WTO Ministerial expected to take place in mid-June

The World Trade Organization (WTO) 12^th Ministerial Conference (MC12) will take place on the week of 13 June in Geneva. The Conference had originally been scheduled from 30 November to 3 December 2021, but was postponed due to the outbreak of the Omicron variant of COVID-19. The chair of the General Council expressed the opinion that fixing the dates for the meeting should provide impetus to the WTO’s work and focus for the discussion on ministerial outcomes. E-commerce is one of the prominent issues on the agenda of the WTO. In February, participants of the Joint Statement Initiative on e-commerce (JSI) renewed the goal to secure convergence on the majority of issues currently under negotiation by the end of 2022. They reported that work has been done to find common ground on open internet access (network neutrality), cybersecurity and electronic invoicing.