MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

World Trade Organization back to business in June for the twice suspended Ministerial Conference

Ambassador Dacio Castillo of Honduras, the chair of the General Council, noted that dates for the awaited meeting should provide impetus to the WTO's work

World Trade Organization members agreed on Wednesday that the postponed 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) will now take place during the week of 13 June in Geneva. The decision at a meeting of the organization’s General Council was taken following the easing of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions in the host country Switzerland.

MC12 was due to take place from 30 November to 3 December 2021 but was postponed due to the outbreak of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, which led to the imposition of travel restrictions and quarantine requirements in Switzerland and many other European countries.

Ambassador Dacio Castillo of Honduras, the chair of the General Council, noted that fixing the dates for the eagerly awaited meeting should provide impetus to the WTO's work and focus for the discussion on ministerial outcomes. The exact dates of the meeting will be defined later, he noted.

“Let us work together, with the primary objective in mind, that the Conference will provide the WTO, and us here in Geneva, with an opportunity to demonstrate that the WTO can deliver,” Ambassador Castillo declared. “Let us make this count.”

The pandemic has twice forced the postponement of MC12. The meeting was originally scheduled to take place in June 2020 in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan.

The Ministerial Conference, which is attended by trade ministers and other senior officials from the organization’s 164 members, is the highest decision-making body of the WTO.