The Covid-19 pandemic has been a war on two fronts, with governments around the world struggling to control both viral spread and the economic fallout of the crisis. While the resumption of global trade will prove to be a key pillar of post-pandemic recovery, it is also crucial to the smooth transfer of vaccines around the world. Never has global trade — demonised by populists before the pandemic — been so essential to human survival.
At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) Ministers Responsible for Trade Meeting in New Zealand on June 4-5, participants acknowledged the role of trade and investment in promoting widespread and equitable access to Covid-19 immunisation. Declaring such immunisation a global public good, they announced measures to ensure the distribution of the Covid-19 vaccines, medical supplies and related goods.
“We can’t [vaccinate the region] on our own. We are interdependent on one another to ensure that we can supply the components of the vaccine or the essential goods to support that vaccine supply chain,” said Damien O’Connor, New Zealand Minister for Trade and Export Growth, at the event press conference. The interdependency developed between Apec economies, he says, is desperately needed for vaccines and medical supply equipment to speed up recovery. Apec, O’Connor vows, will support all necessary measures to ensure that everyone worldwide can access a vaccine.
In Annex 1 of the joint statement, Apec members agreed to expedite the flow and transit of all Covid-19 vaccines and related goods as well as release on arrival while reviewing any export restrictions or prohibitions related to these. Member states will also consider voluntary actions to reduce the costs of such products — particularly in the form of reviewing charges levied at national borders – while taking steps to prevent criminal exploitation of supply chains to prevent import of “dangerous, sub-standard or counterfeit Covid-19 vaccines and related goods”.
In terms of the logistics of such flows, Annex 2 of the joint statement calls on members to identify “unnecessary barriers to trade” in any relevant services that could hinder expediting the movement of essential goods and ensure that these are consistent with existing World Trade Organization (WTO) and trade agreement obligations. States have also been called upon to facilitate services that support the expediting and release of these goods, such as allowing service suppliers to digitally submit the necessary trade paperwork so as to begin processing of goods before their arrival.
One hindrance to the supply of vaccines has arguably been rules surrounding intellectual property (IP), with the WTO currently discussing the waiving of IP protections under The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights for the vaccine. O’Connor acknowledges the role that IP rules have played in encouraging the timely development of a Covid-19 vaccine and has asked for the introduction of a waiver to be carefully considered. Still, he notes that in such extraordinary circumstances, a waiver should be sought if IP indeed proves to be a barrier to vaccine proliferation.
“We are carefully reviewing the proposals, as I’m sure all WTO members are right now, and looking forward to moving the WTO’s membership to text-based negotiations,” said US Trade Representative Katherine Tai at the press conference. She says that Apec ministers broadly agree with the need to increase vaccine access and supply to bring “each other through this pandemic” with a view to post-pandemic economic recovery.
The joint statement says: “The WTO must demonstrate that global trade rules can help address the human catastrophe of the COVID19 pandemic and facilitate the recovery. APEC economies will work proactively and urgently in Geneva to support text-based discussions, including for a temporary waiver of certain intellectual property protections on COVID-19 vaccines, as soon as possible and no later than MC12 (12th WTO ministerial conference).”
With a view to “building back better”, ministers also resolved to instruct officials to accelerate the Apec Internet and Digital Economy Roadmap work programme to speed up the pace of digitalisation within the economies of member states. They also committed to accelerating the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement, including measures like the digitalisation of trade procedures like border processes, electronic payments, electronic certification and pre-arrival processing of electronic declarations.
