WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONWT/MIN(99)/ST/137
1 December 1999
(99-5374)
MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE
Third Session
Seattle, 30 November - 3 December 1999Original:  Spanish
COLOMBIA
Statement by H.E. Mrs. Marta Lucía Ramírez de Rincón
Minister of Foreign Trade
Colombia warmly welcomes the opening of this Third Ministerial Conference at which we
shall launch a new round of negotiations and would like to thank the Secretariat of the WTO, the
organizers and the Government of the United States for their efforts to secure the successful outcomeof this Third Ministerial Conference, at which we, the developing countries, must ensure that we
obtain conditions that will guarantee our sustainable development in both the short and the long terms.
That is our clear and specific objective, as most of my colleagues have stated yesterday and
today: we have to solve the problems encountered in recent years when the implementation of someof the WTO Agreements coincided with difficulties in several economies owing to the weakness of
policies to strengthen the production sector and, above all, as a result of the recent financial crisis that
began 18 months ago in South-East Asia and then spread to Russia and subsequently to Latin
America, leading not only to a worsening of the terms of trade for our countries but also to high costs
and a reduction in flows of capital.
Consequently, while reiterating the determination of the Member countries to fulfil all the
Agreements, we must at the same time be realistic about the current situation. Special and differential
treatment must continue to be expressly affirmed as an element that will guide the negotiations we
shall be holding over the next three years.  This new round of negotiations must strengthen the
multilateral system, it being understood that the system is not an end in itself, but must constitute the
most important instrument for ensuring the more rapid development of the least-developed countriesand a better balance for mankind's well-being.
The establishment of the WTO aroused great expectations in the developing countries.  It was
generally supposed that the existence of binding rules, non-discriminatory treatment and the creation
of disciplines in the many Agreements would lead  to a balance of rights and obligations whose
benefits would be spread equally among all its Members.
However, history has turned out differently.  The difficulty of negotiating the text of the
Ministerial Declaration in Geneva was a true reflection of the present discontent of the developing
countries since not only have the balance and benefits not been achieved, but in many cases the resultshave proved to be negative.  Hence the widely accepted view that the beneficiaries have been the
richer countries, running the risk that the system is losing its legitimacy.  The existence of rules on
special and differential treatment in all the WTO Agreements, which was seen as the great triumph of
the developing countries during the Uruguay Round negotiations, has finally come to be seen as little
more than a non-binding catalogue of good intentions whose functionality and margin of manoeuvre
have turned out to be negligible and which have not been properly implemented.WT/MIN(99)/ST/137
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It is regrettable that while in many cases we, the developing countries, have eagerly opened
up our economies and pursued strategies to increase production so as to enter international markets,
the developed countries have taken undue advantage of trade remedies against our exports by
applying countervailing duties, initiating investigations and annual reviews for anti-dumping duties,
or have imposed on us new sanitary rules or continued with the excessive granting of subsidies totheir agricultural trade, not to mention the ever widening gap between the countries that have greater
access to knowledge and information, scientific development, innovation and technology as opposed
to those countries which, lacking sufficient resource s, have not been able to benefit from the advances
in those fields.
It is for those reasons that these new negotiations are of fundamental importance, because in
our hands lies the responsibility to achieve a successful outcome that will help to strengthen the globaleconomy as a whole, but, above all, will ensure the best possible result in each and every part, that is
to say, a substantial improvement in the standard of living of every Member country of the system.
We believe that this objective can only be achieved if the forthcoming negotiations lead to a more
soundly based and more legitimate multilateral system.  This can only happen if the current situation
and the needs of the developing economies are properly acknowledged, not as a rhetorical declarationat this Ministerial Conference, but in terms of the operation and implementation of the Agreements.
We must not underestimate the danger that the strong institutional structure built up by the
WTO over fifty years could collapse as a result of the inclusion of many different subjects whose
development and solution should be kept within the forums established to deal with them and weshould try to ensure that all the Members accede as soon as possible to the Agreements and
obligations of those specialized forums.  It is a paradox that some of the countries that place the
greatest emphasis on the linkage between trade and labour rights have not yet signed most of the
Protocols of the International Labour Organization.   While it is true that subjects such as the
environment and labour rights are not incompatible with trade-related subjects, it would beunacceptable if the relevant standards were raised through trade restrictions.
Similarly, we need to encourage analysis and discussion of fair trade, not from the
comfortable perspective of preserving the status quo with the advantages that supposes for a very
small number of countries, but from the point of view of achieving an overall structure in which all
the Members share the benefits of free trade and have growing opportunities to create more and better
jobs.
The developing countries have found it impossible to gain real access to the benefits of the
system on account of the use of certain provisions in the Agreements on subsidies, safeguards and
anti-dumping, which have meant that exports of some of our products, despite their insignificant share
in the target market, have been subject to the stringency of these Agreements.  Consequently, we haveput forward concrete proposals with regard to these three Agreements, so as to try to restrict their
application to developing countries, especially through the use of higher de minimis requirements.
The forthcoming trade negotiations must allow broader scope to domestic policies, which in
Colombia's case pursue our objective of achieving a more diversified and competitive economy thatwill enable us to leave behind our situation as exporters of raw materials and become an economy
exporting manufactured goods with greater added value and an exporter of services.  If we are to
achieve this freedom in domestic policy-making, we need longer periods than those established in the
transitional periods in some of the Agreements.  That is so in the case of the Agreement on Trade-
Related Investment Measures (TRIMs), where we regard the period of five years as insufficient as nonew production activity can be developed and become competitive in such a short period of time.
