Brussels / Geneva, 02/08/2002 (Agence Europe) - "Three years on, I believe we are entitled to look back on a record of very solid achievement", said Mike Moore, from New Zealand. He said confidence has been restored in the system (embodied in the World Trade Organisation) and the launching of a new round of talks last year in Doha opened enormous possibilities for improving the living conditions of populations throughout the world. Mike Moore was saying his goodbyes to the ambassadors of the 146, one month before passing over his functions at the head of the WTO to Indonesian national, Supachaï Panitchpakdi, who will take over on 1 September, thus inaugurating the attribution of the post to a representative of the developing world.
The outgoing director general is also satisfied because the WTO has become really universal, with the integration of eleven countries in a short lapse of time, including China, Taiwan (Chinese Taïpeh), Jordan, Oman, Albania and several countries that were part of the former Yugoslavia or former CIS. Nonetheless, he said, "if Russia is not in by the time of the 6th Ministerial in 2005, that will be a great defeat". Mike Moore, who was entrusted with the task of president of the Round's steering committee after bitter bargaining between those upholding the "traditions" and those in favour of renewed procedures, also presented the very first overall report of work carried out by the trade negotiation committee at a rapid and sustained rate despite problems that occur "naturally". He returned to the need for delegations to think creatively and pragmatically, to focus on substance, given everything that remains to be accomplished to make this vast and arduous negotiation, which opened early this year, a success. It is urgent, he said, not only because there are only thirteen months until the Ministerial Conference in Cancun, in September 2003, but also because half of the world's population continues to live on less than 2 dollars a day. A successful round of talks can help millions of people out of poverty, he said. "This agenda is about them", he insisted. "Our greatest motivation is the people we serve", he said. Mike Moore also pointed out on this occasion that everything he did not say that day about his experience at the head of the WTO, he would put down in a book to come out "in due course", a book that will show how things happened and "it will show how you and I, together, made them happen".