Piyush Goyal convinced WTO talks will be successful, expects ‘solid’ outcomes
PremiumGoyal said he thought the negotiations would be a success, unlike the last conference in 2017 in Buenos Aires which concluded without a major agreement
After marathon talks, Union minister Piyush Goyal said on Thursday that he expected "solid decisions" at the World Trade Organization conference in Geneva.
"We are very confident that the progress made and the positivity with which everybody is engaged truly is a matter of celebration for the world," said Goyal. "We have taken some solid decisions, probably after seven years, for the first time, subject to a few issues being sorted out."
Goyal said he thought the negotiations would be a success, unlike the last conference in 2017 in Buenos Aires which concluded without a major agreement.
"I just hope I'm not speaking too soon but India is convinced that this will turn out to be one of the most successful ministerial that the WTO has seen in a long time," he said.
The minister said many people had written off the conference on Wednesday – scheduled to be the closing day – when ministers gathered for talks with WTO director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
"We could see that the mood was very crestfallen," he said. “India took the lead to try and bring everybody together to start talking about subjects, talking on specific issues in smaller groups."
“Everybody got enthused into working together to find solutions. There was a lot of sensitivity to each others' concerns and needs. In that spirit the outcomes of MC12 are being watched by the world as a signal that the multilateral order is not broken," he added.
This comes as news agency Bloomberg quoted a WTO official as saying that the all-night negotiating session in the last leg of the talks may provide a sufficient basis for the WTO director-general to claim negotiating success after just over a year on the job.
Countries are seeking deals on curbing harmful fishing subsidies; temporarily waiving Covid-19 vaccine patents; food security; agriculture; e-commerce; the WTO's response to pandemics; and reform of the WTO itself.
The gathered trade ministers are likely to agree to a scaled-down agreement to curb harmful government fishing subsidies, fulfilling a key 2015 United Nations sustainability target.
They will also give their final consideration to water down the intellectual-property protections for Covid-19 vaccines – a key agreement that Okonjo-Iweala said was necessary to end the “morally unacceptable" inequity of vaccine access.
Ministers are expected to give their final assessments of the package at a WTO head of delegation meeting this evening.