The 12th WTO Ministerial Conference: MC12
     Between 12-17 June 2022 in the Swiss Confederation. The Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Thailand to the World Trade Organization and the World Intellectual Property Organization (Mrs. Pimchanok Pitfield) and the Minister (Commercial) and Permanent Representative of Thailand to the World Trade Organization and the World Intellectual Property Organization (Mr. Rachavitch Piyapramote) attended the meeting, which was the first MC meeting in four years since the MC11 meeting held in December 2017 in the Argentine Republic. It is the highest-level meeting of the WTO where Ministerial Decisions are made on how to proceed on key issues, such as the action plan on the small economies, emergency approaches in dealing with food security issues, and the issue of not using measures to prohibit or restrict exports of goods under the World Food Program (WFP), as well as Ministerial Declarations on issues such as WTO actions in response to COVID-19 and future epidemics.

The Informal WTO Ministerial Gathering (IMG) and Related Meetings 
     On 20 January 2023 in Davos, Swiss Confederation, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Commerce (H.E. Mr. Jurin Laksanawisit) assigned the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Thailand to the World Trade Organization and the World Intellectual Property Organization (Mrs. Pimchanok Pitfield) as Thailand’s representative to attend the meeting and held informal discussions with Cairns Group Ministers. Thailand supported the operations of the WTO through this meeting.
 

The 42nd Cairns Group Ministerial Meeting
     On 12 June 2022. The Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Thailand to the World Trade Organization and the World Intellectual Property Organization (Mrs. Pimchanok Pitfield) represented Thailand’s Minister of Commerce and attended the 12th WTO Ministerial Conference in Geneva, Swiss Federation. At the Meeting, Thailand delivered a statement to demonstrate her determination to push for a concrete agricultural trade reform that will help to create free and fair trade in agricultural products, whilst being prepared to face new global challenges, especially the transition from a public health crisis to a fully-fledged food crisis. Thailand indicated her readiness to work with the Cairns members to drive negotiations both at the 12th WTO Ministerial Conference and negotiations that will continue in the future. Furthermore, Thailand has also jointly adopted the 42nd Cairns Group Ministerial Statement, which declared the intention of the members to find conclusions for the negotiations on agricultural negotiations during the 12th WTO Ministerial Conference. The members will push for a concrete reform of the negotiations on agricultural commodities under the WTO while being aware of the impact of natural disasters, the COVID-19 pandemic, and current conflicts that affect food and nutrition security in an intensifying manner. The members also called for trade on agricultural goods that are in line with the WTO regulation to ensure fairness and availability of food to the world’s population in a sufficient manner and with inclusive access. This is along with the reform in agricultural trade focusing on 3 areas under the WTO, which are:
     1) Opening the market, such as through tariff reductions among members.
     2) Reduction of trade-distorting subsidies on agricultural goods.
     3) Abolishment of export subsidies, of which Thailand, as an exporter of important agricultural goods, will receive benefits from fairer competition on the trade of agricultural goods, while consumers will have more choices and able to have access to food at a fairer price.

The 104th Meeting of the Committee on Agriculture (COA) and the Meeting of the Committee on Agriculture in Special Session (CoASS)            
     On 27 – 31 March 2023 in Geneva, Swiss Confederation. The purpose of these meetings was to follow up on the implementation of obligations under the WTO by member countries and support the operational guidelines that are beneficial to Thailand in promoting trade. Thailand participated in negotiations to determine the world trade rules, as well as monitor the implementation of obligations of WTO member countries in accordance with the agreement. For the meeting of the Rule Negotiating Group on Fisheries Subsidies, Thailand attended the meeting and conducted bilateral discussions with the WTO members to discuss and negotiate rules in the Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies to be more comprehensive. WTO members, including Thailand, have set a goal to conclude negotiations on creating more comprehensive rules at the 13th WTO Ministerial Conference.

Meetings on Fisheries Subsidies Negotiations (via video conference)
     Between 4-5, 29 October 2021, 8-21 November 2021 and 1 and 10 December 2021, and the Meeting to Negotiate Additional Fishery Subsidies on 15 February 2022 to expedite the conclusions between WTO members on as many related issues as possible, and to prepare for the conclusion of the negotiations of the WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies at the 12th WTO Ministerial Conference

Meetings to Negotiate the Joint Statement Initiative on Electronic Commerce: JSI
     Between 12-15 July 2022 and 12-15 September 2022. The meeting was able to achieve clean text on 7 issues, namely:
     1) Dealing with Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Messages
     2) Electronic Authentication and Electronic Signatures
     3) Electronic Contracts
     4) Online Consumer Protection
     5) Open Government Data
     6) Transparency
     7) Paperless Trading
     For 2022, the meeting aimed to discuss the important issues to reach conclusions on main issues, such as personal data protection, and cross-border data flow

Negotiation meeting to develop e-commerce rules under WTO 
     The meeting was held 10 times on the following dates (1) 25-28 October 2022; (2) 28 November–1 December 2022; (3) 13–16 February 2023; (4) 27–30 March 2023; (5) 22–25 May 2023; (6) 19–22 June 2023; (7) 26–28 July 2023; (8) 26–29 September 2023; (9) 23–26 October 2023; and (10) 27–30 November 2023. These meetings were held in a hybrid format to drive the negotiations and to provide opportunities for members who cannot travel to join the discussions at the WTO, as well as to have discussions and exchange of opinions on electronic commerce via videoconference. At this stage, members were still in the process of negotiating the rules for electronic commerce under the WTO. Members aimed to conclude important chapters and have a meaningful outcome of the negotiations in 2023 through two mechanisms, namely (1) A plenary meeting; and (2) A small group meeting.

