China willing to work to move forward multiple initiatives and achieve results with WTO

China is willing to work with all parties to achieve more pragmatic results at the 13th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization held in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates, said the country's top commerce official on Sunday.

During his meeting with Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director-general of the WTO in Abu Dhabi, Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao said that China supports several key initiatives, according to an online statement of the Ministry of Commerce.

These initiatives include the restoration of the normal functioning of the WTO's dispute settlement mechanism, the formulation of a work plan for agricultural negotiations, addressing the concerns of least developed countries and net food-importing developing countries regarding food security, and promoting the conclusion of the second phase of the agreement on fisheries subsidies, according to the statement.

Wang said that China supports the inclusion of the agreement on investment facilitation for development into the WTO's legal framework, maintaining the moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions, concluding e-commerce negotiations as soon as possible and advancing multilateral trade rules to keep pace with the times.

During the meeting, Okonjo-Iweala expressed her expectation that China will continue to play a leading role in negotiations on issues such as reforming the WTO's dispute settlement mechanism and the second phase of fisheries subsidies, as well as make further contributions to the success of the MC13.

The MC13, scheduled to be held from February 26th to 29th in Abu Dhabi, represents the first ministerial meeting since the initiation of WTO reform in 2022.