The trade ministers of the 20 largest economies in the world acknowledge that dialogue can help to ease international trade tension and that there is an urgent need to improve the way the World Trade Organisation (WTO) works.
Following its meeting in Mar del Plata on Friday 14 September in the framework of the Argentinian Presidency of the G20, the 'G20 Trade' reported that they had stepped up dialogue on developments in international trade, acknowledging the urgent need to discuss current events and various ways of improving the WTO to face current and future challenges.
“The fact that we are talking about the reform of the World Trade Organisation means that we all agree that we need to have an organisation that allows to establish rules and allows us to work within the framework of international trade”, the Argentinian Foreign Minister, Jorge Faurie, told the press.
The French Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, observed that the interesting thing was that they had been able to adopt a ministerial declaration, something that had not been possible at the G20 in December.
One of the major stakes of the reform concerns the fight against unfair trade practices, particularly in China, a theme tabled by the EU and the United States (see EUROPE 12071). Another topic of discussion concerns the settlement of trade disputes within a WTO framework, with the United States blocking the proper functioning of the current system (see EUROPE 12084). (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)