Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 6 • Number 30 • 13th September 2002
Mini-Ministerial Scheduled For Australia Later This Year
On 16 August, Australian Trade Minister Mark Vaile announced that Australia would host a ‘mini-ministerial’ of approximately 25 trade ministers on 14 November 2002 — one year after launching a new round in Doha. Countries expected to attend include the US, EU, Japan, Senegal, Lesotho and Singapore. This will also be the first such meeting for the WTO’s new Director General Supachai Panitchpakdi (see related article). The meeting aims to push forward the negotiations that were agreed to at Doha and to provide some political direction to areas of the negotiations that have been progressing slowly. At the same time, said Vaile, this gathering will help assure that the next meeting of the entire WTO body in Cancun, Mexico in September 2003 will be a successful one. Specific concerns that are likely to be addressed during the meeting include agricultural subsidies provided by the US and EU (see BRIDGES Weekly 15 May 2002) as well as the US steel safeguard duties (see BRIDGES Weekly, 28 May 2002). Two ‘mini- ministerial’ meetings were organised in last year, one from 31 August to 1 September in Mexico (see BRIDGES Weekly, 11 September 2001) and a second on 13-14 October in Singapore (see BRIDGES Weekly, 16 October 2001).
"WTO trade chiefs to meet in Australia," XINHUA, 16 August 2002.