At the final round of e-commerce negotiations for 2023, taking place from 27 to 30 November, the co-convenors of the talks — Australia, Japan and Singapore — drew up a roadmap for negotiations for the remainder of the year and the first quarter of 2024. Participants “parked” the negotiating text [...]
The chair of the fisheries subsidies negotiations, Ambassador Einar Gunnarsson of Iceland, on 21 December circulated a new draft text on curbing subsidies contributing to overcapacity and overfishing in order to help members push the negotiations over the finish line at the 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13) in late February 2024. [...]
The effort to combat climate change is also an opportunity for least developed countries (LDCs) to leverage their advantages and benefit from trade opportunities offered by green specialization, Deputy Director-General Jean-Marie Paugam said on 3 December. Speaking at a Trade House event at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, DDG [...]
At a 13-15 December meeting of the WTO’s General Council, members heard from the Chair of the 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13), H.E. Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, Minister of State for Foreign Trade of the United Arab Emirates, on preparations for MC13, which will take place in Abu Dhabi [...]
A total of 28 senior officials working in the areas of health, intellectual property and trade from WTO Arab and Middle East members and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) took part in the multi-agency Regional Trade and Public Health Workshop, held in Kuwait from 10 to 14 December. The workshop [...]
At a meeting of the Sub-Committee on Least Developed Countries (LDCs) on 13 December, WTO members welcomed Bhutan’s commitment to revitalizing its negotiations on joining the WTO and congratulated the country on its graduation from LDC status. The Secretariat of the United Nations Committee for Development Policy updated WTO members [...]
Equality and inclusion must remain at the heart of the WTO’s work agenda in order to ensure a “place for everybody” in the global trading system, H.E. President Macky Sall of Senegal told an audience at WTO headquarters in Geneva on 13 December. President Sall was delivering the latest edition [...]
Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and International Finance Corporation Managing Director Makhtar Diop launched at the WTO on 13 December a co-publication titled “Trade Finance in the Mekong Region” to underline how an expansion in trade finance could further increase the region’s participation in world trade. Presenting survey results from banks in [...]
The Gambia and the United Kingdom deposited their instruments of acceptance of the Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies on 13 December, advancing the tally of formal acceptances to the halfway mark required for entry into force. Seyaka Sonko, Minister of Interior of the Gambia, and Andrew Mitchell, Minister of State (Development [...]
In her report to a meeting of the WTO’s Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC) on 12 December, Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said it was incumbent upon WTO members to deliver concrete outcomes at the upcoming 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13) in Abu Dhabi next February. To achieve this, negotiators “need to conclude as [...]