New Zealander appointed as WTO committee chair
New Zealand has been chosen to chair the negotiating group for one of the key issues in the new round of trade
negotiations in the World Trade Organisation, Trade Negotiations Minister Jim Sutton announced today.
Mr Sutton said the appointment of New Zealand's Geneva-based ambassador to the WTO Tim Groser to head the rules
committee was an indication of the high regard with which New Zealand was held.
"It's a real feather in our cap. The rules mandate that will be managed by New Zealand covers some particularly
sensitive issues, such as anti-dumping and subsidies provisions. This appointment shows that WTO members have recognised
New Zealand's ability to manage one of the critical negotiations in the new round."
Mr Groser will chair the negotiations on WTO rules until the fifth Ministerial conference in Mexico in 2003.
Mr Sutton said that now the chairs of all the committees had been appointed, he hoped officials from the WTO's 140
member nations would begin swiftly to work through all the issues raised by the negotiating text approved by the
ministerial meeting at Doha last year.
"Objectives set out in the Doha text, such as the reduction in agricultural subsidies, will benefit many countries when
they are achieved. Developed agricultural exporting nations such as New Zealand will be assisted. Developing countries,
most of whose people are engaged in agriculture and food production, will be thrown an economic lifeline."
ENDS