Speaking at the opening of the course, Deputy Director-General Xiaozhun Yi said: “Managing the market access negotiations on goods based on a list of 5,000 — 10,000 product items, keeping them consistent with the appropriate coding system, negotiating all or selected items of this list with a good number of WTO members over a number of years … is clearly a daunting task even for some of the biggest economies. The course will foster learning about this process through interaction between the participants, negotiating partners and recently acceded members.”  

The main objective of this training course is to enhance understanding of bilateral market access negotiations on goods as well as the technical aspects of the goods schedules. Participants will also benefit from experience-sharing sessions with former accession negotiators who were directly involved in goods negotiations as well as other experts.

The course is being attended by 26 representatives from 12 governments seeking to join the WTO and two representatives from existing WTO members. 

Feedback from participants

Mr Khalil Amurgail, General Affairs Director at Sudan's Customs Authority, said: “This is really an outstanding first-of-its-kind course. It is a very helpful tool for acceding governments to have a better understanding of the WTO agreements, the rules and the procedures for the accession process. The course provides an opportunity for the participants to learn and benefit from the experience, knowledge and technical skills of WTO experts with regards to the preparation of the documents needed for accession negotiations, with the aim of achieving positive results. The course has demonstrated that the accession process is very complicated and needs, among other things, motivation, perseverance and patience.”

Mr Tarik Ibnouzied Haouache, Deputy Director for Multilateral and Commercial Affairs at Algeria's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said:“This course will provide us with tools to contribute more effectively to our accession process on goods negotiations. It is covering all aspects related to negotiations on goods with a focus on relevant scheduling techniques, sectoral approaches, and consolidation of bilateral negotiations. Furthermore, it is helping us to analyze the trends and developments in world goods trade, and market access negotiations on goods as well. On top of that, we are benefitting from the experience of WTO members on goods negotiations, on the one hand, and those of acceding governments, on the other. Finally, I strongly believe that this course will be extremely useful for the ongoing negotiation of Algeria’s accession to the WTO.”

Ms Margaret Wang, Trade Policy Assistant at the Permanent Mission of the United States to the WTO, said: “This course is a great opportunity for anyone working on accessions (both members and aspiring members) to get an overview of the complicated accession process for goods negotiations and to achieve the understanding of commitments, concessions and consolidation. Learning from experienced negotiators and WTO experts in a friendly and open atmosphere is an invaluable experience.”

The course is organized jointly by the Accessions Division, the Market Access Intelligence section of the Economic Research and Statistics Division and the Institute for Training and Technical Cooperation. This course, offered as part of the WTO's technical assistance and capacity building courses, is implemented within the WTO's Progressive Learning Strategy and represents “level 2”.

The programme is here.

List of the participants