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TWN Info Service
on WTO and Trade Issues (Mar26/46) Yaounde, 30 Mar (D. Ravi Kanth) — The Director-General of the World Trade Organization, Ms Ngozi Okonjo- Iweala, on early morning of 30 March justified the Chair’s statement as testimony to a “nimbler and smoother process” for conducting the 14th Ministerial Conference (MC14). She expressed no undue worry over the breakdown on the moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions, which lapsed on 30 March. She said, “Even if the e-commerce moratorium lapses allowing members to collect customs duties on electronic transmissions, we found last time that it takes time for customs authorities to collect duties.” By then, she said, “members would able to restore the moratorium not to levy customs duties on e-commerce transmissions.” At her press conference on 30 March, the DG proposed several new ideas, such as completing work on finalizing failed initiatives like the proposed integration of the Investment Facilitation for Development Agreement (IFDA) into Annex 4 of the WTO Agreement by 129 members and submit them to the WTO Secretariat for notification. Even though there is no formal multilateral consensus – even regarding the submission of the Joint Statement Initiative Agreement on Electronic Commerce by 66 countries and on the IFDA’s integration into the WTO rulebook – the DG encouraged the parties to these two agreements to submit them for notification while waiting for the process to be agreed upon at the General Council. At her concluding press conference, the DG stated that members were “trying to make offers” on the e-commerce moratorium, “which could get them towards the landing zone, and that was what was being negotiated, and we kept thinking we’re going to land it, we’re going to land it, and we simply ran out of time.” However, Brazil and Turkiye are understood to have stated their opposition to any extension of the moratorium beyond two years, which was seemingly unacceptable to the US, which wanted more than four years, said people familiar with the development. On another issue -whether the General Council can take a decision on the annex attached to the draft WTO reform document, including on the TRIPS moratorium on non-violation and situation complaints – the DG said: “I think it is a good move because the General Council has the same powers,” adding that “usually ministers with more political will … usually move things easier and faster. That’s why you have the ministerial.” She continued: “I think this time we all should also understand the circumstances under which we’re having the meeting. There is a war going on in the world, and a rather important thing: people’s economies are being impacted – there are high energy prices … domestic prices are rising.” According to Ms Okonjo-Iweala, “ministers want to get back because of some of the implications of what’s happening in the economies, and that’s why we couldn’t hold them (up).” Ultimately, it is simply a question of time, she said, adding, “but normally, if circumstances were okay, we would have tried to prolong it as we did at MC12 (in Geneva in June 2022).” Also, members prolonged MC13 in Abu Dhabi in March 2024, she said. She alluded to the imponderable of whether ministers can “support the ambassadors, which is what they’re saying they’ll do in Geneva to try and get over the finish line and capitalize on work already done.” Despite utter chaos and divisions on WTO reform at the Yaounde meeting, the DG said, “You know, we’ve done so much on the reform, which is very pleasing.” “We now need to finalize all these things and move it on,” she emphasized. Without naming Turkiye, which announced at the plenary meeting that it removed its objections to joining IFDA, the DG pointed out that “the very first announcement was there are two members who have been, you know, who have been having challenges along with incorporation, and one of them came out and said, we are no longer going to do that.” Initially, there were three members – India, South Africa, and Turkiye – which raised objections to IFDA’s incorporation into Annex 4 of the WTO Agreement. However, that number got reduced to one (India), the DG said, arguing that “f we give it a little more time, they all have their reasons for the objection, but over time, the members of IFDA have been working to convince them, and it’s working.” She expressed confidence that “we will, I think we will get there” and “you know, sometimes things take time.” The DG’s responses on IFDA appear to be glossing over the actual reality that the agreement lacked multilateral consensus, which she did not mention at all during the press conference, said a participant who asked not to be quoted. She continued, saying that type of work of parachuting issues to the WTO through the Chair’s report is a way of conducting business in a “nimble” way. “Let’s see if within the configuration of the WTO we can also have willing coalitions of members who, when there is an opportunity, can seize it in a plurilateral and move ahead without necessarily waiting to go through the process,” and it is “a new way of working.” The proponents of IFDA and the digital trade agreement, according to the DG, have “decided they’ll go ahead and implement them.” “To me, that is what we should be looking at within the context of the WTO,” the DG insisted. “That’s the future we are looking to, and they are doing it already, so that’s the way that I see it,” she maintained. “On the e-commerce moratorium, you have to look at it a little differently, also,” she pointed out, arguing that “in the past, we just did two years, two years, two years. Everybody was used to that.” “And if you listen to one of the members who was trying to negotiate, they said that had we done the usual two years, there would have been no problem. Everybody was on for that,” Ms Okonjo-Iweala said. “But we’re trying to again do things differently, and that is when if you’re doing it differently, you have to contend. This is an instrument that impacts across the economy,” she maintained. Her prescriptions for moving things along regardless of the multilateral rules and processes “could result in encouraging disaffection for the rules,” said a developing country trade minister who asked not to be quoted. +
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