Transcript of Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Peter Allgeier
Closing Press Conference
WTO Informal Mini-Ministerial
Dalian, China July 13, 2005

Dep. USTR Allgeier: I would like to begin by thanking Minister Bo and
the Chinese government for hosting us here at this informal ministerial
in Dalian. I'd also like to thank the many, many people of Dalian who
participated and provided support for this meeting. It certainly made
us feel very, very welcome, but it also contributed significantly to the
success of the meeting.

This was an important time to bring together nearly 30 Ministers to
discuss the status of key issues in the WTO negotiations. As you know,
at the end of July there will be a break in the negotiations in Geneva,
and these meetings today and yesterday gave the Ministers the
opportunity to assess the status of the negotiations and then to provide
guidance for the remaining weeks of negotiations in July.

Let me just explain the purpose of these Ministerials. Recall that
there are some 30 Ministers here, but there are 148 Members of the WTO.
So a meeting like this, as important as it is, cannot make decisions for
the entire membership. But because Ministers really represent quite
well the various geographic interests in the WTO, the different levels
of development, and probably the Minister's here represent 90% of world
trade, these sorts of discussions have an enormous impact on the
negotiations.

To facilitate this meeting, our co-chairs, Minister Bo and Minister
Tsang from Hong Kong, provided the Ministers with some questions in each
of the major areas of negotiations. So that Ministers could respond to
those questions, and that would be very helpful to negotiators as we
move forward.

I'm happy to report that there were some very helpful indications of
negotiating flexibility that the Ministers expressed and that we would
expect to see that flexibility worked out in negotiations in Geneva when
the negotiators go back next week. In particular we saw such
flexibility on one of the key issues in the negotiations, in
agriculture, which is to say the structure of a formula that we will use
to reduce the tariffs on agricultural products.

But we also had very useful exchanges on manufacturing, trade and the
reduction of tariffs in non-agricultural products. In services we had a
very lengthy discussion of development and we also discussed the other
rules of the WTO that are under negotiation.

What will happen now is that our negotiators will go back to Geneva and
work in the remaining weeks of July to move the issues forward as far as
possible and to share the results of this meeting with the other members
of the WTO.

So we feel that the guidance that was provided through the discussions
here and yesterday here in Dalian, will be very important as we continue
to prepare for the next, full, formal Ministerial which will be held on
Hong Kong in December.

All of this work of course, including the Hong Kong Ministerial, is
aimed at having a successful completion of the overall negotiations by
the end of year, 2006. We look forward very much to working with both
Minister Bo and Minister Tsang in the months between now and the Hong
Kong ministerial and again I would like to thank both of them for the
superb job they did in of preparing for the meeting, and chairing it and
I will take your question.

Moderator: Richard? Can you wait for the microphone?

Reporter: [unintelligible]

Dep. USTR Allgeier: I think that we will see variable progress on the
modalities in the different areas and even among the different sub
areas. I don't think that one should expect a full package of detailed
modalities, that really isn't realistic. But I think one could expect
to see some significant movement to narrow down the options on some
important issues, and particularly I'm hopeful that we could see some of
that in the agriculture area.

Reporter: John Ruwitch, Reuters [unintelligible].

Dep. USTR Allgeier: Are we where I'd like to be at this stage of the
negotiations? The answer is no, I would like to be further along, for
sure, and I think everyone feels that way. That said, one of the things
that struck me during the meetings, was the number of ministers, from
both developed and developing countries who spoke almost movingly about
how important a successful Doha Round is to what they are trying to do
in their own economies, to reform their economies, to plug into the
global trading system. And that is what really gives me the most
confidence - that we will succeed in having a very solid and successful
round - is that the stakes are understood by other countries. But it is
essential that that appreciation of the stakes very promptly gets
translated into negotiating instructions to all the negotiators in
Geneva. And the Fall in Geneva is going to be very intense, needs to be
very intense if we're going to success.

Moderator: Anyone from the Chinese press? Yes you.

