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WTO stresses informal meetings' function to promote trade talks
2004-03-17
China Daily
The Negotiating Group on Rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO) said Tuesday that it would hold a series of informal meetings instead of formal ones to boost the new round of global trade talks stalled last September.
Chairman of the group, Mexican Ambassador Eduardo Perez Motta, announced the decision at Tuesday's meeting, which was held at the call of February's WTO General Council for an early resumption of the Doha Round trade negotiations.
"There is a need for members to have a deeper understanding of the complex and technical issues before the Group through more focused discussions in informal meetings," Motta said.
WTO spokesman Luis Ople explained that members would speak more freely and frankly during informal meetings which do not require meeting records, and therefore, they could have a better exchange of views.
The Group has agreed to hold the first meeting under this format on April 26-28, in-between the meetings of the Anti-Dumping and Subsidy Committees to take advantage of the presence of experts from capitals, said Ople.
The Group's task is to review and amend articles of existing pacts, in particular pacts on anti-dumping, subsidy and anti-subsidy, and regional trade agreements.
It was set up among other negotiation groups for the Doha Round global trade talks which was started at WTO's fourth ministerial meeting in November, 2001 in the Qatari capital of Doha.
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