Developing countries and LDCs talk

The New Delhi meeting of the World Trade Organization, to be held 13-14 May 2019, is an effort to bring together the developing countries and Least Developed Countries (LDCs) on a platform for sharing common concerns on various issues affecting the WTO and work together to address these issues.

The two-day meeting also aims to provide an opportunity to the developing countries and LDCs to build consensus on how to move forward on the WTO reforms, while preserving the fundamentals of the multilateral trading system enshrined in the WTO, said the Commerce and Industry Ministry in a release on 10 May 2019.

The deliberations will aim at getting a direction on how to constructively engage on various issues in the WTO, both institutional and negotiating, in the run up to the Twelfth Ministerial Conference of the WTO to be held in Kazakhstan in June 2020, said the Ministry.

The meeting is being held at a time when the multilateral rule-based-trading system is facing serious and grave challenges, the Ministry pointed out.

In the recent past, there have been increasing unilateral measures and counter measures by members, deadlock in key areas of negotiations and the impasse in the Appellate Body, which threaten the very existence of Dispute Settlement Mechanism of the WTO and impacts the position of the WTO as an effective multilateral organisation.

The current situation has given rise to demands from various quarters to reform the WTO, said the Ministry.

Sixteen developing countries, Six Least Developed Countries (LDCs)(Argentina, Bangladesh, Barbados, Benin, Brazil, Central African Republic (CAR), Chad, China, Egypt, Guatemala, Guyana, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Malawi, Malaysia, Nigeria, Oman, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, Uganda) and DG, WTO are participating in the meeting. fiinews.com