WT/MIN(24)/ST/68  
26 February  2024 
(24-1561) Page: 1/3 
Ministerial Conference  
Thirteenth Session  
Abu Dhabi, 26 -29 February 2024  Original: English  
 
STATEMENT BY H.E. DR RUI MIGUÊNS DE OLIVEIRA  
MINISTER OF INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE  
ANGOLA  
On behalf of the government of Angola, allow me, in warmly greeting all the distinguished Ministers, 
other heads of delegations and participants, to express special gratitude for the extraordinary 
organization and welcome provided by the United Arab Emirat es and this beautiful city of 
Abu Dhabi in the person of the chairperson of this 13th Ministerial Conference of the WTO, 
His Excellency Minister of State for Foreign Trade, Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi . 
 
Angola is particularly grateful for the exceptional  commitment with which the Director -General of 
the WTO, Dr Ngozi Okonjo -Iweala, has advanced the organization, promoting key proposals, 
coordinating important negotiations, and preparing fundamental decisions to preserve and develop 
global multilateral tra de. Furthermore, the General Director brought to the WTO the remarkable 
ability to patiently listen to all opinions, dialogue with fraternity, and make committed decisions in 
favor of those who suffer most, which is a profound characteristic of traditional  African values. The 
Director -General also placed the many challenges and problems of developing and least -developed 
countries at the center of the WTO 's attention. Our thanks also extend to all the presidents of the 
WTO general council, other councils, co mmittees, and working groups, to its diligent Secretariat, 
and to all the staff, collaborators, and workers who, in Geneva and Abu Dhabi, created the best 
conditions for the MC13 to become a success.  
 
Angola is also thrilled to approve and solemnly receive  two new Member states in this MC13: our 
African oceanic friends from the Comoros and a fraternal companion of the long struggles for national 
liberation, who is our brother Timor -Leste. Be welcome!  
 
The government and the people of Angola are deeply conce rned about the deterioration of the global 
geopolitical and economic situation, which has profound negative impacts on world trade, seriously 
affecting developing and least -developed countries. Unfortunately, in the last decade, we have 
witnessed a mountin g tide of practices and ideas turning against economic interdependence and 
multilateral international trade. The trade restrictions and subsidies that started shyly being used 
after the global financial crisis of 2007 -2008 seriously increased in the last f our years as 
governments responded to the global pandemic turmoil, dramatic ongoing war in Ukraine, and, most 
recently, the huge violent conflict in the Gaza strip or the unacceptable attacks to trading ships in 
the Red Sea. Many developed countries and em ergent economies produced countless protectionist 
measures to secure strategic supply chains and rush into trade -distorting policies.  Taken too far, 
these measures may open the door to alliance -oriented policies that can irretrievably fragment, if 
not dest roy, the global trading system. Then, they might critically backfire if short supply chains 
become more fragmented and vulnerable, thus facing ineffectively localized, regional, or retrieving 
global economic shocks. Other than rampant inflation, including food supplies to sum up to food 
security challenges, developing and least -developed countries are facing nowadays sharping reduced 
Foreign Direct Investments that are already increasingly concentrated among geopolitical aligned 
countries. It is unnecessary  to add to all these severe problems the existential gravity of climate 
change and environmental sustainability that become dramatic realities, especially catastrophic 
among many developing countries.  
 
Despite all these grievous challenges, Angola, as Member of the WTO since 1996, still believes that 
thriving international multilateral trade goes hand in hand with global prosperity and stability. 
Indeed, trade has continued to deliver even during recent crises, showing that it has great potential WT/MIN(24)/ST/68  
 
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  to contrib ute to higher living standards and more significant economic opportunities. In recent 
decades, world trade has done much to reduce poverty and inequality between countries. Yet we 
must all frankly acknowledge that it has left too many people behind in leas t-developed countries 
that cannot avail into global value chains and are often the firsts to suffer from environmental 
degradation and resource conflict.  
 
Angola believes that many of today 's most pressing global problems will not be solved without fair 
international multilateral trade and increasing support to the only international organization 
representing the past, present, and future of multilateral global trade, the WTO. We cannot 
overcome the climate crisis and get to net zero greenhouse gas emission s without multilateral trade. 
We need international trade to get low -carbon technology and the respective services to everywhere 
they are required. We need fair international multilateral trade to overcome the digital divide that 
marginalizes developing an d least -developed countries from the benefits of digital trade and 
e-commerce.  
 
We know that navigating trade policies through the current turbulent period is challenging. But 
keeping world trade open and looking for new opportunities for closer cooperati on will be essential 
to build on existing gains and to help deliver solutions to climate change and other pressuring global 
and future challenges. Therefore, the WTO is critical in charting a way forward that benefits world 
populations, especially from dev eloping and least -developed countries. WTO state Members must 
cooperate tirelessly to strengthen the multilateral trading system and demonstrate that our own 
common organization can adapt to a fast -changing world. For Angola, the WTO remains the only 
forum  that brings all economies together to advance trade reform, growth, and development.  We 
cannot afford to stand still, and this MC13 must deliver.  
 
