The heads of the World Trade Organization and the World Customs Organization penned a Memorandum of Understanding on Jan. 21 to boost cooperation on "customs-related matters," the WTO announced. The organizations agreed to identify opportunities to collaborate in "external fora" and on the "delivery of technical assistance and capacity building in areas of common interest, including the implementation of grants provided through the Trade Facilitation Agreement Facility." The two organizations also agreed to share information in "areas of common interests," including on the development of the Harmonized System tracker and tariff classification. The groups pledged to harmonize work on the transposition of the HS, including through sharing information on projects and activities to combat illegal trade.
The World Trade Organization's Committee on Market Access held its final meeting of a series of thematic sessions on supply chain resilience on Jan. 17, the WTO said. The session gave examples of multilateral and regional initiatives on supply chain resilience and how the WTO can support members via trade policy.
The EU has requested consultations at the World Trade Organization as the first step in contesting Chinese practices pertaining to intellectual property rights, the European Commission announced on Jan. 19. The commission alleged that China has "empowered its courts to set binding worldwide royalty rates for EU standard essential patents, without the consent of the patent owner."
A World Trade Organization dispute panel on Jan. 10 delivered a mixed ruling in Indonesia's dispute against various measures imposed by the EU and its member states on palm oil and oil palm crop-based biofuels from Indonesia. The European Commission touted the ruling as a win, declaring in a press release that the panel "confirmed the overall WTO compatibility" of its "Renewable Energy Directive" legal framework.
India and Madagascar recently launched new safeguard investigations, the nations told the World Trade Organization's Committee on Safeguards. India opened a proceeding on non-alloy and alloy steel flat products. Madagascar opened an investigation on tomato products. India said interested parties had 15 days from Dec. 19 to make their views heard. Madagascar gave parties until Jan. 21 to make themselves known.
China opened a safeguard investigation on the meat of bovine animals, the World Trade Organization announced. China told the WTO's Committee on Safeguards that it opened the investigation on Dec. 27 and that interested parties have 20 days from Dec. 27 to say if they wish to take part in the proceeding.
The World Trade Organization established a dispute settlement panel during the Dec. 18 meeting of the Dispute Settlement Body to review the EU's antidumping duties on fatty acid from Indonesia, the WTO announced. The EU said it "regretted Indonesia's decision" to bring the dispute, believing the measures to be in line with WTO rules. The bloc added that it will preserve the "availability of appeal review" through use of the multiparty interim appeal arrangement, a contingency that safeguards the right to appeal since the Appellate Body is not functioning at this time."
The World Trade Organization and the Asian Development Bank jointly launched a database on trade in critical minerals to boost transparency on those minerals and "support the clean energy transition," the WTO announced. The database provides "up-to-date critical minerals trade data, related policies, and visualisations of trade patterns based on publicly available sources," the WTO said. "Data can be visualised as bar charts, tree maps, and network graphs, providing insights into the main trading partners, product specialization, and trade networks."
The chair of the World Trade Organization General Council, Norway's Petter Olberg, detailed during the Dec. 16-17 general council meeting the "significant progress" made on WTO dispute settlement reform talks, though he encouraged members to find a way forward on the form an appeal or review mechanism should take.
The World Trade Organization officially set the dates for the 14th Ministerial Conference, which will be held in Cameroon: March 26-29, 2026. It will be the second ministerial conference hosted by an African nation. Kenya was the site of the 2015 conference.