WTO strikes landmark deals

WTO strikes landmark deals

GENEVA: The World Trade Organization concluded a landmark bundle of deals Friday covering fishing subsidies, food insecurity and Covid-19 vaccines following hectic round-the-clock talks. WTO director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said trade ministers had struck an “unprecedented” number of agreements that would affect the lives of people everywhere.

The talks in Geneva began Sunday and had been due to wrap up on Wednesday. But instead the WTO’s 164 members went through two straight nights before getting the package over the line at around 5:00 am (0300 GMT) Friday. “DEAL!” tweeted EU trade commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis after the conference went nearly 36 hours into overtime. The WTO’s 12th ministerial conference (MC12) reeled in a deal to halt harmful fisheries subsidies after more than two decades of negotiations, and also reached agreements on e-commerce, responding to pandemics and reforming the organization itself.

“Not in a long while has the WTO seen such a significant number of multilateral outcomes,” Okonjo-Iweala said. “The package of agreements you have reached will make a difference to the lives of people around the world.” But she acknowledged that “there were many moments when I feared we would come out of MC12 with nothing at all”. As negotiations dragged on, delegates at