In an effort to help governments address climate change goals and the global impact of Covid-19, five members (Australia, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand and Switzerland) have proposed a Greater openness of services engineering, architecture, consulting and construction at the World Trade Organization (WTO).
In her joint document Presented at an informal meeting of the Council for Trade in Services on Wednesday (21.10.2020), Australia and the other four members said their aim was making trade in environmental services more affordable through greater market opening by WTO members.
At the same meeting, Australia, Canada, Chile, New Zealand and Uruguay argued that liberalizing agriculture-related services would help mitigate the health, economic and social challenges arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly by reduce bottlenecks in food value chains and strengthen the resilience of food systems worldwide.
Several members intervened and expressed their views. The document was supported by several delegations, including Brazil, China, Chile, the European Union (EU), Japan and the United Kingdom, which expressed interest in the topic. The EU said that environmental protection was in line with the European Green Deal and also coincided with its goal of achieving climate neutrality by 2050.
Discussions are scheduled to continue at a subsequent meeting of the special session later this year., the WTO reported.
These negotiations are important as attempts are being made in various fora of the international organization to preselect issues that can be taken up for decisions at the next ministerial meeting. The Ministerial scheduled for June 2020 had to be postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the WTO administration is now hopeful of holding it next year.
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