Not ensuring access to Covid vaccines could undermine eco recovery: WTO

Failing to ensure wider access to COVID-19 vaccines could undermine the global economic and trade recovery, a report of the World Trade Organization (WTO) warned on Thursday.

The Director-General's mid-year report on trade-related developments presented to members on Thursday calls on WTO member countries to ensure that markets remain open and predictable.

WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said this report clearly suggests that trade policy restraint by member countries has helped limit harm to the world economy.

However, some pandemic-related trade restrictions do remain in place and the challenge is to ensure that they are indeed transparent and temporary, she said.

"The report calls on WTO members to ensure that markets remain open and predictable, and warns that failing to ensure wider access to COVID-19 vaccines could undermine the global economic and trade recovery," WTO said in a statement.

The report noted that since the outbreak of the pandemic, 384 COVID-19-related trade measures in the area of goods have been implemented by members, of which 248 were of a trade-facilitating nature and 136 could be considered trade restrictive.

WTO is a Geneva-based 164-member multi-lateral body which frames global trade rules and adjudicates trade disputes among member nations. India has been a member since 1995.