WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONWT/GC/W/461
12 November 2001
(01-5717)
General Council Original:  English
PREPARATIONS FOR THE FOURTH MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE
Submission by Mongolia on Draft Ministerial Declaration
The following communication, dated 10 November 2001, has been received from the
delegation of Mongolia.
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Mongolia shares concerns and interests of large number of developing countries being
expressed during the on-going discussions on various issues of the draft. On the same time it
expresses its readiness to work in a spirit of flexib ility and compromise with a view to ensuring the
success of the Conference and proposes the following few comments of particular interest to this
Delegation with the request of their adequate reflection in the draft.
Para 20,21: Investment and competition policy are very sensitive issues for most of
developing countries and in particular for weaker among them. The spirit and letter of the Singapore
Ministerial declaration on these issues should be observed, namely that "future negotiations, if any,
regarding multilateral disciplines in these areas will take place only after an explicit consensus
decision is taken among the WTO Members regarding such negotiations".  If no consensus is reached,
the relevant working groups on investment and comp etition must continue analytical work on these
issues. As many countries, Mongolia rejects "opt-out and opt-in" approach as it undermines
multilateral nature of the system and the WTO.
Para 29: As a multilateral trade institution the WTO should take into account the interests of
its diverse membership, in particular the small, poor, weak economies. Mongolia supports the
inclusion of Para 29 with the following reservations:
- to rename the Para's title as "Small and Vulnerable Economies";- in the second sentence to delete a phrase "and not to create a sub-category of WTO
members", and after the word "vulnerable" in this sentence to add "land-locked
economies".
The lack of territorial access to the sea aggravated by remoteness and isolation from the world
markets constitutes serious constraints on the overall socio-economic development of the land-lockeddeveloping countries and, in particular imposes significant obstacles on the expansion of their trade
and full use of their export potentials. Mongolia is of a view that WTO is the right forum and
mechanism to deal with trade related concerns of developing countries imposed by land-lockedness.
In these regard we reiterate our support of earlier proposals made by delegations of Paraguay and
Bolivia on the issues of land-locked countries.
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