Trade Ministers Present early Results, Pledge to Advance Plastics Dialogue at MC12 Event

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Ministerial statement

The ministerial statement highlights the substantial progress achieved by the Dialogue in the past few months.

It pledges concrete steps to deepen the engagement with other global initiatives in addressing plastics pollution, notably the launch of negotiations at the UN's Environment Assembly (UNEA) in March and the aim of reaching a global deal on plastic pollution by 2024. It also notes the ongoing work of the World Customs Organization to amend the definition of plastic wastes in Harmonised System (HS) tariff codes in support of the Basel Convention Plastics Amendment.

The statement also outlines steps to strengthen transparency, technical discussions and trade-related capacity building for least-developed members, including through the Aid for Trade review and needs assessment survey (INF/TE/IDP/W/8), a proposed event at the 8th Aid for Trade Global Review in July, a survey of members' trade-related plastics measures (INF/TE/IDP/W/7) and a workshop on sustainable and effective plastic substitutes and alternatives.

The statement confirms the Dialogue will continue to be an open, inclusive and transparent process and invites all WTO members to join, with a view to generating more concrete outcomes by the next Ministerial Conference (MC13).