From February 26 to March 2, the 13th WTO Ministerial Conference was held in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao led a delegation to join the conference. Also attending were Li Fei, Vice Minister of Commerce, Ma Youxiang, Vice Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, and Li Chenggang, China’s Ambassador to the WTO.

Guided by the principles of the 20th CPC National Congress and President’s Xi Jinping’s direction on the WTO rules and reform, China took part in all the consultations and played an active role in promoting discussions, cooperation, and successful outcomes. In the negotiations on investment facilitation and fishery subsidies, China played a coordinating role and worked together with other members with the sense of responsibility as a major country, and made important contributions to the success of the conference, which was widely acclaimed by WTO members, the host UAE, and WTO Director-General Iweala.

After intensive consultations, the conference delivered “1+10” tangible outcomes. MC13 adopted the Ministerial Declaration, in which members pledged to strengthen the multilateral trading system and continue to push forward the WTO reform. The concrete outcomes include: first, the Agreement on Investment Facilitation for Development, responding to the strong aspiration of developing members to attract foreign investment and grow economy. Second, the Ministerial Decision on Dispute Settlement Reform, striving to work for the resumption of the normal operation of the dispute settlement mechanism within 2024. Third, the E-commerce Work Plan, extending the moratorium on imposing customs duties on electronic transmissions to MC14 to provide a stable rules-based environment for global digital trade. Fourth, bring the outcome on service trade domestic regulation into force to reduce the cost of global trade in services. Fifth, approval of the accession of Comoros and Timor-Leste to the WTO to enhance the representativeness of the multilateral trading system. Sixth, the Ministerial Decision on the Smooth Transition after LDC Graduation to help countries better integrate into the multilateral trading system. The conference also achieved results on issues such as regulatory cooperation, small economies, non-violation and situation complaints.

MC13 represented a significant victory for multilateralism, and fully demonstrated members’ determination to take effective actions to narrow development gap, giving priority to development, and the ability to work together to meet global challenges in the context of a complex and severe international situation. The conference boosted international confidence in the multilateral trading system and injected strong impetus to global trade and investment liberalization and facilitation. China will take active measures to implement the outcomes of the conference, deeply engage in WTO reform, safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of developing members, and continue to contribute its wisdom and proposals on ways to improve international economic and trade rules and global economic governance.

(All information published on this website is authentic in Chinese. English is provided for reference only.)