Good morning.

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you all to this inaugural conference of the TAIT programme. TAIT stands for Thinking Ahead on International Trade and this is a four-year research programme run by the Graduate Institute's Centre for Trade and Economic Integration. We at the Secretariat are pleased to be a co-organizer of this meeting and to host it here in the WTO premises. This inaugural conference is built around five thematic sessions over the next day and a half.

I am pleased to encourage those who think and write about the multilateral trading system and its future to undertake this kind of work. Although, I must say, judging by the dozens of studies and conferences about how to reform the WTO, I am not sure my encouragement is entirely necessary!

The quest to “fix” the WTO has become a highly popular pursuit. I say this only semi-seriously. I am acutely aware of the formidable challenges facing the multilateral trading system, and of our shared interest in addressing them.

In considering the WTO and its future, I think we can make a useful distinction in terms of two strands of concern. First, there are the challenges we face in addressing upcoming issues, changing realities in the international economy, and new imperatives for rule-making among nations. These, if you like, are the exogenous or external forces we are required to respond to if the institution is to remain strong and relevant. These are matters whose emergence we cannot control, but in respect of which we can exert a constructive influence if we manage international cooperation effectively.

The second locus of interest relates to the institution of the WTO and how it goes about its business. It is about all the processes and procedures that constitute our working methods.

I do not for a moment doubt that the WTO, like any other organisation, has plenty of room for improvement, and in many domains. But neither have we stood still as an organisation. We have experienced significant, if often gradual, change in many of the ways we do business. This process is likely to continue for as long as governments attribute value to the institution.

Successful adaptation in an institution like this, it seems to me, requires incremental, evolutionary change. Those enthusiasts for dramatic reform, for going back to the drawing board, sometimes give the impression of being more enamoured of the elegance of their brave new designs than the practicality of what they suggest. As I said in my statement to the WTO membership last April when I was a candidate for a next term as WTO Director-General — and I quote — “In conclusion, no major surgery is needed in the WTO. No major overhaul of the system is required. But rather, a long to-do list to strengthen the global trading system.”

I am pleased to see that this conference focuses both on one or two of the external challenges facing the multilateral trading system in the future, and on considerations relating to how business is done in the WTO.

My first cursory look at what the organizers have produced by way of background documentation for the five round tables suggests that none of you are aspiring revolutionaries. Rather, you are incrementalists. This makes your efforts more interesting and relevant, and raises the likelihood that decision-makers might pay attention to what you have to say.

The first round table in this conference asks the very pertinent question of why governments choose different venues for international cooperation on trade matters. This is an issue that has been with us for a long time, as preferential trade agreements have multiplied. It has not been all bad, but we need to think about strengthening synergies and avoiding the divisiveness that multiple overlapping trade agreements can generate. This means clarifying the case for the centrality of a global approach to trade relations in an increasingly complex and interdependent world.

The second round table takes up a set of emerging issues relating to food, agricultural products and natural resources in the world economy. These are not exactly new issues, but they pose growing challenges in relation to effective international disciplines. A range of specific questions emerge, ranging from the scope and content of the trade rules to the role of standards in agricultural trade.

The third panel addresses a key emerging issue, that of international cooperation in dealing with climate change. This issue is now central to discussions on international cooperation and the search for viable solutions will tax the ingenuity and cooperative spirit of governments. Trade is relevant, but in my view not the core of what needs to be done now.

The fourth panel looks at how the WTO can contribute to maintaining open trade in time of economic crisis, like the present. The WTO clearly has a role, but we need to understand clearly what that role is, both in stemming protectionism and contributing to the exit from crisis. The WTO may be greater than the sum of its parts, but it cannot work effectively with the commitment and clear-headedness of its parts — that is, the governments that constitute its members.

Finally, the fifth panel looks at decision-making in the WTO. We have relied greatly on consensus decision-making in the WTO and will doubtless continue to do so. Nevertheless, the paper looks at other ways of taking decisions that could have advantages for the effective functioning of the trading system, so long as any possible, controlled departures from consensus fully protect all the rights of the entire membership. This is a challenging issue, and personally I believe the onus is on those who propose changes to consensus to demonstrate the advantages of such changes.

I look forward to hearing how the deliberations of the next day and a half progress, and I am pleased to see that a range of government officials, scholars and business people have been invited to participate in the deliberations.

Before I end, however, there is an important point that I wish to emphasize. We cannot discuss change and the challenges of the future in isolation from full cognizance of the present. We cannot simply look ahead and set aside what we have on our plates today. The viability of the multilateral trading system, the order and predictability that underwrites it, and the economic prospects of countries around the world, depend on our ability to finish what we started at in the closing months of 2001 — the Doha Round. We have been close, and I believe we are close enough, and sufficiently like-minded, to make closure possible. But we shall have to do some more hard work, and close the remaining gaps.

None of the difficulties that this Round has faced and overcome, none of the few difficulties that still remain to be addressed is, in my view, of a structural nature. It boils down to good old domestic politics.

I am confident that WTO members can do it, and I am even more convinced that we cannot afford the luxury of letting the negotiations languish into the indefinite future, which is why leaders have given to their negotiators the 2010 target.

This is the reality: we need to complete today's agenda if we are to even begin to look credible in addressing tomorrow's, which I agree with you, will have to be done sooner rather than later. I hope that you will keep this idea in the back of your minds as you talk about the future.

Thank you very much.