WTO Reaches Historic Deal on World Trade

The
annual WTO ministerial conference, held this year in Indonesia, was
scheduled to close on Friday, but closed instead on Saturday with
the trade organization’s first major international agreement.

From Gant Daily:

For the first time in two decades, World Trade
Organization’s (WTO) member economies approved an agreement to
boost global trade, a move that could add $1tn to the world
economy.

Ministers from WTO’s 159-member countries approved on Saturday a
“trade facilitation” accord that will set common customs standards
and ease the flow of goods through borders all over the
globe.

The ministers also made decisions on several issues such as how the
WTO should take action on government food security programs as well
as securing better market access for the world’s least developed
nations to developed economies.

India
put up some resistance to a deal over some kinds of food
subsidies it wanted to keep, and Cuba threatened to veto it over a
removed reference to the US embargo on the country. India reached a
compromise with the US to deal with food subsidies at a future
meeting and Cuba withdrew its veto threat.

You can read the draft text of the declaration here.
The deal covers only a portion of the issues being negotiated under
the wider Doha round of WTO talks, which started in 2001.

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