WTO Director-General warns: New 'trade cold war' specter is re-waving the world(1)

According to a report by Efe on June 12, the 12th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) opened on the 12th. The meeting hoped to reach an agreement on fisheries, new crown vaccine intellectual property rights and food security, but also worried about geopolitical tensions The situation could divide the world into two trading blocs.

WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala warned at the opening ceremony that the war in Ukraine, economic tensions between the great powers and the failure of WTO members to reach a major agreement for several years have made the new "trade The terrifying specter of the "Cold War" wafts again.

She warned: "Splintering into trade blocs could mean a 5% drop in global GDP."

The WTO ministerial meeting is usually held every two years, but it has not been held for nearly five years due to the impact of the epidemic. Over the next three days, the session will seek to reach agreement on issues such as temporarily suspending patents on new crown vaccines to boost vaccine production in developing countries.

India and South Africa proposed the proposal as early as 2020, and most developing countries have joined it, although a group of developed countries with a strong pharmaceutical industry remains reluctant.

Food security will be another negotiating focus. The war in Ukraine has exacerbated inflation caused by rising food and fertilizer prices, and the session is expected to negotiate measures to ease the blockade on food exports and facilitate access to these essential commodities.

Negotiations in this area are tricky because despite Russia's isolation from the international community, the WTO mechanism states that any measure must be adopted by consensus, which means that every member (Russia is also a WTO member) has a veto, so the Any deal must be counted on Russia.