The World Trade Organization has postponed its meeting of government ministers, which opened on Tuesday, as Switzerland introduced new travel restrictions following a worrying situation. new coronavirus version, officials said.
The MC12 conference at WTO Headquarters in Geneva was set up to raise important issues, such as a long-awaited agreement on subsidies for fisheries, which has been hailed as a major way to stop overfishing in the world’s seas. and attempts to waive patent and other intellectual property protections. COVID-19 is linked to vaccines.
The ambassadors of the WTO’s 164 member states agreed on Friday to delay the four-day conference, as new Swiss travel restrictions mean not all participants will be able to attend in person, and a virtual meeting is not considered an option. The Geneva-based trade official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
British Ambassador Simon Manley tweeted a photo of WTO Director-General Ngoji Okonjo-Iwela at a forum during the ambassadors’ meeting, and wrote that it prompted him to announce a moratorium on the health condition and “inability to attend all delegations”. ” announced.
The EU’s Office of International Trade’s Twitter page said the conference “has been postponed for now – a difficult but wise decision by @wto given the epidemiological situation.”
The Swiss health department said all direct flights from southern Africa were banned, and as of Friday evening, all people arriving from that region as well as Belgium, Hong Kong and Israel – other places where the variant was detected – Must submit a negative COVID-19 test and go into quarantine for 10 days.
“It is not an easy recommendation… but as Director-General, my priority is the health and safety of all MC12 participants – ministers, representatives and civil society. It is better to err on the side of caution,” Okonjo-Iwela told WTO’s said in a statement.
This is the second time that the pandemic has forced the postponement of the 12th Ministerial Conference. The meeting was originally scheduled to take place in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan in June 2020.
Across the city on Friday, the World Health Organization classified the worrying new variant, which was first detected in South Africa as a highly transmissible variant of anxiety, and named it the Omicron variant – used by the United Nations Health Organization. As part of the Greek-letter identification system to be carried out. agency.
South Africa’s delegation to the WTO has called for easing protections for patents and other intellectual property aimed at fighting the pandemic, including vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics, in hopes of making them more available to the developing world. Several European countries, including Switzerland, the European Union and the UK, have opposed the idea, saying it could stifle innovation.
Worries about the new Omicron version shook stock markets on Friday amid concerns about a broader economic fallout, including travel restrictions.
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