RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – In addition to the EU and Brazil, the World Trade Organization members who have subscribed to the initiative are Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, United States, Hong Kong-China, Japan, South Korea, Malawi, Mexico, New Zealand, Paraguay, Peru, Qatar, Singapore, Switzerland, Ukraine, Uruguay and the territories of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu.
One day after the United Nations (UN) alerted to the risk of world hunger “of biblical proportions” as a consequence of the pandemic, the EU and more than 20 other nations committed in a joint statement to ensure the proper operation of global agriculture and agri-food supply channels, by avoiding measures with a potential negative impact on food security, nutrition and health of other countries members of the organization and their populations.
The joint statement calls for any emergency measures related to agriculture and agri-food products to be “targeted, proportionate, transparent, temporary and consistent with WTO rules” and “not to disrupt international trade in these products or result in unjustified trade obstacles”.
The signatories further commit to initiating a dialogue to improve pandemic preparedness and response through multilateral coordination.
The Covid-19 pandemic has claimed over 181,000 lives and infected more than 2.6 million people in 193 countries and territories. More than 593,500 patients have been considered cured.
The disease is transmitted by a novel coronavirus detected in late December in Wuhan, a city in central China.
To fight the pandemic, governments have sent 4.5 billion people home (more than half the planet’s population), closed non-essential trade, and drastically reduced air traffic, shutting down whole sectors of the global economy.