Ministerial Conference is the highest decision-making body of the WTO, which meets biennially to take decisions on global trade rules.
Key Decisions Adopted at MC14
- Integration of Small Economies: Ministers agreed to improve integration of small economies into the global trading system.
- Strengthening Special & Differential Treatment (S&DT): Enhance implementation of S&DT provisions in the Agreements on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) and Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT).
- Agreement on SPS lays out the basic rules on food safety and animal and plant health standards.
- Sanitary (human and animal health) and phytosanitary (plant health) measures apply to domestically produced food or local animal and plant diseases, as well as to products coming from other countries.
- TBT Agreement aims to ensure that technical regulations, standards, and conformity assessment procedures are non-discriminatory and do not create unnecessary obstacles to trade.
- Agreement on SPS lays out the basic rules on food safety and animal and plant health standards.
- Fisheries Subsidies Negotiations: Ministers agreed to continue negotiations on fisheries subsidies to develop comprehensive disciplines by the MC15.
- India opposed it due to revenue loss (~$1 billion annually) and bias favouring developed countries.
- IFD, based on Most-Favoured-Nation (MFN) treatment, is aimed at facilitating flow of FDI between parties, and is open to all WTO members to join.
- India opposed incorporation of IFD as it may erode WTO’s functional limits and consensus-based decision-making.
Key Outstanding Issues at MC14
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