Civil services Current affairs - WTO Ministerial Conference

WTO Ministerial Conference

Context:

  • The twelfth WTO Ministerial Conference is all set to begin from 12th June 2022 in Geneva, Switzerland after a gap of almost five years.

What are the areas of focus?

  • Fisheries subsidies negotiations,
  • Agriculture issues including Public Stockholding for Food security,
  • WTO Reforms and Moratorium on Custom Duties on Electronic Transmission.
  • Response to pandemic
  • Custom Duties on Electronic Transmission.

Structure of WTO:

  1. Ministerial Conference:
  • The ministerial conference of the World Trade Organisation which is held biennially is the top decision-making body of the WTO.
  • It is in the ministerial conference that all the member countries of World Trade Organisation are brought together.
  • The Ministerial Conference has powers to take decisions on all matters under any of the multilateral trade agreements.
  1. WTO General Council:
  • The General Council is the WTO’s highest-level decision-making body in Geneva, meeting regularly to carry out the functions of the WTO.
  • It has representatives (usually ambassadors or equivalent) from all member governments and has the authority to act on behalf of the ministerial conference which only meets about every two years. 
  1. WTO Secretariat:
  • The responsibility of the WTO Secretariat is to provide top-quality, independent support to WTO member governments on all of the activities that are carried out by the Organization, and to serve the WTO with professionalism, impartiality and integrity.

           Source The Hindu