Industry and Commerce Minister Zayed bin Rashid Alzayani chaired here today the meeting of the National Committee for the World Trade Organisation (WTO), in the presence of members and representatives of government agencies and the private sector.
The panel discussed a number of topics, including the outcome of the ninth WTO ministerial conference held in Bali, Indonesia on December 3-6 2013. The conference discussed a number of trade agreements on trade facilitation and multilateral international trading system.
The importance of trade facilitation was confirmed, as all members of the WTO, which now includes 160 countries, supported it. Bahrain has supported trade facilitation negotiations since the sixth WTO conference in Hong Kong in 2005.
The committee also reviewed the results of the National Conference to evaluate Bahrain’s readiness to implement trade facilitation, organised by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, with the participation of the United Nations Development Programme and representatives of international economic agencies such as: WTO, ICT, UNCTAD and a number of international trade advisors on 29-30 October 2014.
It also discussed a number of special topics of the 37th meeting of the WTO Committee of the Gulf Cooperation Council.
Regarding the periodic notifications to the WTO, the Directorate of Foreign Trade at the Ministry, being the notification point at the World Trade Organisation, is coordinating with responsible authorities in Bahrain to set up the notifications required to be submitted to the WTO.