A Parliamentary Conference hosted recently by the World Trade Organization (WTO) was arranged by the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the European Parliament. The WTO Director General addressed the group of parliamentarians on 17 February 2015 and gave them an update on the work ongoing at the WTO and their role in helping to bring it to fruition. Measures agreed by the member countries of the WTO need to be ratified by each country and the role of parliamentarians is therefore crucial to the work of the WTO. The WTO is strengthening its parliamentary outreach programme in 2015 with a number of regional meetings.

Bali Package

The Bali package was significant both in economic terms and in its significance for the strength of the WTO in world trade. Discussions are going forward on the issue of public stockholding for food security purposes and the WTO is focusing on moving forward on the decisions that are a priority for the less developed countries (LDCs).

Trade Facilitation Agreement

The Director General referred to progress made in the implementation of the Trade Facilitation Agreement. The agreement assists in simplifying and harmonizing customs procedures of the WTO members to reduce the cost and time taken in performing customs operations. The Trade Facilitation Agreement could bring down the costs of trading by 10% for the developed countries and 15% for the developing countries and could support the growth of exports by developing countries by around 20%. As a result of this the benefit to world trade could be as much as one trillion US dollars per year and create around 21 million jobs worldwide, mostly in developing countries.

Another feature of the Trade Facilitation Agreement is that there is a requirement to provide technical assistance to countries that do not have the domestic capacity to implement the provisions of the agreement. The Trade Facilitation Agreement Facility has therefore been created to assist in capacity building in the developing countries and this will provide support for both developing countries and LDCs.

TRIPS agreement and public health

The agreement on trade related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS) is relevant to the licensing of pharmaceutical products. The Doha Declaration on the TRIPS agreement and public health aimed to assist WTO members that did not have sufficient manufacturing capacity in the pharmaceutical sector to gain access to medicines, making use of compulsory licensing. The system of special compulsory licenses to produce and export pharmaceuticals for countries where these cannot be manufactured is now in the form of an amendment to the WTO multilateral agreements. This now needs to be brought into force. Two thirds of the membership must confirm acceptance before the amendment comes into force and half have already done this. The remaining acceptances should be secured in 2015.

Doha Development Agenda

The main focus is however on the Doha Development Agenda. The negotiations have been on the table since 2001 and part of the Bali package was a commitment to carry forward these negotiations. The negotiations include the most important issues such as agriculture, services and industrial goods and development issues will be an important element in the negotiations. Negotiations have resumed and in the opinion of the Director General there is political will to overcome the gaps between the negotiating positions of the WTO member countries.