Statement by H.E. Mr. Tawfiq Al-rabiah

Minister of Commerce and Industry

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

[Assalamu alaikum]

On behalf of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, I would like to express our heartfelt appreciation to the Government of the Republic of Indonesia for hosting the Ninth WTO Ministerial Conference with such success at this momentous time for the multilateral trading system. Let me also use this opportunity to thank the former WTO Director General, Pascal Lamy, for his service to the Organization, and to welcome the new Director-General, Roberto Azevêdo, and congratulate him on his appointment.

Saudi Arabia would like to thank the Director General and the member countries negotiators for their efforts and the considerable progress that has been achieved over the past weeks, although a Bali Package has not been reached. However, we are confident that with continued hard work, the goal can still be achieved.

Right now, it appears that we are standing at a crossroads, and we will choose success or failure of the Doha Development Agenda based on the direction of our next steps.

I know that the lack of achieving a Bali Package could be understood to reinforce the view that multilateral trade negotiation has lost its way and that alternatives must be sought – but Saudi Arabia does not think giving up is an option at this time. Although the prospects for entering into bilateral and plurilateral free trade agreements may seem attractive to some countries in the short term, such arrangements cannot address key problems of priority interest to developing countries in the long term, such as global trade remedy abuse, agriculture subsidization and protectionism, and maintaining and improving global market access. Therefore, negotiations outside the WTO should not delay, and cannot justify distraction from, the conclusion of the DDA. Saudi Arabia, as an active Member of the WTO and of the G20, is committed to doing everything possible to ensure a positive result with the central goal of advancing development interests, and we hope other Members will think and act collectively as next steps are taken.

Regardless of the current state of the DDA, we must acknowledge that fairness and inclusiveness are fundamental requirements of any successful international system. There has been much discussion about inclusiveness at the WTO and the positive result of interaction among the WTO, non-Member countries, and other international inter-governmental organizations. In this connection, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia considers that the requests of Palestine and the League of Arab States for observer status to the WTO should be approved without further delay. Along the same lines, we all know that languages help countries and stakeholders to interact with and understand complex systems like the WTO.  For this reason, Saudi Arabia firmly supports the addition of Arabic as an official language of the WTO in order to broaden and deepen its benefits by encouraging more active participation in WTO affairs.

Once again, thank you Mr. Chairman for your leadership, and for providing all possible support to reach a positive outcome at this Ministerial Conference.