WTO NEWS: SPEECHES — DG ROBERTO AZEVÊDO


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> Roberto Azevêdo’s speeches

  

Excellencies,

Ladies and gentlemen,

Good morning.

It is my pleasure to welcome you all to Geneva — and to the 29th Geneva Week.

You are here at a very opportune time.

    Firstly because you will have a chance to participate in the important General Council meeting on Wednesday — the last one for the year.

    And secondly because we have very recently had a major breakthrough in our work to implement the Bali Package.

Yesterday marked a year since the gavel came down at the Ministerial Conference in Bali to agree the 10 decisions which we now call the Bali Package.

That package constituted a huge success for the WTO. It was the first multilateral outcome in the history of the organization.

But, despite that hard-won success, we ran into some trouble in implementing what had been agreed.

Since July we had an impasse which has had a paralyzing effect on negotiations across the board.

The impasse related to the political link between two of the Bali decisions — the Decision on Public Stockholding for Food Security Purposes, and the Trade Facilitation Agreement.

But I'm pleased to say that 10 days ago we resolved this impasse.

WTO members came together in a Special General Council meeting and took a number of important decisions.

First, they clarified the Bali Decision on Public Stockholding for Food Security Purposes to say that the peace clause agreed in Bali will remain in force until a permanent solution is found. It also established an accelerated timeframe for the negotiations. This was a key issue for one member in particular. 

I know food security is also an important issue for many of you, and so I can assure you that this clarification does not in any way compromise the policy space that exists in the agreements today.

Second, members adopted the protocol of amendment which formally inserts the Trade Facilitation Agreement into the WTO rulebook.

This clears the path for the Trade Facilitation Agreement to be implemented and come into force.

Members will now go ahead and ratify the Agreement, following their domestic procedures.

The Agreement will deliver real benefits. It is estimated that it will reduce trade costs by up to 15% in developing countries.

This will provide an economic boost while also supporting regional integration which I know is an immediate goal for many developing countries — particularly in Africa.

Moreover, members will receive help to deliver these trade-facilitating reforms.

The Agreement states that assistance and support should be provided to help developing countries achieve the capacity to implement it.

So, for those countries with less-developed customs infrastructure, the Agreement will mean a boost in the technical assistance that is available to them.

This is a first for the WTO.

And to ensure that this commitment is honoured, I worked with the coordinators of the Africa Group, the LDC Group and the Africa Caribbean and Pacific Group at the WTO.

We decided the best approach was to create a new initiative — called the Trade Facilitation Agreement Facility.

This facility will ensure that LDCs and developing countries get the help they need to develop projects and access the necessary funds to improve their border procedures, with all the benefits that that can bring.

The Facility is already in place and it became formally operational when members took this decision last week.

And donors are already very interested and involved.

We have already received a great deal of support and interest — and we have also built strong partnerships with a number of organizations in support of this work, including the World Bank.

So I urge you to look at how this Facility and the various other trade facilitation projects can support you.

Members took a third decision last week as well — which was arguably the most important of all. It concerns the WTO's post-Bali work.

With this decision, members agreed that this work will resume immediately and that they will engage constructively on the implementation of all the Bali ministerial decisions. 

This means taking forward:

  1. the decisions on agriculture and cotton,
  2. the monitoring mechanism, which originated from an Africa Group proposal, and
  3. the LDC decisions on duty-free quota-free, the services waiver and rules of origin.

It is vital that we use the momentum we have now to take these decisions forward with the priority they deserve.

Moreover, this decision means agreeing the work programme on the remaining issues of the Doha Development Agenda.

Under the decision taken last Thursday, all 160 WTO members committed to delivering the work programme by a new target date of July 2015.

I think this is an important moment — and a real opportunity.

The big, tough Doha issues of agriculture, services and industrial goods will all be back on the table.

I urge you to engage in the discussions that will take place between now and July, to ensure that the outcomes reflect your concerns.

But I would also urge you to focus a critical eye on what is important for you now.

Focus on what is truly important — and what you think will be doable.

We can achieve a great deal here, but if we over-reach then we will simply get stuck once again — and I think that is the worst-case scenario for all of us, but particularly for developing countries.

So please get engaged in the discussion.

We will all be here to listen to you and support you in any appropriate way that we can.

These next few months will be critical.

There has been positive news in other areas recently as well — indeed, I think it has been a good year for the WTO.

I am talking specifically about the Information Technology Agreement — or ITA for short.

The original ITA was struck in 1996 and has contributed to the massive increase in trade in information technology products since then.

In November we heard news of a promising breakthrough which could help lead to an expansion of the Agreement to cover a range of new products.

It is estimated that this expansion would eliminate tariffs on around 1 trillion dollars of IT products — and thereby contribute an estimated $190 billion to annual global GDP.

So this could be very big news.

Some members are also pursuing other initiatives, such as the negotiations on environmental goods.

So there is a lot going on in many different areas.

I invite you to use your time this week to take a look at all of this work — and to get involved.

And of course providing a seat at the table to negotiate all of these issues is just one thing that the WTO does for developing countries.

There are many other areas of our work which provide positive, practical help:

  • The very process of acceding to the WTO can be very beneficial. Countries taking the substantial reforms needed in order to join were found to grow around 2.5 per cent faster for several years afterwards.
  • By applying rules — and monitoring adherence to them — we provide a more equitable playing field and a more predictable global trade environment.
  • With the dispute settlement body, we provide a way to settle trade disputes in a fair and open manner.
  • And of course we help to build trading capacity by providing technical assistance.

Indeed, while negotiations are reaching a crucial period, we are also approaching an important moment in the Aid for Trade calendar. 

I'm sure you are familiar with this initiative. It was launched by members nearly 10 years ago and has yielded very positive results.

It plays an important role in helping developing countries, especially the LDCs, build their supply-side capacity and trade-related infrastructure — thereby helping them to participate effectively in the global economy.

The 5th Global Review of Aid for Trade is scheduled to be held at the end of June 2015. 

Underpinning this Global Review is an extensive monitoring and evaluation exercise, which the WTO has recently launched.

It will examine the actions that are being taken to reduce trade costs and their associated impacts.

The exercise is based on electronic self-assessment questionnaires and a call for case stories — and it relies on your input.

I would therefore urge all of you to ensure that your governments fill out the electronic questionnaire and submit it before the deadline of the end of the month.

The aim is to draw lessons from the experiences of the trade and development community with the hope of improving our work in the future.

Indeed, I will be using the event to bring together numerous key and high-level figures — heads of agencies, donor countries and regional development banks — to see what more we can do to support you to build your trading capacity and further the good work that is already being done.

So this will be an important event.

It is also an important time for the Enhanced Integrated Framework for the LDCs — of which the WTO is a key partner.

The EIF is now up for evaluation and I have been arguing strongly for this initiative to be continued into a new phase, so that it can continue to assist LDCs to become more active players in the global trading system.

I hope we will hear positive news on this in the near future.

So this is — in many ways — an important time for the multilateral trading system.

And it's an excellent time for you to be visiting Geneva and learning more about these issues. 

So welcome once again. I wish you a very productive week.

I know that the Secretariat has put a lot of effort into getting this week ready for you — so I hope you can make the most of it.

I am sure you will hear more about everything that I've mentioned this morning in the different sessions during Geneva Week, and in the General Council meeting on Wednesday.

I look forward to your engagement on all of these issues in the weeks and months to come.

Let me now give the floor to the Chairman of the General Council, Ambassador Jonathan Fried, to share his thoughts with you.

Thank you — have a great week.

 

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