The Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, presented, on Thursday 29 July, the mid-year report on trade-related developments. The report indicates that world trade recovered faster than expected from mid-October 2020 to mid-May 2021.
However, the Director-General warned member countries against restrictive trade policies. Above all, she reiterated the need to ensure equitable distribution of Covid-19 vaccines to ensure recovery.
“As a platform for transparency, the WTO has a central role to play in ensuring that supply chains remain open. This is an essential part of producing vaccines and distributing them on a scale that can stop the pandemic”, she said.
The report shows that since the beginning of the pandemic, 248 measures to facilitate trade have been taken, compared to 136 measures restricting trade. In the former case, the majority of tariffs are reduced or even eliminated. In the latter case, it is mostly export restrictions.
Many countries have, for example, reduced tariffs on goods such as protective equipment, hand sanitisers, disinfectants, medical equipment and medicines.
See the report: https://bit.ly/3icpb1G (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)