RESTRICTEDWORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONWT/WGTGP/M/16
8 January 2003
(03-0059)
Working Group on Transparency
in Government Procurement
REPORT ON THE MEETING OF 29 NOVEMBER 2002
Note by the Secretariat
1. The Working Group on Transparency in Government Procurement held its sixteenth meeting
on 29 November 2002 under the chairmanship of Ambassador Ronald Saborío Soto (Costa Rica).
2. The agenda for the meeting consisted of:  (i) review and approval of the draft report (2002);
and (ii) other business.
A. ANNUAL REPORT
3. The Working Group adopted its Annual Report for 2002 to the General Council on the basis
of a draft prepared by the Secretariat.  The report was subsequently circulated as
document WT/WGTGP/6.
B. OTHER BUSINESS
(i) Statement by the Dominican Republic
4. The representative of the Dominican Republic confirmed her Government's commitment to
paragraph 26 of the Doha Ministerial Declaration that negotiations be held on a multilateral
agreement on transparency in government procurement, on the basis of a decision to be taken, by
explicit consensus, at the 5th Ministerial Conference with regard to modalities of holding such
negotiations.  The Dominican Republic undertook to participate in the work of the Working Group
identifying the elements that the agreement should include, on the basis of the precepts of the Doha
Ministerial Declaration that negotiations should take account of the priorities of developing country
Members and that negotiations should be confined to transparency.  She recognized that the work ofthe Working Group on Transparency in Government Procurement had made significant progress over
the last six years in identifying and developing the elements of an agreement on transparency in
government procurement and she reiterated her Government's undertaking to cooperate in furthering
that progress.
(ii) Scheduling of meetings in 2003
5. The Working Group agreed to hold two substantive meetings before the Cancun Ministerial
Conference.  The first substantive meeting would be held on 7 February and the second in June 2003.
There would be a third meeting in late Autumn which would be primarily for the purpose of
approving the Annual Report for 2003 to the General Council.
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