Minister Crean Visits France
From 3 to 6 June, the Minister for Trade, the Hon Simon Crean MP, travelled to Paris to participate in the annual OECD Ministerial Council Meeting (MCM) and OECD Forum. While in Paris, Mr Crean also hosted an informal meeting of trade ministers and the WTO Director-General, to discuss progress in the WTO Doha Round and the need to intensify negotiations if the Round is to be concluded this year.
The core theme for this year’s OECD MCM was “Outreach, Reform and the Economics of Climate Change.” The agenda included items on trade, climate change, economic reform, future OECD priorities, development assistance and OECD engagement with major developing countries. The importance of concluding the Doha Round this year was a recurrent and dominant theme for discussion across a number of sessions.
At the OECD Forum, Mr Crean participated in a panel with other OECD Trade Ministers to discuss the multilateral trading system.