To open, we must start with our own common house by firmly delivering a serious ministerial 
declaration committed to an institutional, functional, and deliberative reform of the WTO, reinforcing 
its leading role to implement through fair rules and agreemen ts multilateral world trade favorable 
to all their Members and new sustainable development. Other than the promising  "reform by doing " 
already implemented in several WTO councils and committees, it is crucial to end the Appellat e Body 
paralysis crisis that  comes from the end of 2019, a demand mandated already by MC12. While we 
have been working to take full advantage and to update the 27 articles of the Rules of Procedures 
for the Settlement of Disputes (DSU), we trust that this Conference will agree on an agenda to 
revitalize during this year the Appellate Body, but taking into account that WTO arbitration and 
dispute processes must always consider the singular needs of LDCs and other developing countries 
in technical assistance and capacity building.  
 
Angola and many Members positively engaged in consensually approving some of the most urgent 
decisions that are drafted for the final Conference declarations under debate . It is the case of the 
second phase of the WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies targetin g illegal subsidies contributing 
to overcapacity and overfishing. Notwithstanding, we recall again that LDCs and other developing 
countries are not the contributors to overfishing and overcapacity  and, therefore, should be 
exempted from some of the agreeme nt disciplines on certain subsidies with relevant social impact, 
thus using the congruent special and differential treatment clauses, including the complete exclusion 
of artisanal and small -scale fishing that are the main traditional livelihood of some of our coastal 
communities in Angola and certainly in most LDCs with maritime borders.  
 
Among the other Conference decisions that seem far from controversial and congruently consensual, 
Angola emphasizes the urgent extension up to the next MC14 of the morato rium on the imposition 
of customs duties on electronic transmissions, and the renewal of the MC12 Paragraph 8 Mandate 
of the TRIPS waiver Decision on COVID -19 vaccines and its enlargement to diagnostics and 
therapeutics . We also hope that this Conference i s going to approve the development of the 
declaration in response to Public Stock Holding  (PSH) for Food security emergencies  already adopted 
at the MC12 by deciding on the implementation of a serious work program and concrete agenda on 
substantive food sec urity and livelihoods package able to help the LDCs and net food -importing 
developing countries (NFIDCs) increase their resilience to food security crisis. So, we must comply 
with what is established on the three pillars of decisions in the agricultural se ctor, namely 
regarding the minimis on Domestic Support, Market Access and Export Competition . This 
Declaration must also include the critical exemption of customs duties and other taxes on 
international food aid received by developing and LDCs in emergent situations . 
 WT/MIN(24)/ST/68  
 
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  For the government and the people of Angola, this is the time and the place to address the 
considerable development imbalances in WTO Agreements definitively and to complete the Doha  
"Development Round " mandate to finally support continuously the fair integration of developing 
countries and LDCs in global multilateral trade. It seems widely recognized by most state Members 
that several key WTO agreements, from Agriculture to TRIPS, lack the promised provisions to fully 
integrate developing and LDCs in multilateral trade through Special and Differential Treatment 
(S&DT), regulation of subsidies, and allowing supported space to promote our own 
industrialization nowadays an intrinsic part of sustainable and green development . Angola 
is sure that this MC13 will reaffirm and revitalize S &DT exemptions and flexibilities provided to 
developing countries, particularly least -developed countries, including in the growing divided field of 
digital trade and e -commerce. Angola reiterates the leading im portance in these dividing 
matters of the G90 Ten Agreement -Specific Proposals on Special and Differential 
Treatment (S&DT ), and we hope that this Conference will undoubtedly approve a serious 
declaration supporting the document, thus recognizing the provi sions of special and differential 
treatment for developing and LDC Members as an integral permanent part of WTO Agreements.  
 
Angola was scheduled to graduate from the LDC category in 2021 after rescheduled for this year of 
2024, a timeline already recentl y repostponed by the UN due to the huge evident negative impacts 
of the global pandemic crisis, and other current economic turmoil in our economy, finances, and 
social fabric. As a consequence of our experience, we would like to reiterate the need to 
mobil ize the WTO and its Agreements to facilitate a smooth and supported transition for 
Members after graduation from the LDC category.  Thus, building from the recent Decision 
adopted by the WTO General Council in WT/L/1172 on Duty Free and Quota Free 
preferenc es in favo ur of countries graduated from the LDC 's category,  this Conference 
should consistently adopt a firm Declaration to enable future graduated countries to continue to 
benefit from the flexibilities currently enjoyed by LDCs, thus concretizing a sust ainable exit from the 
category.  
 
Finally, the government of Angola solemnly reaffirms the importance of the multilateral trading 
system under the WTO agreements and rules to successfully address the global challenges, from the 
environment to poverty eradi cation, fully materializing the UN  2030 Agenda of Sustainable 
Development Goals (SDGs) through a novel re -globalization in which multilateral trade will 
definitively become fair, inclusive, and engaged to the causes of developing and least -developed 
countr ies. 
 
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