俞建华大使在2月份总理事会上发言

Statement by H.E. Ambassador YU Jianhua

at the General Council Meeting

Geneva, 20 February 2015

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Today is the second day of China’s New Year, and we are celebrating this Festival with our families and friends. This year is the Year of Sheep. Sheep is pronounced in Chinese as Yang (羊), which represents good luck. Here I would like to share this happy time with you all, and wish all of us and this Organization a very prosperous and productive New Year.

At the first TNC meeting around this time last year, I was saying that in farmers’ mind, spring was the season for sowing seeds. Fortunately, with our collective labour and bit of luck, last year of 2014 proved to be a good year, both for sowing seeds and harvesting crops. The best harvest is the three General Council Decisions we adopted last November. Now it is the season to sow seeds again, we are expecting to get a good Work Program by summer time of July, and ultimately a bumper harvest by December at the MC10 in Nairobi.

Mr. Chairman,

We fully appreciate the untiring efforts that you and other Chairs have made in the past two months. There has been a wave of intensive consultations among members in various formats, which helped us regain the momentum. It is true that we have not seen any substantial results, but we have a better understanding of each other’s concerns, particularly the “red lines”. This exercise is an inevitable yet useful step towards success, enabling us to have a realistic vision on what is desirable, and what is achievable. What’s more important is that, members have shown their strong commitments to the July Post-Bali Work Program. These commitments are indispensable to the next stage of negotiations.

The Post-Bali Work Program matters not only to the creditability of the Doha round, but also to the creditability of the rule-based multilateral trading system. All discussions should be based on and fully consistent with the Mandate embodied in the Doha Declaration, Hong Kong Declaration, July Framework Package and Bali Declaration. Before proposing any new approach or modality, the first question we have to answer is: Do you have a mandate?

For the next steps, we believe that Members should build upon the discussions in the past few weeks and engage in more substantive and solution-oriented deliberations. Serious discussions should be based on the 2008 texts. On that basis, we may try to recalibrate the level of ambition focusing on the most difficult elements that Members might have in accepting the 2008 texts, or try to find certain things doable among the 2008 texts.

However, in this process, we have to bear in mind some fundamental principles.

First, recalibration should take good care of each and every member’s comfort and acceptability. We do not want to see a scenario where only a few members are suffering the discomfort. Our future discussions should be conducted in a more transparent, inclusive, fair and scientific manner. We should be very cautious and avoid being led into uncharted territory of uncertainty and difficulty. We should not only think about what we can get, but also what we can give, that is, get ready to pay what you want.

Second, recalibration must be done on a non-discriminatory way, that is, if some members’ obligations are readjusted, then obligations of other members should also be readjusted accordingly. Only win-win solutions could survive. In no case should it be that only a few members are required to pay “blood” and get only “water”.

Third, the DDA is a development round, and some key principles should be fully reflected throughout the negotiations, such as Special and Differential treatment, Less-Than Full Reciprocity. The flexibilities already granted to the LDCs and SVEs should also be preserved.

Mr. Chairman,

Time is not our friend. With only six months left, we have no time to waste. If we throw away all we have achieved in the past and start from the scratch, we are going nowhere. If we choose an uncharted route, we are going nowhere. Neither of which would make our life easier at all.

Before concluding, I want to assure you, Mr. Chairman, that China is fully committed and would join hands with other members, marching toward our common goal of having a doable and commercially meaningful Work Program. To that end, we will remain open and continue to positively participate in any consultations of various configurations.

I thank you Mr. Chairman.