Key WTO member countries to meet in Paris next month: Prabhu

Key World Trade Organisation (WTO) member countries, including India, will meet in Paris next month to deliberate upon issues like increasing protectionist measures by certain developed nations.

Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu said global trade is facing one of the "toughest" times in the last forty years.

"We feel that in the last 40 years, we are facing the biggest challenge for the global trade. So we want to make sure that institutions like the WTO survives. So I will be meeting important members of the WTO in Paris. I will tell them about our concerns," Prabhu told PTI.

He said the WTO chief too has called him to take up the important issues in that meeting.

This informal discussion will take place on sidelines of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) ministerial council meeting in Paris in June.

Prabhu will be visiting Paris in the first week of June.

The issue of appointment of appellate members in the WTO's dispute settlement body is also likely to come up at the meeting. Further delay in these appointments would create crisis in the functioning of the dispute settlement mechanism.

The dispute settlement mechanism is an important arm of the WTO to resolve trade disputes among member nations. The appellate body is the apex institution to adjudicate disputes.

This WTO meeting comes at a time when the world is facing trade war kind of situation following imposition of heavy duties on certain steel and aluminium products by the US. This move by the US evoked sharp reaction from both developed and developing countries of the Geneva-based organisation.