Following the approval of WTO members, the World Trade Organization, on 26 February, at the 13th Ministerial Conference held in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates, two new countries joined the Organisation in August: the Comoros and East Timor (cf.WTO: failure at 13th Conference).

After 17 years of negotiations, the Comoros officially became theeWTO member on 21 August, 30 days after having handed over the instrument of acceptance of the Accession Protocol to the WTO Director General, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. Considered as a least developed country (LDCs), the Comoros will benefit from certain facilities, including longer lead times, for the establishment of certain agreements of the Organization. The list of commitments of the Comoros, which mainly export products such as essential oils, vanilla or clove, issearchable online.

As for East Timor (or Timor-Leste), it was on 30 August that this State, the youngest in Asia, gained its independence in 2002, officially entered as the State of East Timor.eWTO member. As part of the LDCs, East Timor has made many efforts to integrate WTO (the list of its commitments isAvailable online) but also ASEAN, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which he joined as an observer in 2022.

The Comoros and East Timor also agreed to the WTO Agreement onillegal fishingconcluded in June 2022, which seeks to establish new rules to prohibit harmful subsidies, a key factor in the overall depletion of fish stocks worldwide. This brings to 83 the number of members who have acceded to it, bearing in mind that the agreement must be signed by 110 members (two thirds of the total strength) to enter into force. This point had been one of the most sensitive topics of the 13th Conference, as members had failed to find common ground, India claiming a transition period considered too long by some countries. The difficulty being able to grant his violins to 166...

Currently, twenty-two governments, including eight African countries, are continuing negotiations to accede to the WTO.

Source(s):WTO

Editor(s):Claire BEDOUIN

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