GENEVA: Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) have agreed to conduct their 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) in Geneva during the week of June 13.
The decision was made by the WTO's General Council after the host country Switzerland eased the Covid-19 limitations, according to a WTO press statement. The meeting's specific dates will be announced later.
According to reports, Dacio Castillo, Ambassador of Honduras to the WTO and Chair of the General Council, setting the dates for the conference should provide energy to the WTO's work and focus for the discussions. "Let's make this a memorable occasion." MC12 was originally due to be conducted in June 2020 in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan.
The rescheduled summit was originally slated to take place between November 30 and December 3, 2021, but it was postponed owing to the Omicron variant Covid-19 outbreak, which resulted in travel restrictions and quarantine measures that would have prohibited many ministers from attending.
The WTO's top decision-making body, the Ministerial Conference, is attended by trade ministers and other senior officials from the organization's 164 members. "Let us work together with the primary goal in mind," Castillo continued, "that the Conference will present the WTO, and us here in Geneva, with an opportunity to demonstrate that the WTO can deliver."
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