Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala addressed members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) General Council as she officially took office as Director-General on 1 March. She called on members to prioritise action on Covid-19 in the short and long term and to finalise negotiations on fisheries subsidies by mid-year.
“We are not delivering results at the pace required by our fast-changing environment”, she said in her opening remarks. “Therefore, we must work hard to complete a few deliverables before MC12 so that Ministers can focus on ratifying agreements and agreeing best methods for implementation.”
The major topic of this General Council is the issue of global vaccination and the possibilities of accelerating the process from a trade point of view. More and more countries are calling for intellectual property rights on vaccines to be lifted to allow developing countries to produce the substances. “We must focus on working with companies to open up and license more viable manufacturing sites now in emerging markets and developing countries. We must get them to work with us on know-how and technology transfer now. This will be an interim solution whilst we continue the dialogue on the TRIPS waiver”, she asserted.
Twelfth Ministerial Conference. Furthermore, the members of the WTO General Council decided to schedule the next WTO Ministerial Conference for the week of 29 November 2021. This is the second time it has been postponed due to health conditions. Kazakh Trade Minister Bakhyt Sultanov will chair the meeting. This conference is the highest body of the WTO and is due to meet every 2 years. The last one took place in December 2017 in Buenos Aires. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)