Question

The Tenth Ministerial Conference of the WTO will be held from 15 to 18 December, 2015 in
1. Doha
2. Bali
3. Nairobi
4. Singapore

Answer 1

Correct Answer - Option 3 : Nairobi

The correct answer is Nairobi.

• The Tenth Ministerial Conference of the WTO will be held from 15 to 18 December, 2015 in Nairobi.
• The Conference was chaired by Kenya's Cabinet Secretary for Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Amina Mohamed.
  • It culminated in the adoption of the "Nairobi Package", a series of decisions on agriculture, cotton and issues related to least-developed countries (LDCs).
  • Agriculture:
    • Special Safeguard Mechanism for Developing Country Members
    • Public Stockholding for Food Security Purposes
    • Export Competition
  • Cotton:
    • Stressing the vital importance of cotton to a number of developing economies and particularly the least-developed amongst them,
      • Developed country Members, and developing country Members declaring themselves in a position to do so, shall grant preferential trade arrangements in favour of LDCs, as from 1 January 2016, duty-free and quota-free market access for cotton produced and exported by LDCs.
  • The decision in Nairobi builds on the 2013 Bali Ministerial Decision on preferential rules of origin for LDCs.
  • The “Nairobi Package” pays fitting tribute to the Conference host, Kenya, by delivering commitments that will benefit in particular the organization’s poorest members.
• Hence, option 3 is correct.

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• The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the only global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations.
• At its heart are the WTO agreements, negotiated and signed by the bulk of the world’s trading nations and ratified in their parliaments.
• The WTO has 164 members (including European Union) and 23 observer governments (like Iran, Iraq, Bhutan, Libya etc).
•  WTO is not a UN specialized agency, it has maintained strong relations with the UN and its agencies since its establishment.
• The first Ministerial Conference  was held in Singapore in 1996.
• The last one was organised in Buenos Aires in 2017.
• All these MCs have evolved prevailing current global trading system.