WTO’s 12th Ministerial Conference

Why in news?

The World Trade Organization's 12^th Ministerial Conference (MC12), a forum to ensure trade rules will take place from 30 November to 3 December 2021.

What is the WTO Conference (MC12)?

The WTO is an inter-governmental organization for negotiating trade agreements, settling trade disputes, monitoring trade policies and delivering technical assistance on trade to developing countries.
The Ministerial Conference is the highest decision making body of the WTO.
Trade ministers generally meet at the Ministerial Conference every two years, but MC12 was postponed due to COVID-19.
MC12 will be chaired by Timur Suleimenov, the Kazakhstan President’s Envoy for International Trade.

What will happen at the WTO Conference in December?

MC12 Multilateral Discussions

Vaccines and other critical supplies - Vaccine distribution, export restrictions, trade facilitation and improved transparency in medical supply chains needs to be discussed.
Temporary intellectual property (IP) waivers have been debated.
Saving fish stocks - Negotiations have been ongoing since 2001 to eliminate harmful fishing subsidies and a revised text is being discussed ahead of MC12.
Food and Agriculture - Developing countries are keen to see a permanent solution preventing challenges to government food purchase programmes when these breach certain trade-distorting limits.
Some countries are also pushing to reduce farming subsidies and some for new market access talks.
Electronic tariffs - A temporary prohibition on customs duties on electronic transmissions is up for debate again.

MC12 Plurilateral Discussions

Services trade - 65 WTO members accounting of 90% of global services trade have agreed to cut red tape in the way they regulate services.
Its implementation could result in small businesses benefiting from an additional 2-3% cost reduction compared to large firms.
Sustainable trade - Three sustainable trade coalitions will be launched on environmental sustainability, phasing out fossil fuel subsidies and on tackling plastic pollution.
Boosting investment - Negotiations are looking at issues like streamlining the administrative procedures to make an investment in a country.
Going digital - Talks on digital trade continue with text finalized on spam, e-signatures, e-contracts, consumer protection and open government data and paperless trading.
Addressing gender inequalities - A group of WTO members will issue a joint declaration on improving gender-disaggregated data for better trade policymaking and ensuring gender-mainstreaming in the WTO’s development work.

In which issues does India have major stake?

WTO reforms on special and differentiated treatment (S&DT) of developing countries
Public procurement for food security
Response to Covid-19
A patent waiver proposal floated by India and South Africa to fight the pandemic

What is India’s stand on S&DT?

India is concerned that developed nations are pushing on reforms that would dilute provisions on S&DT (special and differential treatment) for developing countries
S&DT allows developing and less developed countries to enjoy certain benefits such as longer time periods for implementing agreements and binding commitments, measures to increase trading opportunities, etc.
Currently, any WTO member can designate itself as a developing country and avail these benefits but developed countries believe that self-declaration will put the WTO on a path to failed negotiations and institutional irrelevance.
However, India is open to discussions on classification of developing countries.
India’s best strategy at the ministerial is to make constructive suggestions on strengthening WTO as it has vital interests in a rules-based multilateral trading order while firmly standing up for the developing world.

References

Quick Facts

World Trade Organisation (WTO)

WTO is the only global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations
It was created in 1995 superseding the 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)
Headquarters – Geneva, Switzerland
WTO has over 160 members representing 98 per cent of world trade
Ministerial Conference – It is the topmost decision-making body of WTO which usually meets every two years
General Council - It is the WTO’s highest-level decision-making body that has representatives from all member governments and meets regularly to carry out the functions of the WTO
The General Council also meets under different rules as the Dispute Settlement Body and as the Trade Policy Review Body.