Trade Officials Meet at WTO to Talk MC13, WTO Reform, More

Senior trade officials met at the World Trade Organization Oct. 23 and 24 to "take stock of progress on issues on the negotiating agenda" in the run-up to the 13th Ministerial Conference, the WTO said. On Oct. 23, WTO members adopted a decision to aid least-developed countries in graduating from LDC status and broke out into sessions on agriculture, trade and development and dispute settlement reform. The next day, breakout sessions covered trade and industrial policy and trade and environmental sustainability.

Plenary sessions at the senior trade officials meeting covered "an opening 'scene-setting' session," reports from the facilitators of the breakout groups, WTO reform, the e-commerce work program and moratorium, the decision on the trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights agreement from MC12 and a closing session on the path forward.

WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said senior officials now have the political mandate to achieve outcomes at MC13 on "issues such as agriculture and food security, dispute settlement reform, the e-commerce work programme and moratorium, the 'second wave' of fisheries subsidies negotiations, and development issues, among others."