./.WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONWT/MIN(99)/ST/42
1 December 1999
(99-5232)
MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE
Third SessionSeattle, 30 November - 3 December 1999Original:  Spanish
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Statement by Mr. Luis Manuel Bonetti Veras
Secretary of State for Industry and Commerce
It is a pleasure, for the third time, to address the highest body of the
World Trade Organization here in this beautiful city of Seattle, the most global of American cities,
whose place in the vanguard is known to all.
Our ties with the host country for this event, the United States of America, go well beyond
trade and extend to other dimensions of international relations.  And in strengthening such relations,
we have seen the importance of multilateral bodies like the WTO, since they provide the only hope
that the widely-varying levels of market power will be subject to common and impartial rules and
procedures.
Consequently, the Dominican Republic joins all those countries that call for a stronger WTO;
a strengthening that will start with greater transp arency towards all its Members, greater impartiality
by all its officials in the exercise of their duties, and an urgent quest for new decision-making
procedures that will ensure participation by all Members.  This is even more urgent because of the
sustained increase in the number of new Members, most of which are from the developing world, thus
making it increasingly difficult for a small group of countries to continue to decide on behalf of the
others. It is this long-standing practice that seems to explain why it has been difficult for us to reachconsensus on a draft Ministerial Declaration.
Consequently, thanks to the leadership of our Constitutional President of the Republic,
Dr. Leonel Fernández Reyna, the Dominican Republic has embarked upon a process of
rapprochement  with all our brothers in the developing world, through a strategic alliance with our
neighbours in the Caribbean and Central America and active participation in the work of the
ACP Group, which led to the Second Meeting of Heads of States of the Group held in Santo Domingo
last week.
We firmly believe that it is because of this valuable interaction that we have been able to
attend this event considerably better prepared than we were thirteen years ago when the
Uruguay Round was launched in Punta del Este.  And this has involved more than 35 individual or
collective contributions to the preparations for this Ministerial Conference, setting out the major
concerns of our producers identified throughout the ongoing consultation process we have
institutionalized under the present Government.
We therefore reaffirm our full support for the proposals submitted, as well as the Declarations
adopted this year at the Ministerial level by the Group of Latin American and Caribbean Countries
(GRULAC) in Santo Domingo in August;  by the Gro up of 77 in Marrakesh in September;  and by the
ACP Group in Brussels in October, strongly endorsed by the Heads of State of the ACP Group inSanto Domingo last week.WT/MIN(99)/ST/42
Page 2
The common feature of all these Ministerial Declarations is our great concern at problems
identified when implementing the Uruguay Round Agreements. Since Singapore, we have been
drawing attention to the paradoxical situation that arises when the expected outcome of the
implementation of the Agreements is not in keeping with the content of the rules, especially in areas
of major interest to developing countries, like agriculture and textiles.  In Geneva too, we expressedour surprise at the imbalances inherent in the Agreements, which condone the economic policies
pursued by the developed countries and at the same time prohibit the very same development tools
they used at earlier stages in their histories.
Accordingly, in line with the statements ma de by our Ministers in GRULAC, the Group of 77
and the ACP Group, in the opinion of the Dominican Republic, beginning with this
Ministerial Conference, a process should be initiated:
(i) To make agriculture subject to the same rules that govern trade in other goods, with
the aim of definitively eliminating the subsidies granted by developed countries;
(ii) to integrate fully in the WTO's activitie s the objectives and interests of all the
developing countries;
(iii) to apply fully the provisions on special and differential treatment for all developing
countries;
(iv) to ensure consistency between domestic policies and the multilateral commitments
undertaken by all countries, by eliminating unilateralism and extraterritoriality as well
as the less visible but equally pernicious conditions imposed on preferential access,
which have nothing to do with trade.  It is this lack of coherence which calls into
question the rules of the United Nations and the WTO, for it contradicts the principleof the legal equality of States.
A special mention should be made of the ACP Group's interest in ensuring the waiver for the
trade preferences granted by the European Union to our 71 countries;  a decision that should also be
taken for all the other preferences granted by developed to developing countries.
Again, in the light of the aforementioned Mi nisterial Declarations, our acceptance of the
Seattle Ministerial Declaration will depend on how the implementation problems identified by our
countries are resolved in that document.  Over and above this issue of the highest priority, the
Declaration should confine itself to subjects that  are sufficiently mature to begin multilateral
negotiations and to those which are clearly trade-related.  In this connection, we reiterate the decision
by the Ministers in Singapore on labour issues. If, as seems highly likely, consensus is not possible,for the Dominican Republic it will be enough to embark on the negotiations agreed on in Marrakesh
in 1994 on agriculture, services and the revision of some of the Uruguay Round Agreements.
In conclusion, we must express our satisfacti on at having transposed our pre-Uruguay Round
bindings in 1999, and having rectified eight sensitive agricultural products, for which implementingregulations have been issued this month.
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