WTO held a high-level meeting to make progress ahead of the 13th Ministerial Conference

Geneva, 23-24 October 2023 - The World Trade Organization hosted a high-level meeting to identify the most pressing issues on which WTO Members intend to take meaningful decisions during the upcoming 13th Ministerial Conference, to be held from 26 to 29 February 2024 in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the UAE.

Thus, one of the specific decisions of the meeting was to continue to grant unilateral trade preferences in the form of duty-free and quota-free market access to least developed countries (hereinafter referred to as LDCs) during their transition to developing country status.

However, in line with the decisions taken at the Ministerial Conference-12, chaired by Kazakhstan, the meeting addressed a wide range of issues such as WTO reform, including the Dispute Settlement Body of the Organisation, agricultural subsidies and state support in the field of industrial policy, as well as trade measures applied to address the challenges of climate change.

During the meeting, the Kazakh delegation, headed by Zhanar Aitzhan, Permanent Representative of Kazakhstan to the WTO and International Economic Organisations, supported the approval of issues related to the provision of trade benefits for LDCs in connection with their transition to the category of developing countries, and also proposed the WTO Secretariat to analyse the effectiveness of the application of special and differential treatment provisions in WTO Agreements for developing and least developed countries.

Permanent Representative of Kazakhstan Zh. Aitzhan also stressed the importance of continuing negotiations in the field of reforming agricultural subsidies in order to equalise competitive conditions between agricultural producers of developed and developing WTO member countries and to ensure global food security.

Aliya Alimbetova, Director of the Department of Foreign Trade Activities of the Ministry of Trade and Integration of the Republic of Kazakhstan, also took part in the meeting.

In addition, the delegation of Kazakhstan noted the importance of completing the ongoing negotiations on the reform of the WTO Dispute Settlement Body, which is a prerequisite for countries to comply with the commitments undertaken under the WTO agreements and to ensure the implementation of the decisions of the supreme bodies of the organisation. Particular attention in the speeches of the participants of the meeting was paid to the issue of restoring the work of the WTO Appellate Body, which is the highest judicial instance in resolving trade disputes.

At the conclusion of the event, WTO Director-General N. Okonjo-Iweala emphasised that the political mandate achieved during the High-Level Meeting should contribute to the achievement of concrete results during the 13th WTO Ministerial Conference.