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on technical assistance
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Austrian Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Labour Dr. Martin
Bartenstein and WTO Director General Dr. Supachai Panitchpakdi signed
the Memorandum of Understanding on Austria´s contribution during the
opening day of the Fifth WTO Ministerial Conference in Cancún, Mexico.“For the
second time, Austria makes a substantial contribution to the DDA Global
Trust Fund,” Minister Bartenstein said. “Announcements by leaders of the
developed world should be followed by concrete action,” he added. “We
strongly support the idea that developing countries should be offered a
level playing field through a joint effort to build up their capacities.
I am, therefore, proud that my country contributes 310.000 Swiss francs
to the Fund.”
“I thank
Austria for its great generosity,” said Dr. Supachai. “Thanks to such
contributions, we have been able to greatly improve WTO technical
assistance activities. While the participation of developing and
least-developed countries in the work of the WTO has significantly
increased, there is still much that can be done to help them truly
benefit from the multilateral trading system”.
The Doha
Development Agenda Global Trust Fund was created following the WTO
Ministerial Conference in Doha, in November 2001, which launched a new
round of negotiations. |
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The Government of Austria, on 10 September 2003, pledged to contribute
310,000 Swiss francs to the Doha Development Agenda Global Trust Fund
of the WTO.