Commerce Ministry to hold inter-ministerial consultations on May 18

NEW DELHI: The Commerce Ministry has convened an inter-ministerial meeting on May 18 to hold consultations on issues that are likely to figure prominently in the forthcoming meeting of the highest decision-making body of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Geneva next month, an official said.

The 12th ministerial conference of the WTO is scheduled from June 12-15 in Geneva.

The 164-member multilateral body frames global trade rules and adjudicates trade disputes among member nations.

Issues which are expected to figure in the meeting includes a proposed agreement on fisheries subsidies; agriculture; digital trade or e-commerce; World Trade Organisation’s response to pandemic including TRIPS (trade related aspects of intellectual property rights) waiver; Joint Statement Initiative (JSI) matters like trade and gender, trade and MSME; reforms in the World Trade Organisation-like appellate body crisis, special and differential treatment.

Joint Statement Initiative is a negotiating method started by a certain group of WTO member countries on some specific issues without following the rule of consensus decision-making, which involves all the members of the WTO.

Members are negotiating a proposed fisheries subsidies agreement. The objective is to discipline subsidies for sustainable fishing, eliminate IUU (Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated) fishing subsidies and prohibit them from contributing to overcapacity and overfishing.