WORLD TRADE WT/GC/141 7 December 2011 ORGANIZATION (11-6337) General Council Original: English 26 October 2011 Item 1

STATEMENT BY H.E. THE RIGHT HONOURABLE HAM LINI VANUAROROA, DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER AND MINISTER OF TRADE, COMMERCE, INDUSTRY AND TOURISM, VANUATU

The following statement made by H.E. the Right Honourable Ham Lini Vanuaroroa at the General Council meeting on 26 October 2011 under "agenda item 1", is being circulated to Members at the request of that delegation.

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Thank you Director-General Pascal Lamy. Thank you Chairman of the General Council and all WTO Members.

As Deputy Prime Minister, I was here on 4 April, at the Head of the Delegation of the Government of Vanuatu, at Informal Meeting of the Re-convened Working Party on the Accession of Vanuatu, which was chaired by Deputy Director-General Jara. At that meeting, I made an appeal to WTO Members: "Vanuatu is in the hands of the WTO, please open the doors of membership".

Today, 26 October 2011, I am pleased to return, with the Delegation of the Government of Vanuatu, and to walk through the doors of WTO membership.

Today is a happy moment of historical significance for the Government and People of the Republic of Vanuatu.

On behalf of H.E. the Right Honourable Sato Kilman, Prime Minister of Vanuatu, please accept the appreciation of the Government and People of Vanuatu on your positive consideration and approval of the WTO terms of membership of Vanuatu, as just approved by the General Council.

Prime Minister Kilman had very much wanted to be present here today, but had to change his plans after the change in date of the General Council to 26 October. The Prime Minister is today in Perth, Australia, attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).

My statement is a very brief one. The Chairman has already narrated the background of Vanuatu's accession. So, I will not repeat it. Vanuatu's accession story has been told far and wide and, in many ways, represents the necessary and, in many ways, unavoidable challenges of the WTO accession process. The Working Party on the Accession of Vanuatu was established in 1995. It concluded its work in October 2001. Vanuatu is a democracy with an active civil society. Every stratum of our society matters to the Government, and all positions are considered and taken into account to the extent possible.

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We needed time to evaluate the package, to build ownership and to build a bipartisan consensus, which were necessary and indispensable to enact the necessary reforms through our Parliamentary process. It took a while! But, so it is in democracies! We are proud of our system of Government!

In November 2008, in the letter addressed to the Director-General, the Government of Vanuatu requested Director-General Pascal Lamy to resume the process. We sought the assistance of the WTO Secretariat to undertake a technical update of our 2001 accession package. In 2008, I was Prime-Minister, and later the same year became Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Justice and Social Welfare. I fully know the road that Vanuatu has travelled towards membership with you, the Members and the WTO Secretariat.

My message to other acceding governments is a simple one: although the process is challenging, more so in democracies, the conclusion of WTO accession negotiations and the honest implementation of all the commitments undertaken carry significant gains and benefits for the acceding government. In Vanuatu, we know this to be so.

The Government of Vanuatu took tough decisions and enacted legislation in several areas:

 State Ownership, Privatization, and State Trading Entities.  Sanitary and Phytosanitary measures.  Trade-Related Intellectual Property Regime.  Services.  Trading Rights, where we amended the laws to ensure that import licences may be granted to foreign "importers of record" and to remove business licence fees that violate any commitment to non-discrimination and national treatment.  Import Licensing, where we have eliminated the discretionary authority of the Minister to restrict imports, with WTO-consistent amendments to the Import of Goods (Control) Act and the Customs Act.  The Goods offer and Services offer Vanuatu has made to WTO Members are substantial.

We have taken these decisions and reforms because Vanuatu believes that it is good for Vanuatu and good for the WTO. It is a win-win situation.

As a government and people, Vanuatu knows that it has made a rational choice. We prefer to live in an environment of rules governing us, rather than an un-transparent and chaotic regime. Since 2001, Vanuatu has actually implemented most of its WTO commitments. Implementation of Vanuatu's WTO commitments, even before membership, is one of the factors that has accounted for Vanuatu's increased prosperity and substantial growth rates. Of this situation, we are justifiably proud.

At the risk of violating the foundation WTO principle of non-discrimination, the Government of Vanuatu expresses its sincere appreciation to the Governments of Australia, New Zealand, the European Union and the United States for their concrete technical assistance to ensure that we are here today and to assist Vanuatu as we crossed the finishing line.

The Government of Vanuatu conveys its special appreciation to Director-General Pascal Lamy for his strong support for Vanuatu, and other acceding least-developed countries, and also, specifically for his vision for a rules-based multilateral trading system that takes account of the development dimension, and the priorities and concerns of LDCs like Vanuatu.

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We also recognize the members of the Pacific Ocean family who consistently stayed with us on this journey.

Through the Director-General, the Government of Vanuatu pays tribute to the tireless Director of the Accessions Division; Mr. Chiedu Osakwe. We know he found his visit to Port Vila in May this year memorable, when inter alia he was received in the "House of Chiefs" to make his case to those who still had questions on the merits of Vanuatu's WTO membership. We also pay tribute as well to Ms. Alicja Wielgus, the Working Party Secretary and Mr. Dayong Yu, the Co-Secretary.

At this juncture, I hope that Members will also provide support to my neighbouring country in its final working party meeting on Friday this week.

On this occasion, Prime Minister Sato Kilman specifically requested me to register his own heartfelt appreciation to the Government in Port Vila, who joined in the bipartisan consensus at home to ensure that Vanuatu redeemed all our obligations and enacted relevant legislation.

On my own, I also thank the entire Vanuatu negotiating team over the years, including Vanuatu's former Prime Ministers, Ministers and Senior Officials, and our whole community in Vanuatu who supported the Government in this process, and specifically Ambassador Roy Mickey Joy, Chief Negotiator of the Government of Vanuatu in its WTO accession negotiations.

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