The XII Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) ended this Friday with agreements that include the elimination of subsidies for harmful fishing, the suspension of patents on anti-virus vaccines and the adoption of measures to face the food crisis.

After five days of arduous negotiations, which forced the conference to be extended by more than a day and the closing ceremony to be held this morning, the 160 member countries agreed on seven documents, declarations and agreements.

“We finished later than expected, but with an unprecedented package of decisions,” said WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who said the agreements “will change the lives of people around the world” and demonstrate that the organization he leads “is capable of responding to today’s emergencies.”

“It has been a long time since the WTO achieved so many multilateral results,” said the Nigerian politician at the closing ceremony, where he stressed that the members of the WTO “have shown the world that they can unite despite political differences to face the problems global”.

The agreement to suspend patents on vaccines against HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), which has been under discussion for 20 months since it was proposed by India and South Africa, also “will make access to medical supplies and components more predictable in this and future pandemics”He explained.

The commitment to eliminate global fisheries subsidies, which WTO members have been negotiating for 21 years, “is the first WTO agreement in which environmental sustainability is central,” he said.

The agreement, he noted, prohibits subsidies to support illegal fishing and fishing in overfished areas, while taking the first steps to end subsidies to fleets with excess capacity.

In food matters, the final declaration commits the WTO members to “take measures to make agricultural production and trade more predictable and prices less volatile”, although concrete measures will still have to be defined to achieve this in future meetings of the WTO. the WTO.

One concrete result on agriculture is that, after three years of negotiations, the WTO countries pledged to lift restrictions on the purchase of humanitarian food aid by the United Nations World Food Program (WFP).

The 12th Ministerial Conference also agreed to extend the tariff-free moratorium on global e-commerce, despite initial opposition from countries such as India and South Africa, who denounced the negative impact on small businesses.

The moratorium is extended until the next WTO Ministerial Conference, scheduled in principle for December next year, which Cameroon and the United Arab Emirates have offered to organize.

The EU welcomes the WTO agreement on fisheries, vaccines and food safety

The Vice President of the European Commission, Valdis Dombrovskis, welcomed the agreements reached, this Friday, within the framework of the World Trade Organization on fishing, vaccines against Covid-19 and food safety.

We work hard to eliminate disagreements,” Dombrovskis said at the end of the XII Ministerial Conference, the first to be held in the last five years and which took place, he said, “in difficult and unprecedented economic and geopolitical circumstances.”

On the agreement that suspends the patents of the vaccines against SARS CoV-2, the Commissioner for Trade of the European Union declared that this is “good news” for Africacontinent that has very low vaccination rates compared to the current pandemic.

The agreement within the framework of the World Trade Organization (WTO) “supports the manufacture and export of vaccines against Covid-19 and, if necessary, without the authorization of the patent holder” of the compound, he said.

The European Union, together with countries such as the United Kingdom and Switzerland, where important pharmaceutical companies are located, pressed for more than a year and a half so that the agreement did not include treatments or tests for Covid-19, defending the importance of intellectual property (patents) considering that it is a “factor that drives innovation”.

In this regard, Dombrovskis declared this Friday that the agreement “also maintains the operating standards of intellectual property, with incentives in relation to investment, research and technology transfer.”

Regarding food issues, and at a time when, according to the Vice President of the European Commission, “Russia is using food as a weapon of war”the final declaration of the WTO is based on bases that seek to respond to the crisis of essential goods that affects several States.

In particular, Dombrovskis called on WTO members to “avoid unnecessary restrictions on exports” and pledged to support agricultural production “in developed countries.”

The new fisheries agreement -in the framework of the WTO- “has made it illegal to grant subsidies to vessels involved in illegal and unregulated fishing on the high seas.”