WTO members revived this week long-standing talks to deepen the WTO’s scrutiny of regional trade agreements (RTAs) in line with instructions laid out by ministers last December. Provisions in the recent Nairobi Ministerial Declaration, said the new committee chair, could pave the way for a more constructive review of how these deals affect the wider multilateral trading system.
“One question everyone agrees on is the need to discuss RTAs in the WTO. It is confusing that we haven't managed to do that in a constructive way for quite some time,” the new chair of the Committee on Regional Trade Agreements, Ambassador Daniel Blockert (Sweden), said at the committee meeting held on 5 and 6 April.
This has been excerpted from an 8 April 2016 news item by the World Trade Organization and is available in its entirety at:
https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news16_e/rta_08apr16_e.htm