Maintain and develop the multilateral trading system
More than 20 years of fisheries subsidy agreement negotiations are expected to end successfully
Geneva News (Reporter Yang Haiquan) The 12th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) opened in Geneva, Switzerland on June 12, after being postponed several times due to the new crown pneumonia epidemic and other reasons.In his opening speech, WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonyo-Iweala pointed out that the multilateral trading system is a global public product carefully crafted by all parties.The world today is facing multiple uncertainties and risks and challenges in economics and trade, health, ecological environment, international security and geopolitics. Multilateralism is facing a test, and the world urgently needs to maintain and develop the multilateral trading system.
If economic and regulatory fragmentation is allowed or even accepted, countries will pay a huge price, Ngozi said.According to estimates by WTO economists, if the interdependent world economic system were to decouple into separate trading blocs, the long-term level of global real GDP would be reduced by about 5%.This is just the beginning of the economic toll, with additional losses continuing to be incurred from reduced economies of scale, transition costs for businesses and workers, disorderly allocation of resources and financial distress, which will be added to by new trade and regulatory barriers within each group.If this happens, it will be costly for the strong in international economic relations and more disruptive for other players, while low-income countries will suffer the most in terms of potential growth.Ngozi stressed that it is in everyone's interest to maintain the functioning of the multilateral trading system, and that trade decoupling will exacerbate the development setbacks caused by the new crown pneumonia epidemic, make it harder for poor countries to catch up with rich countries, and even lead to greater political and social The upheaval, including creating enormous immigration pressure and making the debt problem worse.
Ngozi said that WTO members must respond to current global challenges with urgency and immediately begin exchanging views on issues facing the multilateral trading system.WTO members should also respond and decide on ongoing global emergencies, including the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, looming food security challenges, pandemic-related supply chain bottlenecks, rising global food, energy and agricultural input prices, and inflation across economies Stress, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, droughts, floods, heatwaves and other extreme weather, as well as global development issues such as agriculture, fisheries, e-commerce and WTO reform.Ngozi stressed that in the face of pressing world problems, low-income countries will face disastrous situations if action is not taken at the national and international levels.Furthermore, if the current geopolitical tensions are allowed to spread, there will be serious consequences for the work of the WTO and the functioning of the multilateral trading system.
The 4-day meeting will see members discussing issues such as intellectual property rights exemptions for COVID-19 vaccines, epidemic response, fishery subsidies, agriculture, food security, and WTO reform. Members will also discuss the future work of the WTO at the meeting. discuss.
Negotiations for a fisheries subsidy agreement are one of the key topics of this ministerial meeting to set global rules for fisheries subsidies to curb their harmfulness.The draft agreement released by the WTO rules negotiating team ahead of the current ministerial meeting reflects the collective efforts of WTO member representatives in recent intensive meetings to successfully conclude the more than 20-year-long fishing subsidy negotiation process. The results were expected.
Santiago Wells, chair of the WTO rules negotiating group responsible for negotiating the fisheries subsidy agreement, said in a statement recently that the draft is considered to be the most likely to yield a consensus outcome in some ways.The revisions came from a group of members with different positions, who worked together to resolve some differences and presented a draft acceptable to them to this ministerial meeting.After more than 20 years of negotiations, the WTO should deliver on its promise to set global rules to end subsidies for illegal and overfishing.
According to reports, the WTO rules negotiation team submitted a draft fisheries subsidy agreement in November 2021 for WTO member trade ministers to consider at the 12th ministerial meeting originally scheduled to be held in late November of that year.Afterwards, affected by the outbreak of the Omicron strain, the WTO postponed the ministerial meeting, which forced the review of the draft to be postponed.Still, WTO members continued to work on the draft agreement.In the latest round of intensive meetings in May this year, the pace of related work was steadily accelerated, and preliminary consultations on several sensitive issues of the draft agreement were finally reached before the current ministerial meeting.
The development of global rules on fisheries subsidies has been one of the themes of the WTO rules negotiating group since 2001 and agreed on its negotiating mandate in 2005.Leaders of various countries adopted the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in September 2015, and the 11th WTO Ministerial Conference in 2017 agreed on the task of negotiating fisheries subsidies, which brought a new sense of urgency to the negotiation of fisheries subsidies.Under the UN Sustainable Development Goals and mandated by the 11th Ministerial Conference of the WTO, the core task of negotiating fisheries subsidies is to agree on rules to eliminate subsidies for illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and prohibit certain Some fisheries subsidies that lead to overcapacity and overfishing, of which special and differential treatment is also an integral part of the negotiations.
Santiago Wells stressed that negotiating a fisheries subsidy agreement, WTO members should be based on opposing depletion fishing and fully recognizing the vital importance of fish stocks to protect livelihoods, maintain food security and protect the planet's environment. position.The longer the delay in fisheries subsidy negotiations, the greater the loss of fish stocks and the greater the loss of humans.According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, fish stocks in many parts of the world are at risk of depletion due to overfishing.An estimated 34 percent of the world's fish stocks are currently overfished, up from 10 percent in 1974.Declining fish stocks has the potential to exacerbate poverty and endanger countries that depend on fisheries for their livelihoods and food supplies.
【Editor: Wang Yu】
