Declaration
by the Andean Trade Ministers Supporting the
Launching of a Round of Multilateral Trade
Negotiations
unofficial
translation
The Trade
Ministers of the Andean Community wish to
reiterate their Member States' full support
for the multilateral trading system and
express their backing to the activities
being undertaken by the Director General of
the World Trade Organization to launch a new
Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations at
the Fourth Ministerial Conference which will
take place between November 9 and 13 of the
present year in the city of Doha, Qatar.
The
objectives of this new round of multilateral
trade negotiations must be the development,
creation of employment opportunities, and
improvement in the standards of living of
its Members, through the progressive
liberalization of trade in goods and
services.
For the
Andean Community, one of the negotiations'
key issues is Special and Differential
Treatment, that encompasses much more than
longer implementation periods and allows
Members to maintain indefinitely some
production policy instruments effectively
applied in each country.
Technical
cooperation is an essential element of
Special and Differential Treatment.
Furthermore, it is necessary to link trade
liberalization topics with development
funding to afford the modernization of the
productive base and human resource training,
in order to increase the export base of
developing countries and to reap the
benefits of trade liberalization.
The new
Round must benefit all Members and
contribute to the reduction in existing
differences in levels of development.
Done in
the city of Lima, Peru on the ninth day of
February, two thousand and one
