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WTO
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Mike
Moore's speeches
Renato
Ruggiero's speeches, 1995-99
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“The aim of the development assistance allocation is
to increase the participation of the developing countries
and to create greater opportunities for them to influence
the work of the WTO”, said Mr. Pagrotsky. "In
the Swedish view, we are convinced that the very poorest
of the countries within the WTO system are in need of
extra support, partly in order to protect their own
interests in ongoing negotiations and trade disputes and
partly in order to be able to carry out the necessary
adjustments prescribed by WTO agreements. Sweden's
contribution to the WTO fund is an important building
stone in the work of establishing fair rules of the game
in the field of trade.“I
am very grateful to Sweden for its contribution to the
Trust Fund", said Mike Moore. "At the moment,
the WTO can only respond to an increasing demand for
technical assistance through these types of generous
contributions. Unfortunately, the WTO's regular budget
for technical assistance of CHF 741, 000 is insufficient
to meet all the requests from least developed and
developing countries, and economies in transition.”
The
Director-General has appealed to all WTO Member
governments to raise the regular budget for technical
assistance. A group of countries, including Sweden, has
proposed to increase the regular budget for technical
assistance by CHF 10 million. Sweden is one of the
initiators of the WTO Trust Fund set up in 1999.
Mr.
Moore and Mr. Pagrotsky issued a joint article(1)
on Monday 24 July which called for the improvement
through greater technical support of developing
countries' capacity to participate in the work of the
WTO: “All 137 member countries must be given real
opportunities to participate in the decision-making
process and to make their voices heard”.
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Note:
The article was jointly published on 24 July by
Dagens Nyheter (Sweden) and the Guardian (United
Kingdom). Back
to text
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