The Honourable Chrystia Freeland, Minister of International Trade, today concluded her participation in meetings at the 10th Ministerial Conference (MC10) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Nairobi, where she underlined the importance of the multilateral trading system and met with a number of her international counterparts to advance Canada’s trade interests.

Among other things. Canada supported the WTO's adoption of an expanded Information Technology Agreement that will eliminate tariffs on 201 information technology products that account for 10 percent of global trade.

Minister Freeland also reiterated the importance of the WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism, which ensures enforcement of international trade rules covered by WTO agreements. Yesterday, the United States passed a bill to repeal Country of Origin Labelling (COOL) for beef and pork, which discriminated against Canadian livestock. The WTO ruled that COOL was a violation of the United States’ international trade obligations.
While at MC10, Minister Freeland met with a number of trade counterparts, including those from the European Union and key member states, to discuss next steps towards ratification of the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement.

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