World Trade Organization (WTO)

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an organization that intends to supervise and liberlize international trade.

WTO officially commenced on January 1, 1995 under the Marrakech Agreement, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade(GATT), which commenced in 1948.

The topmost decision-making body of the WTO is the Ministerial Conference, which usually meets every two years. The Ministerial Conference brings together all members of the WTO, all of which are countries or customs unions. The Ministerial Conference can take decisions on all matters under any of the multilateral trade agreements.

Inaugural Ministerial Conference
Inaugural Ministerial Conference was held during Dec 9-13,1996 in Singapore at the Singapore International Convention and Exhibition Centre in Suntec City .The conference established 4 permanent working groups -
1)Transparency in Govt Procurement
2)Trade Facilitation(Customs Issues)
3)Trade and Investment and
4)Trade and Competition

Second Ministerial Conference
was held in Geneva,Switzerland during May 18-20,1998

Third Ministerial Conference
was held in Seattle,Washington,USA at the Washington State Convention and Trade Centre in Seattle during Nov 30 - Dec 02,1999.The 3rd Ministerial Conference ended in failure, with massive demonstrations and police and National Guard crowd control efforts drawing worldwide attention.

Fourth Ministerial Conference
was held at the Sheraton Doha Hotel and Resort,Doha,Qatar during Nov 9-13, 2001.At the conference,the ministers passed two declarations -
1)Doha Development Round and
2)Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights(TRIPS)

Fifth Ministerial Conference
was held at the Cancun Centro de Convenciones,cancun,Mexico during Sep 10 - 14, 2003.The Ministerial Conference aiming at forging agreement on the Doha round but the talks broke down without progress.

Sixth Ministerial Conference
was held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre,Wan Chai, Hong Kong during Dec13 -18,2005.In this meeting, countries agreed to phase out all their agricultural export subsidies by the end of 2013.Further concessions to developing countries included an agreement to introduce duty free, tariff free access for goods from the Least Developed Countries, following the 'Everything but Arms' initiative of the EU - but with up to 3% of tariff lines exempted.

 Head Quarters

WTO has its HQ at the Centre William Rappard,Geneva,Switzerland

  

Official Languages of  WTO - English,French and Spanish

 

Accession and Membership

 

The process of becoming a WTO member is unique to each applicant country, and the terms of accession are dependent upon the country's stage of economic development and current trade regime.

The WTO has 157 members and 27 observer governments.In addition to states, the European Union is a member. WTO members do not have to be full sovereign  nation-members.The WTO oversees about 60 different agreements which have the status of international legal texts. Member countries must sign and ratify all WTO agreements on accession.


The Directors-General of the WTO have been -

Pascal Lamy (2005-present ) a French political advisor, a businessman, and a former European Commissioner for Trade

Supachai Panitchpakdi(2002-05)was formerly Thailand's Dy Minister of Finance and Dy Prime Minister

Mike Moore(1999 -2002)a New Zealand Politician and former Prime Minister of New Zealand

Renato Ruggiero(1995-99)an Italian Politician and former Foreign Minister of Italy

Peter Sutherland(1995)an Irish international businessman and former Attorney General of Ireland