The Working Party for the Accession of Montenegro to the WTO held on 4 October 2005 its first meeting, under the chairmanship of Slovenia’s ambassador to the WTO, Mr. Aljaz Gosnar, with an initial examination of the Foreign Trade regime on the basis of abundant documentation supplied by Montenegro. The delegation of Montenegro was lead by Mrs Gordana Djurovic, Minister of International Economic Relations and Economic Integration, and the Republic’s chief negotiator for WTO accession.

Montenegro has submitted already an initial offer on services In his opening remarks, the chairman said that meeting the requirements of WTO accession will be “a challenging task for Montenegro? But he also said that the Government is rising to the challenge “with admirable energy and determination? He stressed the importance for Montenegro to submit in advance of next meeting a full fledged legislative action plan for further assessment by the Working Party of Montenegro’s compliance with WTO requirements.

The Minister of International Economic Relations said that the meeting marked “an important step in Montenegro’s transition to a fully free-market and free-trade oriented economy? She also said that completing accession to the WTO is “one of the very highest priorities of the Government of Montenegro and we intend to accomplish it in the shortest possible time?

The Republic of Montenegro is one of two member states of the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro and is applying for membership as a “separate customs territory?of this Union, as is also the Republic of Serbia.