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Chinese National Federation of Industries
National Association of Manufacturers Nippon Keidanren

Global Business and Manufacturers Statement on the WTO Doha Round

Geneva, Switzerland, 5-7 November, 2007

The Doha Round of WTO multilateral trade negotiations is now entering its most critical phase. Either the Round will be finalized over the next few months or it risks failure. We the undersigned organizations strongly believe that, properly constructed, the Round represents an opportunity to deliver a huge boost to global economic growth and development. Together, the countries represented by our business organisations generate over half of total global trade annually. Reaching an ambitious conclusion to the Round remains the number one international priority for business.

We believe that a balanced agreement on agriculture is a critical step to securing a comprehensive and successful outcome for the Round. However, in order to be supported by the global industrial sector, the Round must achieve significant gains in real market access for industrial goods (NAMA), services, trade facilitation and progress in other aspects of the negotiations, including rules.

We would support further negotiations on the basis of the draft agriculture and industrial modalities released in July 2007. However, this support is only conditional on the basis of an outcome providing commercially meaningful new market access for industrial goods by reducing substantially or eliminating tariffs among, at minimum, the developed and emerging countries, and through the inclusion of a number of key elements such as:

Furthermore, we believe that the WTO should put negotiating texts on the table for all remaining issues of the Doha Round including draft texts on services providing new business opportunities, a trade facilitation agreement, clarify trade remedy rules and reduce international distortions. We are committed to making the Doha Round a success. Business will continue to urge negotiators to ensure that the outcome of the Round will truly deliver real gains for business.


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