WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONWT/INF/59
9 April 2003
(03-1946)
INFORMATION NOTE FROM THE DIRECTOR-GENERAL
Given the increasing amount of public interest in the work of the WTO and the Doha
Development Agenda, a Public Symposium is pl anned at the WTO from 16 to 18 June 2003. The
symposium is the only major public event scheduled at the WTO this year, a year in which we hold
our 5th Ministerial Conference in Cancún, Mexico.
The symposium - "Challenges Ahead on the Road to Cancún" -  will offer government
officials, representatives from non-governmental organizations and members of academia and the
media to interact and debate some of the key issues concerning the Doha Development Agenda and
the status of the current negotiations.
The symposium will focus on some key areas of the WTO's work and will include WTO-
organized sessions on such topics as trade and the environment, trade in agriculture, services and
development. It will also allow for parallel work sessions and roundtables to be organized by
governments and by non-governmental representatives on topics of their choice. I believe this
approach will add to the overall value of the symposium. Several governments and NGO
representatives have already made initial requests to have topics of interest to them included in theprogramme.
This symposium is being funded by the Government of Norway which has provided a special
contribution to organize this event. A full programme of all the planned sessions will soon be posted
on the WTO's website (www.wto.org).
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