Anwar calls for WTO reforms
PETALING JAYA : Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim says the World Trade Organization (WTO) needs to be revitalised so that it can better navigate issues such as artificial intelligence, digital trade, and climate policy.
In a Bernama report, Anwar stressed that while Malaysia fully supports comprehensive WTO reforms, he emphasised that it must not come at the expense of developing countries.
Anwar, who held a meeting with WTO director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala in Rio de Janeiro today, also reaffirmed Malaysia's commitment to multilateralism and the need for the WTO to remain inclusive, effective, and responsive.
Anwar and Okonjo-Iweala are in Rio de Janeiro to attend the BRICS Summit.
Anwar also said Malaysia would conduct a comprehensive review of potential membership in the New Development Bank (NDB), a multilateral development bank formerly known as the BRICS Development Bank.
Anwar met the Shanghai-based NDB delegation, led by its president Dilma Rousseff, on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit yesterday.
'Malaysia will thoroughly review the possibility of joining the NDB after taking into account various aspects, including the required commitments and the effectiveness of participation in the institution,' he said after the meeting.
Anwar also expressed Malaysia's openness to exploring potential cooperation with the NDB within the framework of sustainable development, infrastructure financing, and the strengthening of South-South cooperation.
NDB currently has 11 members: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Bangladesh, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Algeria, Colombia, and Uzbekistan.
Malaysia officially became a BRICS partner country on Jan 1 this year.
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New Straits Times
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"This does not mean fighting for power to have control over others, but to have equal action and to have its positions and interests heard and met in a space of greater equality, independence and respect for the sovereignty of countries," the editor-in-chief added. During talks with other leaders on the sidelines of the summit, the Chinese premier voiced China's readiness to push for a greater role of the Global South in improving global governance. When meeting with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva a day before the summit, Li said China is willing to enhance communication and coordination with Brazil within multilateral frameworks such as the United Nations, BRICS and the G20, work in unity with developing countries to promote an equal and orderly multipolar world and a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization, and provide more certainty and stability for the world. In his meeting with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, Li noted that both China and Ethiopia are important Global South countries, and China will join hands with Ethiopia to strengthen communication and coordination within multilateral frameworks, boost concerted efforts by all parties to practice true multilateralism, firmly safeguard economic globalization and free trade, and inject more stability and positive energy into the world. After the plenary sessions, Li met with Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and said China will, as always, continue to practice and safeguard multilateralism and free trade, actively support the reform and development of the WTO to restore its authority, accelerate the improvement of trade rules, and push for more concrete outcomes of the 14th WTO Ministerial Conference. "Instead of unilateralism and protectionism, the BRICS countries reaffirmed the importance of cooperation and an open economy so that all countries can achieve development and collective security," said Marcos Cordeiro Pires, a professor of political and economic sciences at the Faculty of Philosophy and Sciences of the Sao Paulo State University. BRICS countries are striving for new global governance and a global framework that is inclusive, representative and anchored in the principles of sovereignty, equality and peaceful coexistence. "The demand for new global governance is not a whim, but a process of historical reparation. The BRICS offers a platform for inclusive cooperation, removed from hegemony and closer to the principles of multipolarity," said Jhonathan Mattos, an associate professor at the Department of International Relations, Rio de Janeiro State University. "It's a model of multilateralism, multipolarity, regional integration and the identity of shared demands," Mattos said.
