. /.WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONWT/MIN(03)/ST/76
12 September 2003
(03-4884)
MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE
Fifth Session
Cancún, 10 - 14 September 2003Original:  English
BAHRAIN
Statement by H.E. Mr Ali Bin Saleh Al-Saleh
Minister of Commerce
Let me begin by joining others in thanking th e people and Government of the United States of
Mexico for organizing this Ministerial C onference in the beautiful city of Cancún.
I would also like to express our sincere thanks  and gratitude for the warm reception and kind
hospitality extended to us.
It gives me great honour to extend the greetings of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa,
King of Bahrain to President Vicente Fox, Government and people of Mexico.
We are gathered here to discuss the progress of the "Doha Development Work Programme", a
programme we have agreed to follow, monitor, and implement over a period of four years. In this
endeavour, we should not lose sight that the focus of the Doha R ound is "development".  We should
work together to make sure that the world tradin g system embodied in the WTO, is more responsive to
the hopes and concerns of  developing countries.
The Kingdom of Bahrain is a small nation with a long history of strong commitment to free
trade.  Our policies, attitudes, and practices bear  witness to this deep-rooted conviction.  Being a
founding Member of the WTO is a re flection of our natural attitude of integration and cooperation with
the international trading community.  Bahrain has its hopes, like others, not only to gain economic
progress through trade, but also to achieve sust ained development.  We are working hard to make
Bahrain a hub for trade and investment in our regi on, and we are also adopting policies to improve the
already open environment for local and foreign businesses.
In parallel, we have submitted our initial o ffer in trade in services, which has been
acknowledged by our partners as "broad and generous".  We were among the few to submit such anoffer, and we have committed ourselves to revise this offer to demonstrate its meaningfulness and
also to further improve it.  We are hopeful that these efforts on our part w ill be recognized and
reciprocated by others when we su bmit our requests in goods and services.
I am quite sure that Ministers have come to  this gathering with a desire for unity and
cooperation and with a firm resolve to overcome  the obstacles and disagreements that usually
accompany negotiations.  It is our duty to truly unde rstand the various concerns and find compromises
to potential problems.
Let me share with you our ideas on some of the issues before us.First, let us admit among ourselves that we still need more time to absorb and digest the
introduction of new areas of trade into the trading system.  Let us not overload the boat unnecessarily atWT/MIN(03)/ST/76
Page 2
this stage.  Instead, we should all be convinced that  they will bring benefits to all countries before we
embrace them.
Second, the concerns of developing countries  on implementation issues are very genuine.
Implementation is the test of our real intentions.  Let us work together to eliminate misconceptions
and to achieve the objectives that we laid out in Doha.
Third, we are aware of the proposal s and discussions in the area of industrial tariffs, an area of
great importance to Bahrain.  However, we do not  believe that the current discussions take our
aspirations into consideration. Negotiations should not lose sight of the interests and capabilities of
developing countries.  Studies have shown that developing c ountries have given more than their
equitable share in trade liberalization.  Therefore, developing countries shoul d have access to developed
markets, before they are asked to pay more in market access.
The Government of the Kingdom of Bahrai n would like to emphasize the importance of
speeding up negotiation on the accession of developing c ountries to the WTO, in particular the Arab
countries and specifically for a major trading nation like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Thesecountries should not be required to ma ke more of a commitment than existing Members.  On this point, I
would like to take this opportunity to warmly congratulate the Governments of the newly acceded
Members Nepal and Cambodia.
Finally on behalf of the Kingdom of Bahrain, I w ould like to repeat our thanks and gratitude to
the Government and people of the United States of Me xico for hosting this Conference. We also thank
the Director-General of the WTO and his staff, all Member countries and all the participating
delegations for their contribution and valuable  efforts to make this Conference a success.
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