WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONWT/L/390
31 January 2001
(01-0504)
Original:  English
JOINT STATEMENT BY THE HON ALEXANDER DOWNER MP, MINISTER FOR
FOREIGN AFFAIRS, AND THE HON MARK VAILE MP, MINISTER FOR TRADE
Communication from Australia
The following joint statement, released in Davos on 27 January 2001, has been received from
the Permanent Mission of Australia with the request that it be circulated to Members.
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1. We welcome the "Davos Statement" calling for greater political and business support for the
World Trade Organization (WTO). This initiative by three past WTO Directors' General highlightsthe urgent need to re-focus the WTO on its core trade liberalising agenda.
2. We share the concerns expressed in the "Davos Statement" that governments are asking too
much of the WTO while doing too little to explain the immense benefits provided by the system of
multilateral trade rules.
3. We welcome the clear statement by the former Directors' General that labour issues did not
belong in the WTO. This has been a long-held position of the Australian Government.
4. The WTO is a trade organization that has been built up over 50 years to help countries solve
their trading differences, provide an equitable system of rules for conducting trade and enable
countries to open their markets to each other. In these ways, the GATT/WTO system has been a major
contributor to world peace and security.
5. We also share the view of the authors of the "Davos Statement" that, while social issues could
not be addressed by the WTO, concerns about the social consequences of globalization werelegitimate. But many of the proposed responses, such as reversion to protectionism were not. Raising
trade barriers would only harm developing countries and lower incomes in both developing and
developed countries.
6. We are interested in the initiative proposed in the "Davos Statement" to establish a new
international commission to provide a forum in which to discuss objectively the issues of concern anddevelop appropriate responses as necessary. We are willing to discuss this proposal further to see how
it could be developed.
7. In Davos, the Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Downer met with the Director General
of the WTO Mike Moore and the European Union' s Commissioner for Trade Pascal Lamy. In the
course of these meetings, they discussed how much we could work together to launch a new round ofmultilateral negotiations this year.
8. The "Davos Statement" was released on Saturday 27 January at the Annual Meeting of the
World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
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