WTO Director-General warns: New 'trade cold war' specter is re-waving the world(2)

According to a report on the "Nihon Keizai Shimbun" website on June 13, the ministerial meeting of the WTO opened on the 12th at its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. This session will discuss issues such as food security and fisheries subsidies that are threatened by the Russian-Ukrainian war.

Regarding fisheries subsidies, the WTO has continued to negotiate over the past 20 years. There are opinions that subsidies that lead to overfishing should be banned, while developing countries that rely on fisheries to support their economies are cautious and require exceptions.

WTO reform will also be an issue. The main focus is to restore the dispute settlement function to resolve trade frictions between members.

The last ministerial meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2017 ended without a ministerial declaration, and the Trump administration in the United States showed its criticism of the WTO. There are also differences in the positions of various countries on various issues this time, and it is still unknown whether a ministerial declaration can be issued.

According to a report by Agence France-Presse on June 12, the first ministerial meeting of the WTO in nearly five years opened in Geneva on the 12th. 164 members hoped to reach agreement on fisheries, new crown vaccine patents and strategies to avoid a global food crisis, but disagreements still big.

WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala declared himself "cautiously optimistic" from the start. She believes that if the WTO's top policy-making body can agree on at least "one or two" issues, "it will be a success".

Tensions manifested in a closed-door meeting on the 12th, in which some delegates spoke out condemning Russia's military action against Ukraine. A WTO spokesman said the Ukrainian representative also spoke, which was greeted with a standing ovation from the participants. And just before Russian Economic Development Minister Maxim Reshetnikov spoke, about 30 delegates "left the room".