Composition of Aid for Trade Task Force announced

The chairman of the Trade Negotiations Committee, Director-General Pascal Lamy, announced today at the meeting of the General Council the composition of the Aid for Trade Task Force that he was asked to set up by the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference.

> General Council

The Task Force will be composed of these 13 members in alphabetical order: Barbados, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, the European Union, Japan, India, Thailand, the United States and the coordinators of the ACP, the African Group and the LDC Group. The Permanent Representative of Sweden, ambassador Mia Horn Af Rantzien, will chair this Task Force ad personam.

The establishment of this Task Force follows a mandate given to the Director General by Ministers at the Hong Kong Conference. The Task Force will provide recommendations to the General Council by July 2006 on how to operationalize Aid for Trade and how Aid for Trade might contribute most effectively to the development dimensions of the Doha Development Agenda.

The Task Force will be encouraged to provide concrete and results-oriented proposals to fulfil its objectives. International organizations will be invited to act in an advisory role to the Task Force on a regular basis. The first meeting of the Task Force will be in late February.