61. The Chairman said that, at the meeting of the TNC on 19 May, the Chair of the TNC had requested the Chairs of the various negotiating groups to provide him with their inputs and assessment by early July, the aim being for the TNC Chair to provide Members in July with a good idea not only of the progress made, but also of what remained to be done to ensure a successful Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong. The TNC Chair had also recognized that the level of specificity of the inputs would no doubt vary from one negotiating group to another. The Chairman said that the report he would submit would be under his own responsibility and would reflect his own assessment of the progress in the group and of outstanding difficulties. Sharing with the Special Session his preliminary thinking as regards his report, he said that he would first give a brief description of the state of play of the work in the Special Session, aimed at fulfilling the mandate given to it in the Doha Declaration. In this context, he would say that he had detected some increase in the level of activity in the last few months as shown by the new submissions, spelling out in legal form proposals for a multilateral system. This had been useful in clarifying to the Special Session the thinking and the proposals of the proponents of these documents. He would also recall the other proposal on the table, namely the one submitted by Hong Kong, China in 2003. He would, however, say that it could not be claimed that the new submissions and the consideration that the Special Session had given to them had enabled a significant step towards finding agreement to be taken. Differences of view on the merits of the different proposals on the table and on their consistency with the Special Session's mandate as contained in paragraph 18 of the Doha Declaration appeared to be as large as ever and not to have narrowed since prior to Cancún. As in previous reports to the TNC, he would identify the two key points of difference that continued to impede efforts towards finding agreement, namely the question of legal effects and participation. In addition, he would mention that there were other issues that needed further discussion such as costs and administrative burdens. He would also say that, while there would be scope within the framework of the Special Session for fruitful work of a technical nature on some aspects in the coming months, any progress on the key issues would require significant new flexibility on the part of the delegations. He said that he would circulate his report in draft form to Members in writing for any further comments, it being clearly understood that the report would remain on his own responsibility.
