Abu Dhabi: The World Trade Organisation (WTO) held its thirteenth Ministerial Conference in Abu Dhabi on Monday.

The Indian delegation at the conference was led by Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal on the first day of the event.

On the first day of the WTO, Comoros and Timor Leste became members of the organisation. Notably, India had been supporting these accessions and welcomed the expansion of the organization, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said in an official release.

Next year marks the WTO's 30-year anniversary of founding. On the first day of operation, two ministerial discussion sessions were arranged to provide a forum for ministers to debate potential future directions for it.

During the discussion on sustainable development and policy room for industrialization, India emphasised the need to prevent the multilateral trading system from becoming fragmented.

"India explained that it has put forward and propagated a sustainable way of living based on traditions and values of conservation and moderation including through a mass movement for LiFE- "Life Style for Environment" as a key to combating climate change. It also expressed serious concerns regarding the increasing use of trade protectionist unilateral measures, which are sought to be justified in the guise of environmental protection," the release read.

Moreover, India also asserted that the developing countries seek appropriate policy space to find solutions to their concerns.

"India said that it was of the firm view that developing countries require flexibility in the existing WTO agreements to overcome the constraints faced by them in their industrialization. India expressed concerns on the concerted attempt to club long standing development issues like policy space for industrial development with the new issues of Trade and Industrial policy," the official press release of Commerce Ministry read.

"In the second session on Trade and Inclusion, India cautioned members that mixing non-trade topics with WTO rules can lead to greater trade fragmentation. Bringing issues like Gender and MSMEs in the realm of WTO discussions was not practical because these issues were being discussed in other relevant international organizations already," it added.

India stressed that issues like inclusion are better addressed through contextual and targeted national measure and they did not fall in the domain of international trade relations. India stressed that non-trade issues have the potential to encourage trade distortive subsidies and non-trade barriers.

India recounted several measures undertaken by the government for greater inclusion of MSMEs and women, especially through use of Digital Public Infrastructure, and also assured its unwavering commitment to multilateralism and the importance of adhering to the rules-based global trading system.

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