The meeting has focused on the
current global food crisis and means to enhance the WTO’s multilateral trading
system.
Sharm el-Sheikh- Nov 9, 2022
Minister of Trade and Industry Ahmed
Samir has met with Director General of the World Trade Organization Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala, on the sidelines of the UN’s climate conference COP27 hosted by
Egypt in Sharm el-Sheikh.
The meeting, attended by heads of
the Egyptian Commercial Service and the Industrial Modernization Center, focused
on the current global food crisis and means to enhance the WTO’s multilateral
trading system.
“The international community should join
efforts to develop trade rules that address current and future food security challenges
and increase the resilience of least developed (LDCs) and net food-importing countries
(NFIDCs) in responding to acute food instability,” Samir said.
Egypt, he added, believes that
bolstering the production capacities of LDCs and NFIDCs is central to enhancing
their domestic food security, and that domestic production, along with trade,
plays a vital role in improving global food security in all its dimensions.
The minister stressed the need to give
priority to the challenges faced by developing countries to adapt to climate
change and achieve sustainable development goals (SDG) including finance,
technology transfer and capacity building.
Okonjo-Iweala, for her part, lauded
Egypt’s leading role within the WTO, especially in adopting the Declaration on
the Emergency Response to Food Insecurity at the WTO's 12th
Ministerial Conference (MC12) that took place in Geneva last June.