EU business representative BusinessEurope and its counterparts in six non-EU countries are calling on members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to deliver concrete results at the 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13) to be held in Abu Dhabi from 26 to 29 February. Work on organisational reform, industrial subsidies, fisheries subsidies, investment facilitation and e-commerce must be completed, they say.
Reform of the WTO is vital, write business representatives. And this requires an operational dispute settlement body. “Without a binding dispute settlement system, the value of international trade is diminished since there is no longer certainty on the effective application of the agreed upon rules”, warn the authors of the declaration.
They also stress the absolute necessity, in their view, of making the moratorium on e-commerce permanent. It abolishes all tariffs on electronic transmissions. “Whatever short-term revenues individual WTO members might collect from the imposition of tariffs on electronic transmissions would be far outweighed by the negative economic consequences that would result as the digital economy left those countries behind”, write the business representatives.
To see the joint statement: https://aeur.eu/f/aol (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)