The WTO General Council held its first regular meeting of 2023

Geneva, March 6-7, 2023 – The General Council of the World Trade Organization (WTO) held its first regular meeting of the year to discuss a number of pressing issues related to global trade. The meeting included a report from the Director General as Chairman of the Trade Negotiations Committee on the work leading up to the 13th Ministerial Conference (MC-13) to be held in Abu Dhabi in February 2024.

One of the most significant topics of discussion was the WTO reform process, including the reform of its dispute settlement mechanism. Members also discussed the Working Program on Electronic Commerce, reviewed the Director General's annual report on the status of ongoing negotiations of acceding countries, and considered the problems faced by least developed countries.

During the meeting, Kazakhstan's Permanent Representative to WTO and other international economic organizations Zh. Aitzhan supported the WTO reform and advocated for facilitating the accession process to WTO.

In particular, she noted the importance of the decision of the 12th WTO Ministerial Conference (MC-12) to reform the Organization. In the reform negotiations, Kazakhstan pointed to two important takeaways from the past two rounds of negotiations.

The first takeaway is the need to consider and address issues contributing to the further development of developing and least developed countries as a cross-cutting theme on the multilateral agenda. Kazakhstan believes that the focus at this stage should be on the architecture or model of future WTO agreements, stressing the importance of continuing focused discussions in the run-up to MC-13. Second, Kazakhstan called for early completion of the reform of the Dispute Settlement Body.

The Permanent Representative of Kazakhstan stressed the need to bridge the deep divide between the positions of developing and developed countries. The Permanent Representative of Kazakhstan noted that this divide in the positions was one of the main challenges for reaching a consensus during MC12. Kazakhstan believes that addressing these two key issues is critical to the future success of WTO reform.

Also, Kazakhstan expressed its support for the CIS countries, in particular, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Belarus, which are in the process of accession. Kazakhstan believes that their accession to the WTO can play a positive role in strengthening regional trade and strengthening economic ties in the region.

Kazakhstan’s Permanent Representative pointed out that the current WTO accession process imposes an unjustified and heavy burden on acceding countries, requiring them to make more extensive commitments, including on issues that go beyond existing WTO agreements.

Kazakhstan called for a more balanced and fair approach to the accession process of developing countries, including LDCs.

The WTO General Council among other issues discussed industrial development, intellectual property, and the appointment of officials to WTO regular bodies. The WTO General Council also elected a new chair, Ms. Athalia Molоkomme, Ambassador of Botswana.