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WTO: 2005 PRESS RELEASES

Press/413
12 July 2005
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE

Spain contributes 320,000 euros to WTO technical assistance

On 24 June 2005, the Government of Spain donated EUR 320,000 (CHF 493,760) to the Doha Development Agenda Global Trust Fund. This contribution will be used to finance four technical assistance activities for Latin American countries, as well as the development of three CD-ROMs in Spanish for distance learning.

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“I am very grateful to Spain for its contribution to WTO technical assistance activities,” said WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi. “Many of the WTO’s developing countries are Spanish speaking. They will gain a lot from capacity-building tools such as distance learning. Technical assistance is essential to enhance institutional and human capacity in developing countries. Increasingly, developing countries are expressing the desire to contribute more actively to the WTO debate. We can help them, through technical assistance. We will only reach a successful outcome to the Doha round of negotiations with the full participation of all WTO Members.”

Alfredo Bonet, Spanish Secretary General for Foreign Trade, underlined the “strong increase, for the second consecutive year, of the Spanish contribution to the Global Trust Fund as a way of supporting the participation of developing countries in the multilateral trading system, in particular that of Latin American and Caribbean countries.”

The Doha Development Agenda Global Trust Fund finances activities which aim to enhance developing countries’ participation in the WTO negotiations. With this new pledge, the contribution of Spain to WTO technical assistance activities since 1995 amounts to CHF 1,116,686.