WTO ministerial meeting in June

Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) have decided to hold the 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) on June 13 in Geneva, which was previously postponed.

Trade ministers are now due to convene for the first time in more than four years, WTO said, announcing the latest date for a meeting that aims to break deadlocks on issues from fishing subsidies to intellectual property rights for vaccines.

The decision was taken following the easing of Covid-19 restrictions in the host country Switzerland, the Geneva-based trade watchdog said in a media statement on Wednesday.

MC12 was due to take place from November 30 to December 3 last year, but was postponed due to the outbreak of the Omicron variant, which led to travel restrictions and quarantine requirements in Switzerland and many other European countries.

Ambassador Dacio Castillo of Honduras, the chair of General Council, had noted that fixing the dates for the eagerly awaited meeting should provide impetus to the WTO’s work and focus for the discussion on ministerial outcomes.

“Let us work together, with the primary objective in mind, that the Conference will provide the WTO and us here in Geneva, with an opportunity to demonstrate that the WTO can deliver,” said Ambassador Castillo, adding, “Let us make this count.”

The pandemic has twice forced the postponement of MC12. The meeting was originally scheduled to take place in June 2020 in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan.

The Ministerial Conference, which is attended by trade ministers and other senior officials from the organization’s 164 members, is the highest decision-making body of the WTO.

The organisation has only managed one update of its global rules in its near 27-year history, the red tape-cutting Trade Facilitation Agreement.