on statements 
made by other delegations, that the realization of this aspiration might be difficult.  His delegation 
agreed with the Chairman th at every effort had to be made to avoid a crisis. 
140. He wished to use this opportunity to focus on only one aspect of the negotiations.  His 
delegation, together with many others includi ng Korea and Thailand, had reiterated on many 
occasions, the crucial importance of inclusiveness and transparency of the negotiation process.  
Political ownership of the process and outcomes of th e negotiations was a prerequisite to a successful 
conclusion of the DDA.  His delegation, like many, was gravely concerned about a situation in which 
several important consultations had been carried out by a small group of Members while voices of 
other major stakeholders might not be heard.  It wished to emphasize the importance of a balanced 
outcome without which it would be extremely difficu lt to conclude the Doha Round.  His delegation 
therefore supported the essential role of the Chairs of negotiating groups in integrating all interests 
and sensitivities in the negotiating process. 
141. The representative of Hong Kong, China  said that it seemed to his delegation that good 
progress had been made and was being made in almo st all of the groups.  However, lifting this 
progress to the next level required solving a problem in one group, because effectively progress in all 
groups was at the present being blocked by that problem.  He wished to express gratitude to the Agriculture Chair for his very lucid exposition of the logjam and his reminder to all Members of the real stakes for which they were playing and the im portance particularly for developing countries of a 
serious outcome for this round. 
142. He said the role of a Chair of a Ministerial meeting was similar to that of a mid-wife.  All 
Members were looking forward to the delivery of that bundle of joy in December, but a necessary 
condition for that delivery was active engagement on the part of the parents to be.  However, 
Members seemed to have a problem.  They were only eight months away from the meeting in Hong TN/C/M/17 
Page 28  
 
 Kong and what they had was a picture of the in-laws of the eager couple haggling over the cost of the 
catering arrangements for the wedding banquet.  This  was not a good recipe for progress.  Time was 
short and Members needed to crack the problem of AVEs hopefully before Ministers met in Paris, so that they would get a more precise political steer.  A much clearer level of ambition was required for 
progress over the coming months because without this, it would be quite difficult to address some of 
the issues in all of the groups.  Brinkmanship on technical issues could have very practical 
consequences.  In saying that, time was short.  If Members did not quickly progress now, then they would have to put in tremendous work and effort after the summer to have a successful Ministerial 
Conference in December.  He said that his delega tion believed that the opportunities presented by the 
Round were enormous and Members needed  to deliver substance in Hong Kong. 
143. The representative of Kenya
 said that Members had all agreed to a substantial breakthrough in 
Hong Kong and they were enjoying good political level involvement in their work as had been 
witnessed in Davos, Mombasa and hopefully in the next w eek in Paris.  They had all agreed that time 
was very short and they needed to achieve the objectives for Hong Kong.  Hong Kong, China had said 
that Members had only nine months and in the view of Kenya this time was adequate to conceive and 
deliver and therefore Members should not give up hope.  The main problem was that some 
delegations were pursuing indivi dual ambitions, some of which we re beyond the mandate.  Some 
Members would need to tone down their ambition,  while others would need to understand that 
negotiations were a game of give and take.  There were some, like his delegation, who had given and 
now needed to take something from others. 
144. He also wished to comment on transparency, an issue that had arisen.  His delegation wanted 
to be part of the process and not be dragged along and he did not wish to go into details.  He also 
wished to comment on two specific issues: developm ent and NAMA.  On development, he said that 
the sequencing of issues in the Doha Work Progr amme was for a specific purpose and Ministers 
expected negotiators to complete work on certain  issues especially those related to development.  
Unfortunately, Members had not moved much, but hope fully they could make some progress between 
the present meeting and July.  On S&D, Members had spent more time on the drawing board instead 
of addressing the mandate, which was quite explicit, but they were all now co mmitted to reverting to 
the mandate in order to harvest something by July .  On TRIPS and Public Health, he said the issue 
had been raised by the African Group and he did not wish to revisit it, but hoped Members could 
make some progress by the next General Council meeting. 
145. On NAMA,  the Mombasa mini-Ministerial had produced five formulae which the Chairman 
of the NAMA Negotiating Group had reported on and ve ry good discussions were taking place, with 
Members getting into the substance.  Unfortunately , the five formulae seemed to overlook the issue of 
preferences that was crucially important to slightly more than fifty per cent of the membership.  This 
issue was close to some delegations including Kenya, which did not want it to be left for later but to 
be considered together with the formula.  On th e other five elements, he said that paragraph 1 of 
Annex B needed to be revisited to discern that tho se issues had to be dealt with in their own right, if 
Members were to make some progress. 
146.  In closing the meeting, the Chairman  said that he did not have much to add to his earlier 
statements.  He wished to emphasise and underlin e that Members had not lost hope but had only 
begun the fight.  He was encouraged by the commi tment that they still had, but urged them to do 
another "AVE conversion" by adding value to their verbal commitment and turning it into real actions 
and deeds. 
147. The Trade Negotiations Committee took note  of the statements. 
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