The WTO Eighth Ministerial Conference, held in Geneva in December 2011, agreed that members' work after the conference would broadly follow “Elements for Political Guidance”. The guidance reaffirmed "the positive link between trade and development and call for focused work in the Committee on Trade and Development (CTD) which is to conduct this work in accordance with its mandate and report the results achieved to Ministers at the Ninth Session. Ministers call on WTO Members to fully operationalize the mandate of the CTD as a focal point for development work.”

At the first committee meeting following the conference, members raised a wide range of suggestions on the issues which the committee could work on. For example, some members pointed to the need to more fully implement the CTD's terms of reference. Others suggested that the sharing of experiences and best practices by members on how trade has contributed to development in particular circumstances would be useful. The chairman of the committee intends to hold informal consultations with members to discuss how some of the suggestions can be translated into concrete work. 

Members also discussed a decision of the Work Programme on Electronic-Commerce (document WT/L/843) to “emphasize and reinvigorate the development dimension in the Work Programme particularly through the CTD...” Members felt the need to understand more about the problems and needs of developing countries in the e-commerce area. The idea of holding workshops on issues related to e-commerce and the suggestion to coordinate with other organizations were noted.

The meeting re-elected Ambassador Steffen Smidt of Denmark as the chair of the Sub-Committee on Least-Developed Countries and Ambassador Mothae Anthony Maruping of Lesotho as the chair of the Committee on Trade and Development.