. /.  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION   
WT/MIN(11)/ST/31 
16 December 2011 
 (11-6591) 
MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE 
Eighth Session Geneva, 15 - 17 December 2011 Original:   Spanish 
 
  
SPAIN 
 
Statement by H.E. Mr Alfredo Bonet 
Secretary of State for Foreign Trade 
   I should like to begin by thanking Chairm an Aganga and our hosts for the excellent 
organization of this Eighth Ministerial Conference. 
 
 I should also like to give a warm welcome to the countries that have completed their 
accession process since the last session:  Samoa,  Vanuatu, Montenegro and, especially, the 
Russian Federation.  The accession of the Russian Federation to the WTO will give great impetus to the development of its trade with the rest of the world, confirming the importance of participation in 
the multilateral trading system in economic and social development. 
 
 We are also very pleased at the agreement reached yesterday to revise the Agreement on 
Government Procurement, which already includ es 41 WTO Member countries and which, we hope, 
further countries will soon join.  
 At this Ministerial Conference it is essential that we keep our efforts focused on finding a 
solution to the current impasse of the Doha Deve lopment Agenda, since we cannot go back on our 
task of concluding the negotiations with a balan ced agreement that is beneficial for everyone, but 
especially for the economic development of the least developed countries.  It is true that we have 
made advances in some areas that are of interest to  those countries, such as the waiver on services, but 
we need to go much further. 
 
 The situation of the world economy and the re cent developments affe cting it have shown us 
once again the important role that the trade in goods  and services and international investments play 
as the engine of global growth.  Consequently, we must  make an effort to ensure that we are all able 
to benefit from greater trade liberalization accompanied by a strengthening of the rules. 
 
 Our objective to complete the negotiations of the Doha Round can only be reached if all the 
Members show strong political will to accept th e commitments necessary through a pragmatic and 
comprehensive approach.  This Eighth Ministerial Conference provides us with the opportunity to set 
out clear political guidelines for the negotiations and to  formulate a concrete and strict work plan for 
2012.  Without calling into question the single undertaki ng, that plan should allow us to advance in a 
selective manner in those areas that we consider to be sufficiently ripe, such as, for example, trade 
facilitation, non-tariff barriers, special and differen tial treatment for the developing countries or the 
reforms of the dispute settlement mechanis m and the trade policy review mechanism. 
  I hope that the debates taking place these days w ill be beneficial in this connection and I look 
forward to being able to meet again as soon possi ble to complete the negotiation of that global, 
ambitious and balanced agreement that we all seek. WT/MIN(11)/ST/31 
Page 2  
 
   It is within our own hands to continue to advance along the path of multilateralism, 
strengthening the role of the WTO as its keystone:  a role that goes far beyond the mere umbrella for 
trade negotiations and whose importance has been cl early shown in recent years.  The work of the 
WTO as a guarantor of trade agreements, ensu ring the observance of the rules and maximum 
transparency, as well as its function of supervising the trade policies of its Members, has acted as an 
effective barrier against protectionism.  Its role  as a key element in establishing a framework of 
structures for global economic governance is now mo re and more obvious and we believe that the 
WTO must be open to dealing with new issues of interest to everyone, such as the relationship of trade with the environment, energy and food security.  
 For all these reasons, achieving progress in th e Doha negotiations and strengthening the role 
of the WTO are not now merely convenient tasks, but are really urgent and necessary in order to help 
to strengthen more solid and balanced growth in the world economy in the next few years. 
 
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