Trade plays a critical role in ensuring access to medical goods and services during global health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
This is one of the key findings from a new WTO-World Bank publication launched by the WTO Director-General, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and the World Bank Managing Director Mari Pangestu at an online event on 3 June.
In her opening remarks, DG Okonjo-Iweala underlined the need for greater international cooperation to improve global health security.
"This report underscores how trade is a force for good in terms of enabling access to medical goods and services – but also points to where we can improve," DG Okonjo-Iweala said. "It is a timely reminder, a week ahead of our 12th Ministerial Conference, of how trade is part of the solution to many of the big challenges of our time, whether in public health or the environment."
The objective of the report is to help policymakers draw lessons for trade policy and international cooperation by examining trade and trade policies in medical goods and services before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"A main lesson of the report is that trade plays an important role in ensuring access to medical goods and services both in normal times and, as the past two years have shown, in times of crisis," DG Okonjo-Iweala added. Highlighting the "unique role" that the WTO and the World Bank can play in leveraging trade to improve global health security, Mari Pangestu, the World Bank Managing Director of Development Policy and Partnerships, said: "We need greater trade openness – not economic nationalism. … The report being presented today highlights the crucial role of international trade in the COVID-19 pandemic response." The report stresses that open markets can increase access to medical services and goods – including the inputs needed to manufacture them, improve their quality and diversity, and reduce costs.
But excessive concentration of production, restrictive trade policies, supply chain disruptions and regulatory divergence can jeopardize the ability of public health systems to respond to pandemics and other health crises, the report finds.
Speaking on behalf of Ryad Mezzour, Morocco's Minister of Commerce and Industry, Abdelouahed Rahal, Director General of Trade at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, said: "Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Morocco has deployed various emergency actions to contain the crisis, adjusting its decision-making process based on the imperatives of public health and the need to revitalize the social and economic prospects of the country".
