2022 part1

62/ Members updated on progress to further integrate small economies into world trading system

23 FEBRUARY 2022

At the General Council meeting of 23 February 2022, the Chair of the Committee on Trade and Development (CTD), Ambassador Muhammad Mujtaba Piracha of Pakistan, outlined his efforts in working with members to advance the discussions under the WTO’s Work Programme on Small Economies.

Ambassador Piracha informed members that he would be exploring the possibility of holding a meeting of the CTD’s Dedicated Session on Small Economies to allow a preliminary discussion to take place on small economies’ integration into the post COVID-19 economy. Such a meeting would permit the proponents to spell out how they see the work going forward.

WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala stressed the importance of finding solutions that will assist small economies adjust to the major challenges related to climate change and other unique structural constraints that make it difficult for them to fully benefit from international trade.

The Work Programme on Small Economies was established on the basis of a mandate from the Fourth WTO Ministerial Conference held in Doha, Qatar, in November 2001. Its objective is to frame responses to the trade-related issues identified for the fuller integration of small, vulnerable economies into the multilateral trading system, and not to create a sub-category of WTO members.

Over the years, several decisions have been taken at WTO ministerial conferences reaffirming ministers’ commitment to the Work Programme, and specifying particular areas of work to be undertaken. The last decision was taken at the 11th Ministerial Conference in Buenos Aires in 2017, where trade ministers adopted a Decision on Small Economies.

Most recently, members agreed in the CTD’s Dedicated Session on Small Economies on 19 October 2021 to a draft Ministerial Decision on the Work Programme, which calls upon members to address the issue of integrating small economies into the post COVID-19 economy by looking at the impact of the pandemic and the underlying challenges and opportunities faced by small economies.

Ambassador Piracha also recently met with a number of representatives of the Small, Vulnerable Economies (SVE) Group in order to discuss issues relating to the Work. He reported that a rich and comprehensive discussion had taken place on the needs of small economies and the extent to which they were being addressed in the WTO, which he believed would form a useful basis for further interactions on the way forward in the Work Programme.

He also reported that he had encouraged the small economies to continue to submit proposals in the negotiating groups and other WTO bodies.

Source: wto.org