WTO to hold first major ministerial meeting in five years on Monday

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) will hold its first ministerial meeting in five years tomorrow, with the UK’s international trade secretary saying that “freedom and fairness are now more important than ever”.

WTO chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala will lead the meeting in Geneva with 100 trade ministers from across the world, with the organisation hoping to help seal new multilateral trade agreements.

Top of the agenda will be the knock-on effects from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, often called the world’s breadbasket, particularly around global wheat shortages.

Russia and Ukraine supply around a quarter of the world’s wheat and the current conflict has led to soaring global wheat prices.

The WTO will aim to “prepare a multilateral food security package”, according to European Commissioner for trade Valdis Dombrovskis.

UK international trade secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan said: “Putin’s brutal war unleashed devastation and disruption on a world already burdened with Covid-19 and facing the omnipresent threat of climate change.

“The UK will continue to show leadership at this critical and fragile time, when we must defend the values that bind us together. Freedom and fairness are now more important than ever if we wish to use global trade to grow our economies, deliver better living standards for communities at home and abroad, and to address some of the world’s most significant challenges.”

The UK had spearheaded a campaign under former trade secretary Liz Truss to have China’s WTO designation as a developing country taken away, however the issue appears to be less of a priority for Trevelyan.

The designation allows China to get more favourable trade terms than countries that are classed as developed.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said the world had drastically changed in the five years since the last conference, after Covid, the Ukraine war and overlapping economic crises.

“Let me be clear, even landing one or two will not be an easy road. The road will be bumpy and rocky. There may be a landmine along the way,” she said.