Reporter: [translated/paraphrased into English] I write for Energy
Daily. How do you evaluate China's market economy? My second question
is on energy. The price of oil is going up so high [unintelligible].

Dep. USTR Allgeier: Thank you. First of all one of the most exciting
developments over the last decade in the world economy has been of
course the transformation of the Chinese economy to increasingly to a
market oriented economy. 'Course one of the important factors in
accelerating that movement has been the accession of China into the
World Trade Organization at the Doha Ministerial in 2001. The
commitments that China took in the WTO help to move it forward on the
path to being more of a market economy, and the opportunities and
benefits of access to other markets that it got as a result of the WTO
accession, have also accelerated that movement and made it, gave them
given more incentive in that direction actually. On your second
question, I am not an expert in the energy market, but I would simply
note that the enormous thirst for energy that the world growth has
generated. But it has also generated greater expansion and efforts to
explore and to find energy resources. And so it does appear to me that
there is a rather robust market in energy, so I wouldn't attribute it to
any manipulation or any financial institution or anything like that, I
think it's a reflection of the market.

Moderator: Yes, Nerys?

Reporter: Are we going to get a first approximation by the end of July
for Hong Kong? Second question is about the G-20 proposal. Robert
Portman said they were willing to on agriculture. The EU has said
[unintelligible] their own proposal. What is your position on the G-20
paper? One of the other Ministers said to us that, compared the EU and
the US to two elephants fighting and the grass is getting trampled and
that basically what we're now seeing was a fight between the U.S. and
the EU over [unintelligible] agriculture. I just want your response to
that. And is everyone else hanging around while you two slug it out?

Dep. USTR Allgeier: Ok, on your first question, the great thing about
the WTO and the phrases that are used, is there is no official
definition of most of the phrases that are used. So first approximation
you will look in vain for a precise definition of that. I think to be
honest, that when people used the term at the beginning of the year they
probably had in mind more detail than we are going to be able to achieve
by July. The important is that we get to the point prior to the Hong
Kong ministerial, that we don't have an overwhelming number of open
issues. And so that is why we want to make as much progress as we can
in the remaining weeks of July and then we will come back in September
and push very hard the rest of the way.

On your second question, the middle ground on the agricultural tariff
formula, what is meant by that is the following: that at one end of the
spectrum countries including the United States were advocating what is
known is a simple, a Swiss Formula. On the other end of the spectrum,
countries, primarily the European Union and some of the other less
ambitious agriculture countries, were advocating some modified version
of the so-called Uruguay Round formula.

It became apparent, and it was certainly articulated in this meeting,
that those of us who advocated the Swiss formula were not going to
succeed in bringing those who advocated Uruguay Round formula all the
way over to our side of the spectrum. Nor were the Uruguay Round
advocates going to pull us all the way over to their end of the
spectrum. So the logical thing is, let's look at alternative approaches
where we both have an opportunity to negotiate for our objectives, but
we're not trying to bring the other into our own respective approaches.

I think what gave us all the confidence to say well look at alternatives
in the center is that there were a number of ideas put forward by
countries, including the G-20, on a structure for the tariff formula.
And people felt we could possibly work for that, and there were some
ideas put forward by the Canadians, there were some ideas put forward by
the Australians, and so people feel there were enough ideas out there
that people can play with that are neither "Swiss" nor "Uruguay Round"
that that's where we're going to put the focus of our attention in the
upcoming negotiations that are coming in the next few weeks on this
subject.

As for your third question, I've never witnessed elephants fighting so
I'm not sure if it's a good metaphor for it. And we're very to be
environmentally conscious so we'd never trample the grass. This is a
negotiation between 148 countries. Obviously the dynamic between, among
certain countries are watched very closely and has a very great impact.

There are some areas in which we and the EU agree precisely and there
some areas where we disagree and that's the case with just about every
other country in the negotiation. We will continue to work on those
issues where we disagree, and we will work together on those where we
agree, and as I said, try not to trample any grass in the meantime.

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