Andean Community Declaration
Declaration of the Bolivian Vice-Minister of International Economic Relations, Ana María Solares, on behalf of the Andean countries at the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization

Mr. Chairman:

I am speaking on behalf of the Andean Community with its five South American members: Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, and my own country, Bolivia. We would first like to express our appreciation for the efforts that you, your collaborators, and the Director General have made to present us with a new version of the Ministerial Declaration and second, to recognize the efforts made by all of the Member Countries to accommodate their individual interests to those of the whole.

The Andean countries have carefully studied the Declaration and we have found that not all of the legitimate aspirations we bring with us to Doha are reflected in it.

We are aware of the additional cost to us of the inclusion of new topics on the agenda of the WTO. We are also concerned over the future course of negotiations on matters that are of the utmost priority to us, such as those connected with agriculture.

Even so, faced by the possibility of a repetition of the failure we witnessed in Seattle, in circumstances that are far more demanding than on that occasion, when the world requires concrete measures to create a climate of fuller understanding, the Andean Community is in a position to support the new text of the Ministerial Declaration and, with it, the launching of the expanded Program of Negotiations for the World Trade Organization. In this new stage of complex challenges to the Organization, we call for development to be placed at the very heart of the World Trade System; only thus will this system be buttressed.

Thank you very much.