Brussels, 08/12/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 7 December, a coalition of 26 business associations from five continents issued a call for concrete results at the 10th ministerial conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to be held in Nairobi on 15-18 December.
“International trade is going through a profound and accelerated transformation. This is mainly due to changed trade patters, the globalisation of value chains, the advance of new technologies, and the call for more sustainability in cross-border commerce. All of these changes are taking place in a by now multi-polar world. The WTO (…) is the ideal forum to meet these challenges”, the coalition stated in a joint press release published on Monday.
The coalition of business organisations (from Africa, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the EU and the USA) is hoping for three key results from the Nairobi conference. It firstly expect the swift ratification and implementation of the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) that was concluded at the previous ministerial conference at the end of 2013, and that contains a series of rules to simplify and ease customs procedures and better integrate developing countries into global trade. “Once in force, the TFA (…) will offer a significant boost for the global trading community during these critical economic times”, the associations state.
Secondly, the coalition calls for the conclusion of the Information Technology Agreement (ITA - following an agreement last summer on the review of its initial 1996 version in order to extend its scope to 200 new products - (see EUROPE 11369), and the Environmental Goods Agreement (EGA - on liberalising trade in environmental goods and services, which is still ongoing in Geneva - see EUROPE 11442). “The progress made in recent months (on these two agreements) needs to result in a successful conclusion of both agreements in Nairobi”, the coalition states.
Thirdly, the business associations hope to “harvest the low-hanging Doha Development Agenda fruits” and to start a “thorough reflection” on the launch of negotiations on new issues. “In times of immense challenges, economic operators worldwide are waiting with concern for negotiators to show leadership and demonstrate the ability of the WTO to deliver. Started in 2001, the Doha Development Agenda has yet to deliver on many issues under negotiation. In the meantime, global value chains and digitalisation have created new trade realities requiring multilateral approaches. Starting in Nairobi, the WTO needs to discuss a new set of issues and new negotiating dynamics with better prospects to reach agreement”, they state.
“By achieving these objectives, the WTO can show its determination and capacity to deliver on the current and future challenges of world trade on a multilateral basis”, the coalition concludes - which, on the European side, includes Eurochambres, EuroCommerce, the European Express Association, the European Services Forum, the Foreign Trade Association, and TheCityUK. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)