. /.WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONWT/GC/35
17 October 2000
(00-4290)
FOURTH SESSION OF THE MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE
Facilities in Doha, Qatar
Note by the Secretariat
1. With regard to the State of Qatar’s offer to host the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the
WTO, the first contact between the Mission and the Secretariat took place on 14 July 2000.
2. On 19 July, the Secretariat sent to the Mission a letter outlining some basic requirements for
hosting Ministerial Conferences (based on past experience) and copies of the Terms of Referenceused for previous conferences (Singapore, Seattle).   The letter outlined the needs in terms of a
Convention Centre, Conference Rooms, Press Centre, NGO Centre, potential attendance,
accommodation, telecommunications, transportation, security, etc.
3. At the invitation of the Qatari authorities, a member of the Secretariat visited Doha on 17 and
18 September and reviewed the facilities and infrastructure available in terms of the normal WTOrequirements for a Ministerial Conference.
4. Conference facilities
− The Convention Centre is part of the Sheraton hotel.  It is large with quite a number
of meeting rooms of various sizes.  Seating capacity ranges from 40 to 4,000.  Severalof the rooms have permanent simultaneous interpretation installations and others can
be equipped with movable ones.
− There would be space enough to accommodate the Press Centre within the
Convention Centre.
− The NGO Centre could be set up in the Exhibition Hall, which is a 5 minute walk
from the Convention Centre.  This hall is very large (10,000 m2) and the WTO
would, in all hypotheses, use only part of it.
− The registration of participants (delegates, journalists, NGOs) could also be arranged
in the Exhibition Hall.
5. Accommodation
− The hotel capacity is limited.  Taking into account the 5, 4 and 3 star hotels and
furnished rooms in compounds, the number of rooms, which would be available byMay/June 2001 would be in the order of 2,800.WT/GC/35
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6. Timing
− With regard to the period during which the conference could be held, it seems that,
taking into account the Ramadan (roughly speaking from mid November to mid
December), the only possibility would be the week commencing on 5 November or
the week commencing on 29 October.
7. With regard to other issues such as telecommunications, local transportation, security, etc.,
Qatar offers all the guarantees that the WTO may request.
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Comments
The Convention Centre and the Exhibition Hall represent excellent venues, but if the WTO
cannot count on more than 2,800 rooms, it might be difficult to hold a Ministerial Conference in
Doha, given the logistical needs identified which, considering the potential attendance, is in the order
of some 5,000 rooms.
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