DEVELOPMENT: SMALL ECONOMIES

Work programme on small economies

Small economies face specific challenges in participating in world trade due to lack of economy of scale or limited natural resources, for example. The Doha Declaration mandates the General Council to make recommendations as to what trade-related measures could improve the integration of small economies into the multilateral trading system, without creating a separate category of WTO members.

Ministers at the Doha Ministerial Conference in 2001 agreed to establish a work programme “to frame responses to the trade-related issues identified for the fuller integration of small, vulnerable economies into the multilateral trading system”. Following this decision, the General Council agreed that:

  • the question of small economies would be a standing agenda item of the General Council;
  • the Committee on Trade and Development (CTD) will hold dedicated sessions on this question and report to the General Council; and
  • in the light of the outcome of this work, relevant subsidiary bodies will be asked by the General Council to frame responses to the trade-related issues identified in the Committee.

Ministerial or General Council decisions regarding the work programme on small economies include the decisions taken in Geneva in August 2004 (WT/L/579 para 1.D), Hong Kong in 2005 ( WT/MIN(05)/DEC para 41) , Geneva in 2011 (WT/L/844), Bali in 2013 (WT/MIN(13)/33 — WT/L/908), Nairobi in 2015 (WT/MIN(15)/40 — WT/L/975), Buenos Aires in 2017 (WT/MIN(17)/63 — WT/L/1030), Geneva in 2022 (WT/MIN(22)/25 — WT/L/1136) and Abu Dhabi in 2024 (WT/MIN(24)/33 — WT/L/1188).

A regularly updated compilation document (WT/COMTD/SE/W/22/Rev.11) reflects the state of play of all the small economies' issues discussed in WTO bodies and negotiating groups since the launch of the work programme.

In the decision on the work programme on small economies taken at the Twelfth Ministerial Conference in June 2022 (WT/L/1136), the WTO Secretariat was instructed to provide  relevant information and factual analysis for discussion among members in the Committee's dedicated session and to work on integrating small economies into the post COVID-19 economy. A Secretariat background note on this topic was circulated in document WT/COMTD/SE/W/45.

In the decision taken at the Thirteenth Ministerial Conference in March 2024 (WT/L/1188), Ministers instructed that work be undertaken in a number of areas in the context of small economies, including e-commerce, the importance of supply chains, and trade-related climate change adaptation and mitigation policies.

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The mandate

 

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Official documents on small economies in the Committee on Trade and Development

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