6th WTO Ministerial at Hong Kong
The 6th WTO Ministerial was held in Hong Kong, China, December 13-18, 2006.
Hong Kong Documents
March 20, 2006 - The components of this USGTN resource on the outcomes of the 6th WTO Ministerial in Hong Kong in December 2005 in the areas of Development, Agriculture, Services and Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) will highlight what was and wasn’t agreed upon at the ministerial and point to ongoing concerns as the negotiations progress. This resource also critiques the role of the U.S. government in this process and calls for more effective and sustainable policies as we continue to closely monitor multilateral negotiations from a gender perspective.
December 14th, 2005 - A brief critical analysis of WTO's Agreement on Agriculture [AoA] and it's impact on the local economy of developing countries. Considered highlights on the importance and dependence of southern countries on agriculture or the agro-based sector, thus reflecting on the need to re-evaluate and re-structure current international agricultural trade agreements in preservation of national sovereignty and food security.
- The Outcome of Hong Kong: Reflections from a gender perspective
January 6, 2006 - The outcome of the December 2005 Hong Kong Ministerial has been strongly criticized by civil society organizations and social movements for securing substantial concessions from developing countries while providing them hardly anything in return. The Hong Kong text represents an empty package of commitments and development rhetoric that in fact will primarily benefit the global corporate agenda and select interests. This article focuses on the outcomes in agriculture, services, NAMA, and development.
- WTO Still Standing - Development on Shaky Ground
January 3, 2006 - Amidst a strong people’s resistance from the outside and the declaration of unity among developing countries inside the 6th Ministerial Conference, Trade Ministers reached an 11th hour agreement on a relatively weak declaration and narrowly avoided the collapse of the Hong Kong Ministerial. The final declaration offered some (but likely meaningless) concessions on development issues while opening the door for deep and rapid liberalization of developing country industrial and service sectors.
December 18, 2005 - The latest draft Ministerial Declaration (18 December 2005 – Ref 05-6190) will ensure that the global trading system works for the development of corporate profits and shareholder earnings – not developing country economies and their people.
December 18, 2005 - Naty Bernardino of IGTN Asia asserts, “This is not a development round it is a development round up! The US, EU and their allies have corralled developing countries and forced open their markets in services, industrial goods, and agriculture. Millions of women, workers, farmers, and indigenous groups will lose their livelihoods and lives.”
December 16, 2005 - By the fourth day of negotiations, developing countries have come together to strengthen their positions, while Services and NAMA remain divisive as developed country insistence on greater liberalization and ignore development issues.
December 15, 2005 - The Draft Ministerial text which negotiators are working with this week in Hong Kong at the 6th WTO Ministerial Conference is proving to be quite controversial, raising the specter of another collapse. While this round of negotiations has been deemed the Doha Development Round, early signs indicate that if developed countries achieve ambitious liberalization the round could prove to be just the opposite with devastating impacts for development.
Representatives from each of the eight regions of the International Gender and Trade Network developed these policy positions in preparation for the WTO Sixth Ministerial. The positions specifically address the WTO Agreement on Agriculture and Food Sovereignty; Non-Agricultural Market Access and Autonomous Industrialization; General Agreement on Trade in Services and Social Reproduction; Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights and Knowledge Reproduction; Special and Differential Treatment and Trade-Related Technical Assistance.
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At the Sixth WTO Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong in December 2005, Member States have the opportunity to craft trade policies which positively contribute to sustainable development goals which include poverty eradication, gender equality, social development, economic opportunity for all, and environmental preservation. IGTN is calling for an equitable and just global trade regime. In this media packet:
- IGTN Critique of the Sixth WTO Ministerial
- IGTN Advocacy Positions for the WTO Negotiations
- IGTN Publications for the Sixth WTO Ministerial
- Contact Information in Hong Kong
- Contact Information in the Regions
- IGTN Events at the Sixth WTO Ministerial
- On the Road to Hong Kong: Towards a Sustainable, Gender Fair, Just Governance, Statement by Christa Wichterich, Women in Development Europe (WIDE)
In this statement at the Public Hearing: The EU’s Responsibility at the WTO: Environment, Gender and Development held in Brussels, Belgium on November 9, 2005, Ms. Wichterich outlines the growing body of facts, figures and empirical evidence proving the highly uneven, unequal and unstable effect of trade liberalization by noting the effects in agriculture, textiles, street vendors and government income.
Background on WTO Ministerials
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is mandated by its own charter to hold a Ministerial Meeting every two years. These Ministerial Meetings bring together all the Trade and/or Commerce Ministers from the capitals of the member states to set the political agenda for the direction by crafting a Ministerial Declaration which sets the direction of WTO work for the ensuing two years. Ministerial Meetings not trade negotiations.
WTO preparations for the 6th Ministerial in Hong Kong, China December 13-18, 2005 have included several mini-ministerials. These mini-ministerials are meetings initiated by member States and are held among select member States, but they always include the dominant members. The mini-ministerials seek to find negotiating agreements that can then be moved into the entire WTO. Since the collapse of the Cancun Ministerial in 2003, developed Member States have adopted a strategy of reaching out to the larger developing economies (eg. Brazil, China, India, South Africa) and including them in these meeting in an effort to achieve agreement before the Hong Kong Ministerial and avoid a collapse in negotiations. IGTN delegations have attended each of the WTO Ministerials since our founding in 2000.
IGTN at Earlier Ministerials
IGTN was active in both the 4th WTO Ministerial in Doha, Qatar and the 5th WTO Ministerial in Cancun, Mexico. Our resources for these ministerials can be found in the Resource Library by selecting either "WTO Doha Ministerial" or "WTO Cancun Ministerial" in Trade/Economic Agreements drop down menu.
In addition, the IGTN advocacy document and three daily updates from the 5th WTO Ministerial held in Cancun, Mexico from September 8-14, 2003 highlighted below. The complete series is available online in the IGTN resource library. Representatives of the International Gender and Trade Network, International Jesuit Network for Development (IJND) and the Center of Concern (COC) contributed to these daily reports from the 5th WTO Ministerial.
