Transcript
9 June 2009
Cairns Group Ministerial Meeting Press Conference, Bali
Subjects: Cairns Group Ministerial Meeting Outcomes
SIMON CREAN: Thank you for coming.
First of all, I’d like to thank the Indonesian Government and Mari Pangestu for the hosting of this the 33rd meeting of the Cairns Group, the first meeting of the Cairns Group since the global financial crisis hit, the first opportunity for us to engage at a political level amongst ourselves as to what we can do to help address issues associated with that global financial crisis.
We didn’t just meet amongst ourselves. We also had present with us a number of important specially invited guests. We had the new Ambassador for the USTR, Ron Kirk, from the United States. We had the new Commerce Minister from India, Anand Sharma. And we also had high level representation from China, from Japan and from the EC.
Clearly we are also assisted in our consideration and deliberations by the presence here of the Director General of the WTO, Pascal Lamy and the new chair of the Agriculture Negotiating Group in the WTO, David Walker.
It was a very constructive meeting. A commitment not just by the Cairns Group to re-engage intensively to try and bring about a solution to the Doha Round, but a reaching out to our special guests and a strong acceptance by them of the need also to engage intensively in the lead up to the summer break to do what is necessary to get momentum back into the stalled Doha talks.
We do have responsibility because the grouping of G20 leaders has directed their Ministers to try and conclude this Round. It is clearly the wish of the membership of the WTO that we do bring it to a successful conclusion.
We know that there are still difficult issues that remain to be resolved, but they can’t be resolved unless there’s a renewed engagement within the multilateral framework building on the progress that was made today, building on the texts that were released last December.
So we have important starting points as to what is needed to go forward, we also have a very strong commitment amongst ourselves as well as from the engaged partners to undertake this process.
All of us believe that this will hopefully inject important new momentum to concluding the Doha Round and all of us remain ready to be engaged, to participate at two important levels: senior officials level to deal with the technical detail, but at the political level to keep re-injecting, re-assessing, addressing the road blocks at the political level. The political will, the technical expertise, that commitment to go forward, an important platform from which to move. And now I invite questions not just to me, but to any of the other Ministers that are here. We are happy to take your questions.
QUESTION: Sunanda Creagh from Reuters. What exactly will be discussed at the Geneva meeting before the summer break and what technical details will be fleshed out there?
SIMON CREAN: I think what we’ve got to get is a better understanding of the differences that exist, but a commitment to mechanisms to resolve those differences. It comes about from the very firm belief that all of us believe this Round can be concluded, but it won’t be concluded unless there is some give and take. So what we’ve got to try and do is two things, one is to give better definition to what the give and take is, and then a preparedness to engage to do the giving and the taking. And that’s why the engagement in Geneva is important to try and give some greater specificity, greater clarity, but there also has to be an engagement at the political level.
QUESTION: Stephen Coates, A.F.P. Did you detect a change of approach from the new USTR?
SIMON CREAN: I think all of us were significantly impressed by the depth of commitment that the new USTR Ambassador brought to the table. A genuine desire to work intensively and urgently to bring about a conclusion to the Round. Not just with him, but also with the new Minister from India. This was an important opportunity I think for an engagement at political level by a group that has been always ambitious in term of outcomes in agriculture, but to not just reach out, but to also get positive responses. The task now is to build upon that, but we were enormously encouraged by their input and their commitment, but it was also a commitment from the other invited guests as well.
QUESTION: Likewise, I would be interested to know if you notice any differences in the new Indian Trade Minister’s approach.
SIMON CREAN: I think the important thing about India was that this is a Minister that was only sworn in on the 22nd May, but has made the effort to come here. He said that he had spoken to his Prime Minister of the importance of being here to not just engage collectively, but engage bilaterally. And I think that I speak for all of the group because I reflect the comments that were made at the end of the sessions we had with both Ron Kirk and with Anand Sharma that all of us were incredibly encouraged by the commitment to engage to seek to resolve the outstanding issues. No further questions?
QUESTION: (inaudible)
MARI PANGESTU, INDONESIAN TRADE MINISTER: The question being asked is whether in the Communiqué when it says to map out a clear path towards the conclusion of the negotiations and to start down that path before the European summer break being endorsed by USTR and India, whether that meant you would complete negotiations by July.
No it doesn’t mean that we complete negotiations by July, but we begin the process that will get us to where we can start negotiations before August, the summer break in the Geneva context is August. So we have a few months ahead to try to build the momentum from this meeting. I just want to emphasis the main very positive result of this meeting. There has not been any re-engagement or engagement since January, I think the last informal Trade Ministers meeting we had was in January in Davos, since then there hasn’t been any progress in engaging and talking to each other about how we should be progressing towards negotiations. So this is the first time that we are engaging again and the signal is very positive that we will continue from here to a series of processes and meetings which has to also take part in Geneva. The technical discussions must from the start begin again in Geneva, as well as there will be other meetings where Trade Ministers will meet in Paris at OECD, at APEC in July and so on, that will build the momentum also at the political level.
SIMON CREAN: If there are no further questions, we thank you for your attendance and we go away happy with a constructive outcome. We thank Indonesia again for being such gracious hosts by creating an environment conducive to that outcome. Thank you very much.
ENDS
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