NGO participants from Bangladesh were thankful to the Govt Delegation for not signing in the e-commerce rules though there was big push from the proponents. A group of 70 countries, chaired by Australia, Japan and Singapore, agreed today to start exploratory work toward future negotiations on electronic commerce rules.
The experts said that, E-commerce talks in the WTO have repeatedly stalled and the Buenos Aires conference did not deliver a breakthrough on this issue either. Members even failed to extend a nearly two-decade-old agreement barring the implementation of customs duties on electronic transmissions.
The World Trade Organization’s 11th ministerial is expected to close without the issuance of a ministerial declaration after the U.S. and India clash over language on development i.e. whether to include a reference to the Doha Development Agenda.
The 11th Ministerial of WTO starts with a criticism that, over 60 civil society delegates to the conference, who had been accredited by the WTO, were banned from participation by the Argentinian government. Two of them were deported after arriving at the airport. NGO participants in their joint statement mention that in view of the important public policy issues that are being discussed at such international conferences, the citizens of the world need ways to ensure that their problems and concerns are appropriately listened to and taken into consideration.
Our World Is Not For Sale Network, who brings together 250 organizations from 50 countries in the global North and South, called on government delegates to change existing WTO rules that are constraining policy space for job creation and development and to reject the wrong agenda to expand the failed model of the WTO to new issues.
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