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WTO welcomes strong APEC support for its work program

Xinhua, May 25, 2015 Adjust font size:

WTO's Director-General Roberto Azevedo Sunday welcomed the strong statement of support issued by APEC trade ministers at their meeting in Boracay, the Philippines, and underscored that continued backing from APEC will be "critical" to reaching agreement on a work program for concluding the Doha Round.

The meeting of APEC Ministers Responsible for Trade, held on Saturday and Sunday, included a detailed discussion of APEC's ongoing support for the multilateral trading system across a range of areas.

In the meeting, APEC ministers affirmed the WTO has significantly contributed to the fight against protectionism since the onset of the 2008 financial crisis, and showed their support to the resumption and continuation of work to agree on the Post-Bali Work Program by July 31, as a key stepping-stone to promptly concluding the Doha Round.

Azevedo affirmed the support of APEC and all WTO members will be critical in the months ahead as the organization seeks to agree the Doha work program by the end of July.

Azevedo briefed ministers on the constructive engagement in Geneva in areas including agriculture, industrial products and services that shows members' willingness to doing everything possible to ensure a detailed work program can be agreed.

"While positive about the overall levels of engagement, I was nevertheless clear that we only have limited time until July and there are significant divergences that need to be bridged, particularly in agriculture which is one of the critical issues," he noted.

He also welcomed the fact that some of the larger WTO members have taken the initiative to talk to each other in a more direct, frank and exploratory fashion on the gateway issues.

"This is symptomatic of a level of engagement that is serious and different to anything we have seen since the Bali meeting in 2013," he noted.

The Doha Round is the latest round of trade negotiations among the WTO membership. Its aim is to achieve major reform of the international trading system through the introduction of lower trade barriers and revised trade rules. Endit