GENEVA—An international agreement on waiving intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines is within reach ahead of a global trade meeting next week, the head of the World Trade Organization (WTO) said on Wednesday.
In a telephone interview, Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala also said an agreement could be reached on fishing subsidies in time for the meeting, when 120 trade ministers from around the world gather at the body’s Geneva headquarters.
“If we get one or two deliverables that will be good,” Okonjo-Iweala told Reuters in a telephone interview. “I think we are within shouting distance of that.”
Days before the meeting starts, none of the agreements in the three major negotiating areas of agriculture, fish subsidies, or intellectual property rights for vaccines have been finalized for ministers to rubber-stamp, trade sources say….