WTO members agreed on 1 December 2023 on a draft decision to be submitted to trade ministers for approval at the 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13) in February 2024 to help further the integration of small economies into the world trading system. Adopted at a meeting of the Committee on Trade (...)
Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala welcomed on 1 December the endorsement by standard setting bodies, international organizations, steel producers and industry associations of a set of principles aimed at aligning how greenhouse gas emissions are measured in the steel sector. This novel (...)
At the final round of e-commerce negotiations for 2023, taking place from 27 to 30 November, the co-convenors of the talks — Australia, Japan and Singapore — drew up a roadmap for negotiations for the remainder of the year and the first quarter of 2024. Participants “parked” the negotiating text on (...)
Showcasing “WTO reform by doing”, members approved on 30 November a report capturing 127 concrete steps taken since the 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) in June 2022 to improve the functioning and efficiency of the Council for Trade in Goods (CTG) and its 14 subsidiary bodies. As a follow-up to (...)
At a meeting of the Committee on Agriculture on 27-29 November, WTO members exchanged views on a range of issues under the committee’s work mandate, with the issue of food security once again a main focus of the discussions. Members also carried out their regular review of each other’s farm (...)
Expertise and practical examples from 30 leading multinational companies have been included in a new ILO publication that aims to help enterprises achieve business success and tap into an under-utilized talent pool by creating more welcoming conditions for persons with (...)
At a virtual mini-ministerial gathering on agriculture on 28 November, the United Arab Emirates’ Foreign Trade Minister, Thani Bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, urged ministers to provide political guidance to agriculture negotiators in the run-up to the 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13) scheduled for (...)
WTO members considered five regional trade agreements (RTAs) between the United Kingdom and various trading partners, namely Central America, the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) and Mozambique, Moldova, Albania and Georgia at the 20, 21 and 27 November meetings of the Committee on (...)