. /.  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  WT/MIN(05)/ST/154 
17 December 2005 
 (05-6167) 
MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE 
Sixth Session Hong Kong, 13 - 18 December 2005 Original:   English 
 
  
MALDIVES 
 
Statement by HE Mr Mohamed Jaleel
 
Minister of Economic Development and Trade  
   Allow me to congratulate you on your appoint ment to this esteemed position and applaud you 
on your credible efforts.  Let me also reassure you that you have the full support of my Government 
towards achieving the desirable results from this 6
th  Ministerial Conference. 
  Let me take this opportunity to express our gratitude to the Government and people of 
Hong Kong, China for the kind hospitality extended to us.  Let me also join my colleagues in 
congratulating the Director-General Mr Pascal Lamy for his appointment and extend to him, our continued support towards achieving fair and free world trade. 
 
 I would also like to take this opportunity to  welcome Saudi Arabia and Tonga to the World 
Trade Organization and wish them every success in their endeavours.   The Republic of Maldives is a small and vulne rable economy.  Geographically we are a series 
of 1,200 islands spread across the Indian Ocean. our natural environment, flora and fauna have 
enabled the Maldives to become a popular tourist destination.  Along with tourism, our fishing industry has taken the stake of sustaining our economy.   We are however, faced with the difficult ch allenges associated with small islands, least 
developed countries and fragile economies and envi ronments.  Years of our development can be 
washed away with a single wave, like the one we  experienced on 26 December 2004.  The tragic 
tsunami devastated our economy;  damaged our envi ronment;  and caused many to lose their lives and 
livelihoods.  A large portion of our population is intern ally displaced.  At the same time, we are forced 
to compete in the globalizing world economy and trade,  
 Six days before the tsunami struck our nation;   the United Nations General Assembly decided 
to graduate my country from the list of LDCs.  With our determination and tireless efforts, on 
28 November 2005, the General Assembly adopted an other resolution to delay the implementation of 
our graduation for three years.  
 While this is the case, our Government is working intensively on ways of developing and 
diversifying our economy to fully integrate into the Multilateral Trading System.  We are entirely 
import reliant for all our development and investment  needs.  Unpredictable and rising oil prices are a 
constant threat to our developmen t.  Our reliance on tourism and fisheries industries has thus, made us 
economically vulnerable and enviro nmentally fragile.  For these reasons, Mr Chairman, my country 
falls into three of the WTO's most unique categories.  We are least developed, vulnerable and small. 
 
 Graduation will fundamentally affect the inte rnational trade regime we must operate in, 
including consequences for the tariffs charged in so me markets on our core value-added trade.  We WT/MIN(05)/ST/154 
Page 2  
 
 call on the WTO membership to support with utmost  flexibility to cater the needs of economies such 
as the Maldives.  We also support and call on the WTO to favourably consider the small economies 
work programme mandated by the Doha Development Agenda.  In particular, we request the WTO to 
take due consideration of the Maldives' vulnera bility in the context of the Communique number 
WVMTN(05)JZ2 dated l6 December 2005 entitled "Ministerial Meeting of Small, Vulnerable 
Economies". 
  We support the dual objectives of the negotiations, namely, to ensure fair and open trade; to 
accelerate the development of developing and least de veloped countries.  We are in favour of opening 
world markets on a fair and equitable basis.  We benefit from access to some of those markets and we 
want to build up our export trade.  We look to our partners in the developed world to agree on viable 
arrangements from this Conference.  This in turn , should pave the way to preserve the margin of 
preferences required due to our special conditions.  That is why the development focus of these 
negotiations is so crucially important for us.  
 We have welcomed the Doha Development Age nda particularly on the provision of technical 
assistance to LDCs.  In order to meaningfully ex ecute the Doha Development Agenda, it is essential 
that such assistance be locked into and guaranteed within the final agreement.   Hence, we offer our 
grateful support and welcome the aid for trade initiative including the emphasis on formulation of 
trade policies, measures for trade creation, research  and development and strengthening the national 
legal instruments and institutions for effective impl ementation of those measures.  Moreover, we also 
urge the importance of developing our infrastructur es with special focus on the development of the 
financial sector.   With regards to the services sector, we already ha ve a very open market in the Maldives.  As I 
have already noted, our main income generating indust ry is tourism.  The industry is highly reliant on 
the efficient operation of other associated servic es such as banking, insurance, transport and 
communications, all of which make their own contri bution to our economy.  State-of-the-art service 
providers are welcome in the Maldives, and we w ill work with them in our mutual interests. 
  Despite these challenges, my country wishes  to maintain our hope for a positive outcome 
from the Doha Development Round.  We intend to pl ay a full and constructive part in the multilateral 
trading system and the world economy.  We appeal to all our partners within the WTO to work 
positively together to achieve a viable and forwar d-looking set of agreements which do not exclude 
the real concerns of small and vulnerable economies.  
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