CASTRIES, St. Lucia –The Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has acknowledged that the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic will have a great impact on the economies of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS).
OECS leaders met with WTO Director General Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala over the last weekendThe WTO official participated in the Special Meeting of the OECS leaders over the weekend at which trade and other issues were discussed.
A communique issued following the virtual meeting noted that Okonjo-Iweala acknowledged that it was very apparent ‘the mammoth task’ which laid ahead in ‘re-establishing the fiscal footing of the economies’ of the OECS.
“The economic fallout had been widespread, from youth unemployment to rising debt pressures on governments that already had limited fiscal space to respond to the crisis,” she said.
On the issue of vaccine access, she reaffirmed that she was of the view that “‘vaccine policy is economic policy” and that it was important that the OECS worked quickly to make accessibility of vaccines one of the cardinal points of the recovery for the region, given the dependency of the region on the tourism industry.
Okonjo-Iweala confirmed that the WTO, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO) have jointly urged the international community to invest US$50 billion in accelerating vaccine production and deployment.
The communique noted that special and differential treatments for small island developing states (SIDS) was a matter of importance to the WTO, one which the Caribbean had been an active participant in, through the special session of the Committee on Trade and Development.
“The meeting expressed hope that the matter would be included as a proposal for ministerial decision at the forthcoming Ministerial Conference,” the communique added.
The communique noted that the 12th WTO Ministerial Conference, scheduled for December 2021 in Geneva will target “concrete deliverables, since the WTO has not had success in completing a multilateral round of negotiations”.
It quoted the WTO official as highlighting four key areas including trade and health; fisheries subsidies; agriculture as well as the dispute settlement system which has been paralyzed for some time.
“The WTO Director General appealed to the Heads of Governments to help with the fisheries subsidies negotiations by ensuring that Ministers of Agriculture and Fisheries are active in finding landing zones and, are collaborating with Ministers of Trade on these negotiations so that together harmful subsidies can be restrained.”
She urged the sub-regional leaders to grant greater flexibility to their ministers and ambassadors attending the negotiations.
Okonjo- Iweala also urged the OECS member states to engage other WTO member states with an interest in reforming the dispute settlement system, to encourage them to be more forthcoming about the changes they want to see.
She reminded the leaders of the importance of the dispute settlement system and the link between rule-making and adjudication of those rules.
OECS chairman and Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit congratulated Okonjo-Iweala on becoming the first woman of African descent to head the global organization.
Prime Minister Skerrit expressed the OECS’ confidence in Dr. Okonjo-Iweala’s leadership of the WTO and her ability to address some of the challenges facing SIDS in the Eastern Caribbean.
OECS Director General, Dr. Didacus Jules focused on the upcoming WTO negotiations and the current WTO engagements with the OECS.
in welcoming Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, the OECS leader expressed gratitude to the Director General for being deeply conscious of the importance of the months ahead, leading to the next WTO Trade Ministerial conference.
The communique said that the WTO Director General promised to remain a close friend of the region and acknowledged and expressed gratitude for the unflinching support that she had received during her campaign.