Latest Status

• At present, out of a total of more than 40 articles, members have been able to finalise 7 articles, which are (1) Unsolicited commercial electronic messages (Spam); (2) Electronic signatures and authentication; (3) Electronic contracts; (4) Online consumer protection; (5) Open government data; (6) Transparency; and (7) Paperless trading. The issues of transparency and paperless trading may be revisited depending on the scope and the legal architecture of the agreement.

• Currently, members are actively driving the negotiations to make progress and are holding small group meetings to discuss 13 articles. These articles are divided into 8 that are currently being negotiated: (1) Privacy; (2) Prohibition on requiring software code disclosure (Source Code); (3) ICT products that use cryptography (4) Regulations and revision to the reference documents on telecommunications services (5) Cross-border data flows and prohibition on requiring computing facilities to be located within the country ( 6) Issues on development (7) Exemption from customs duties for electronic transmissions; and (8) Cross-cutting issues such as exceptions and definitions. There are also 5 articles where discussion and negotiation at the technical level have been concluded, but some members still reserve their rights. This factor makes it impossible to clean the text at this juncture. These articles include (1) Access to the Internet; (2) Supervision of electronic transactions; (3) Cybersecurity; (4) Electronic invoicing and (5) Single Windows data exchange and system interoperability/ Unique consignment reference numbers.

• Most recently, during the November 2023 meeting, members strived to conclude small group discussions as much as possible. The revised consolidated text will then be prepared after the meeting to be circulated to members for their consideration and to use as a document for discussion in 2024.

Meetings to Negotiate Investment Facilitation for Development 
     The meeting met 11 times on 1) 13 October 2022; 2) 3 November 2022; 3) 25 November 2022; 4) 16 December 2022; 5) 1 February 2023; 6) 8 March 2023; 7) 5 April 2023; 8) 4 May 2023; 9) 8 June 2023; 10) on 6 July 2023; and 11) 6 September 2023. These meetings were held in a hybrid format to drive the negotiations and to provide opportunities for members who cannot travel to join the discussions at the WTO. The Meeting discussed various outstanding investment facilitation issues, such as definitions, temporary entry and stay of natural persons, monetary policy, sustainable investment, and establishment of institutions, as well as discussing New Zealand's proposal to preserve the rights for preferential treatment for the indigenous Maori people. (The Meeting agreed that the said clause should be included as a footnote in the Final Provisions.) The Meeting set the goal of announcing a successful conclusion of the IFD negotiations at the 13th WTO Ministerial Conference (MC).

Meetings to Discuss the Discipline on Domestic Regulations (via video conference)
     1) 4 November 2021; 2) 12 November 2021; and 3) 18 November 2021. The meeting developed a reference document on domestic regulations for trade in services. The JSI DR members, including Thailand, announced the conclusion of the negotiations on 2 December 2021 and set the goal for the completion of the domestic process to annex the reference document to the members’ schedule of commitments within 12 months. During the video conference meetings on (1) 6 May 2022; (2) 13 June 2022; and (3) 27 June 2022, the members reported their progress on conducting the domestic process in annexing the obligations on domestic regulations for trade in services, in accordance with the reference paper, with the members’ schedule of commitments, with the target of completion with 12 months from JI DR members’ announcement on the conclusion on the negotiations (The deadline was 2 December 2022).

     The Department of Trade Negotiations has submitted the draft Schedule of Commitments under the WTO that will annex the Discipline on Domestic Regulations to the Thai Cabinet, in accordance with Section 178 of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand. The Cabinet Meeting on 13 September 2022 then endorsed the document and the Department has informally informed the Office of the Permanent Representative of Thailand to the World Trade Organization and the World Intellectual Property Organization to notify the results of the internal process, as well as to inform on Thailand’s readiness to bind the Discipline on Domestic Regulations under the WTO process during the group meeting on Joint Statement that was held on 4 October 2022.

Dialogue Between Thailand and Timor–Leste on Bilateral Market Access under the Accession Process to Become WTO Member 
     On 18 April 2023, the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Thailand to the World Trade Organization and the World Intellectual Property Organization (Mrs. Pimchanok Pitfield) met with the Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs and Chief Negotiator of Timor-Leste (H.E. Mr. Joaquim Amaral) in Geneva, Switzerland. Both sides were able to conclude the market access negotiations for goods under the Timor-Leste accession process. Timor-Leste aimed to become a WTO member during the 13th WTO Ministerial Conference (MC).

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