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The two-day G-20 Ministerial Meeting begins here tomorrow. The G-20 is an alliance of developing countries in the ongoing negotiations in the World Trade Organisation (WTO), with focus on agricultural issues. This is the first time that India is hosting a ministerial level meeting on WTO – related issues, an event of particular significance as it is expected to evolve the G-20 strategy and position in the WTO negotiations in the coming months ahead of the next Ministerial Conference of the WTO scheduled to be held in Hong Kong from 13 to 18 December, 2005. This is intended to ensure that the interests and concerns of its constituent members are incorporated in the final outcome of the Hong Kong Ministerial, as was mentioned by Shri Kamal Nath, Minister of Commerce and Industry, at his news conference on the G-20 Ministerial Meeting earlier this week. The Meeting will also take stock of the state-of-play of the technical aspects of the negotiations which have been going on since the Adoption of the July Framework Agreement of 2004 and provide the political inputs that are now considered necessary in order to break the logjam on various technical matters relating to the negotiations among WTO members.
“G-20 today represents the needs of billions of poor farmers in developing countries. It is not a closed group, and has been open to participation of other interested countries that support its objectives. (Hence), the G-20 meeting in New Delhi on 18-19 March, 2005 also marks the first in Ministerial level interactions with other developing country alliances: G-33, Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Africa Group, Africa- Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) countries, and CARICOM (Caribbean Community)”, Shri Kamal Nath has said.
The G-20 countries participating in the meeting are: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, China, Cuba, Egypt, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Paraguay, The Philippines, South Africa, Tanzania, Thailand, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. In addition, the country coordinators attending the meeting are: Indonesia (for G-33), Rwanda (for Africa Group), Zambia (for LDCs), Benin (for ACP) and Guyana (for CARICOM). Uruguay is participating as an Observer.
The two-day Meeting of G-20 is preceded by the G-20 Senior Officials Meeting which was held here today.
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