Colombia attaches very great importance to the TRIMs, as they are an essential element in our
strategy of developing production that will give us agricultural services and industrial sectors that
meet the demands of greater competitiveness of in ternational trade.  Accordingly, we have proposed
that, for the developing countries, the TRIMs should continue indefinitely.WT/MIN(99)/ST/137
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The centrepiece of this whole process we are initiating today is undoubtedly the negotiations
on agriculture.  The attempt to achieve freer trade in agriculture, without export subsidies and with the
minimum of domestic support, without the practices th at distort fair competition in world trade, will
be a difficult process as we have already realized from the statements made yesterday afternoon andthis morning.  We shall give our highest priority to this objective since we cannot ignore the fact that
it is rural development above all that is an essential prerequisite for improving living conditions in the
poor countries and is, of course, an indispensable element in achieving peace in countries which, like
Colombia, are suffering serious internal conflicts with millions of persons displaced by violence,
particularly in rural areas.
It is obvious that the unfair competition is caused by the developed countries, in particular on
account of the almost unlimited resources available to their finance ministries to grant subsidies to
their producers. This is why we must ensure that the commitments undertaken in the new round
involve the immediate elimination of such distorting subsidies – a process that should have begun
several years ago in the developed countries – and at the same time achieve real improvements in
access for agricultural goods of special interest to developing countries. We therefore reject theconcept of multifunctionality as a means of trying to delay the immediate elimination of such artificial
and distorting advantages that have been used against our agricultural products.  We also need better
conditions and real access for goods produced under programmes aimed at developing alternatives to
illegal crops and the full liberalization of trade in tropical products.  The proposals of the Cairns
Group and those put forward by Colombia in the light of the Cairns vision are clearly along theselines.
One of the main problems facing the developing countries is their weak institutional capacity
that reduces their ability to participate and leads to  a failure to take full advantage of the commercial
opportunities offered by liberalization.  However, equally serious is the fact that on account of thelack of human and financial resources our countries are not using the instruments agreed upon for the
defence of their rights nor are they gaining access to the dispute settlement system in conditions of
equality.
In response to this concern, a sizeable group of developed and developing countries has set
itself the task of establishing a WTO legal advisory centre, to provide training and assistance on the
rules and jurisprudence of multilateral trade for the developing and least-developed countries.
In order to achieve that, we have chosen this Third Ministerial Conference as the setting for
the ceremony to sign the agreement creating that cen tre, since we wish to share the results of all that
hard work with all the members of this Organization.   The Government of Colombia is grateful for the
enthusiastic support of all the countries that ha ve worked with us on this initiative and have
participated in setting up the centre, in particular, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Ireland,
Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Italy and Canada.
Before concluding, I should like to share with you some thoughts on the events that took
place when, together with other delegations, we were the targets of aggressive action by some
demonstrators on our arrival at the inaugural ceremony.  That event, which some people saw as a
peaceful protest, led us to think about the paradox existing in world trade, namely, that the strongest
protests take place precisely in those countries that benefit most from the world market.
Our products, like some of us yesterday, have been the subject of all kinds of hostility,
inconveniences, barriers and attacks that prevent us from gaining free access to international markets.
The so-called peaceful protests that took place yesterday have their counterpart in the field of trade in
phytosanitary measures, anti-dumping duties, labelling rules and what they now want to call labour
standards.  Let us hope that this meeting and the greater strengthening of the system will give our
goods the opportunity to gain an increasing share in – we hope – a more transparent world market thatWT/MIN(99)/ST/137
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has fairer rules which not only promote greater growth in trade, but also give us better access to
technology, to state of the art scientific developments and guarantee us more substantial flows of
investment.
It is not logical that the system has guaranteed access to our markets for the goods of the
developed countries whereas obstacles are now being created for the access of our products by virtue
of elaborate concepts such as multifunctionality or fair trade, without considering that what has not
been fair for us is to have to compete in foreign markets and even in our own markets against products
that are highly subsidized.
The fact is that our countries do not possess any system efficient enough to show the cohesion
of civil society and to enable us to take up a position in the face of globalization such as we sawyesterday, since some of our countries are facing se rious problems of internal public order and at the
same time as we are seeking to achieve peace, strengthen our democracies, combat drug trafficking
and reinforce our production sector, we consume a large part of our time and energies in trying to
provide our people with the barest necessities – as yet unsatisfied – for which reason our civil society
is hardly able to organize itself and question the direction that globalization is taking.
We hope that at the end of the day, as a result of the development round, our exports will be
able to gain real access to the markets of the developed countries, fair conditions and some freedom in
domestic policy-making so as to strengthen our production sector, it being understood that our desire
to implement the commitments assumed must take account of our weaknesses and currentcircumstances, which are still reflected in a deep recession in several of our economies.
Despite the critical public order situation that it faces, Colombia is committed to the
multilateral trading system as the best way of enabling us to take an active part in the process of
globalization which, as several previous speakers have pointed out, is not a just or unjust policyoption but a rapidly unfolding historical process and we must, with intelligence and proactively,
derive the greatest possible benefit from it for our peoples.
Colombia, as a Member country of the Andean Community and committed not only to this
integration process but also to the hemispheric integration in the Americas and to the multilateral
process, is now directing the whole of its development strategy to achieving peace under the
leadership of President Andres Pastrana, by seekin g to ensure that peace, economic growth and the
creation of employment are achieved by means of an export model provides the structural conditions
to allow us to take full advantage of the potential in natural wealth and human resources that our
country possesses.
We are ready to work constructively so as to ensure that this round strengthens the system by
bringing within it and within its rules all products and services as well as all the countries of the
world.  We therefore welcome the forthcoming entry of over 30 new countries into the Organization,
including China.  We shall work to bring greater le gitimacy into the system so that it will become a
forum that effectively promotes the well-being of all the Member countries.
That is the challenge before us and that is our commitment.
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