STATEMENT BY H.E. MR FEDERICO GONZÁLEZ

VICE‑MINISTER FOR ECONOMIC RELATIONS AND INTEGRATION

Paraguay

I would first of all like to extend sincere thanks to the Government of Indonesia for its hospitality and impeccable organization of this important event. I also wish to express my special appreciation to Director‑General Roberto Azevêdo for his leadership of the negotiating process over the past few months.

Paraguay is confident and firmly committed to work and support all lines of action that will make the WTO the main multilateral trade negotiation forum, consistently based on the building of fair, clear and predictable rules. We believe that the texts arrived at in recent months have brought us closer to achieving this objective, namely that of a WTO relevant for our purposes.

As regards the Bali package, I am deeply concerned because we have not yet reached a consensus on the central issues for this Conference, which are of critical interest to my country. As you know, Mr Chairman, Paraguay is a landlocked developing country with an economy chiefly based on agriculture. My delegation has therefore seriously and responsibly engaged in the discussions on the three negotiating pillars, in which it seeks concrete results that will have a direct impact on its economic performance without adversely affecting the other Members.

In order to offset the difficulties and disadvantages of being a landlocked country, Paraguay strongly advocates the conclusion of a Trade Facilitation Agreement containing binding commitments and providing for speedy implementation, mainly as regards transit matters. Very important areas of consensus have been reached to date, which allows us to optimistically estimate that progress is being made towards a real GATT PLUS in this respect. For the landlocked developing countries, freedom of transit is not only a question of commercial interest, but also and foremost a matter of survival. I would therefore kindly urge all of you to take these aspects into account in our negotiations.

As a food‑exporting country that plays a major role in the global market for certain products, my delegation fully endorses the statements of the Cairns Group and the G‑20. Although no binding commitments have as yet been made with a view to this Ministerial, Paraguay is confident that the tendency to reduce export subsidy mechanisms and instruments will continue.

My country maintains that adaptation of the rules governing agricultural trade must ensure the predictability of trade and widen employment opportunities for rural populations through international trade and the elimination of distorting measures.

Lastly, my delegation is most interested in building up a post‑Bali agenda essentially geared towards progress in concluding the Doha Development Agenda. In this connection, I should emphasize a number of outstanding tasks such as those relating to market access for agricultural products and the inclusion of other issues that directly affect our economies and should be given in‑depth consideration in this organization.