SEE ALSO:
press releases
WTO news
Mike Moore's speeches
Renato Ruggiero's speeches,
1995-99
|
This is one of
the main conclusions of the WTO's Director-General, Renato Ruggiero, in a report(1) to the
General Council on the Organization's first year. Having discussed a number of new issues
facing the multilateral trading system, Mr Ruggiero calls for "essentially a
non-confrontational" agenda for the WTO's first Ministerial Conference scheduled for
December 1996 in Singapore. He comments: "The agenda for
that meeting will include an evaluation of progress in implementing the Uruguay Round
commitments, including the obligation for the Ministerial Conference to review progress in
areas ranging from trade and the environment to the impact of the Round on least-developed
countries. This means that the Singapore agenda should be essentially a
non-confrontational one, and we should be on our guard against any attempts to make it
anything else. Likewise the future work of the WTO, to which we all hope Singapore will
give a fresh impetus, has some clear agreed directions. And even at the frontier of the
multilateral system -the suggested new agenda items - I am confident that we will be able
to ensure that the system continues to move forward, as it must, on the basis on
consensus."
The report
reviews the work of all the WTO representative bodies including those dealing with
agriculture, dispute settlement, textiles and clothing, services, intellectual property
and regional trading arrangements. With respect to the first years of implementing the
Uruguay Round results it tackles the following: first, fulfilment of notification
requirements; second, implementation of substantive commitments to bring domestic
legislation into conformity with WTO obligations and to implement scheduled increases in
market access; and, third, the fulfilment of other tasks laid down in the WTO agreements.
On
notifications, the report notes, for instance, a rather negative situation with respect to
the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures where less than one-quarter of the
Members have notified subsidy programs. On the other hand, almost 90 per cent of the
Members required to notify integration programmes under the Agreement on Textiles and
Clothing have done so. With respect to the implementation of substantive commitments, Mr.
Ruggiero concludes:
"We made
a good beginning this year with respect to some aspects of the implementation of the
Uruguay Round results. But the coming year will be even more crucial. Implementation must
continue, in some instances at an accelerated pace to make up for inadequate progress this
year."
In reviewing
possible additional topics for multilateral consideration, Mr Ruggiero looks at
regionalism, investment and competition policies as well as, briefly, arguments on the
linking of internationally recognized labour standards to the trading system.
(1)"Overview
of Developments in International Trade and the Trading System", available free from
the Secretariat of the World Trade Organization. |
|
