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The French Minister of State for Foreign Trade, Mr.
François Huwart, signed in Geneva a memorandum of
understanding with the WTO Director-General, Mr. Mike
Moore. This voluntary contribution by France in the form
of a special fund from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of
1million euros over the period 2000-2003 (i.e.
approximately 1.6 million francs per year) will benefit
first and foremost the least-developed countries and the
African countries.According
to Mr. Huwart, “the French Government wanted to make
an added effort to contribute to the financing of
technical assistance activities organized by the WTO on
behalf of the developing countries to help them play
their full role in the multilateral trading system. By
doing so, France hopes to ensure enhanced integration of
the developing countries, in particular the poorest among
them, in the work of the World Trade Organization with a
view, inter alia, to the launching of a global round of
negotiations. In the same spirit, France will be
contributing to the financing of the Conference of
African Trade Ministers to be held in Libreville from 13
to 15 November 2000.”
“I
am most grateful to France for its contribution to the
Technical Assistance Fund”, said Mike Moore.
“It is only thanks to such generous contributions
that WTO can meet the increasing requests for technical
assistance from the least-developed countries, the
developing countries and the economies in transition.
Unfortunately, the ordinary WTO budget for technical
assistance, which amounts to only 741,000 Swiss francs,
is insufficient.”
The
Director-General urged all Member Governments of the WTO
to increase their contributions to the ordinary budget
for technical assistance. France expressed its support
for such an increase.
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