Spain donates 342,000 euros to WTO technical assistance

WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy and the Spanish Secretary of State for Tourism and Trade, Mr. Pedro Mejía, signed the Memorandum of Understanding on the contribution by Spain on 1 July 2006.

“I thank Spain for its generous contribution which will enable us to respond to developing countries' desire to contribute more actively to the WTO debate,” said WTO Director-General. “Many of the WTO’s developing countries are Spanish speaking. We can help them to gain a lot from capacity-building tools that are part of the WTO’s technical assistance programme, such as
regional trade policy courses that were introduced in 2002 and have since been held for the Latin American and the Caribbean region.

“This contribution is part of Spain's commitment to the Multilateral Trading System in a way that, through technical assistance activities, recipient countries in Latin America and the Caribbean can benefit from it,” said Pedro Mejía, Spanish Secretary of State for Tourism and Trade.

The pledge will be used to finance training activities, included courses in Latin American and the Caribbean undertaken in cooperation with the Latin-American Integration Association (ALADI),
the Inter-American Development Bank (IBD), the Institute for the Integration of Latin America and the Caribbean (INTAL), Georgetown University in Washington, DC and the Organization of American States (OAS).

With this new pledge, the contribution of Spain to WTO technical assistance and training activities since 2001 amounts to CHF 2.3 million.