Hopes of a successful conclusion to World Trade Organization talks on ending fishery subsidies appear to be have been muddied by a letter from China to the WTO linking the talks to other issues related to Sino-U.S. trade tensions.
A list of 12 “suggestions” sent by China’s Commerce Ministry sent this week to WTO headquarters includes a “successful conclusion to the fishery talks” but also requires that WTO member-states stop using state security as a barrier to market access – a direct reference to an American decision to bar Chinese mobile technology firm Huawei from supplying equipment to the U.S. system of 5G telecommunications.
Among its other suggestions to the WTO, China also wants changes to the appeals process at the WTO and wants progress on global e-commerce market access, a move that could benefit China’s exporters in being able to ship directly to consumers globally.
Subsidies paid to fishing firms by WTO member states have contributed to overfishing, and illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, said WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo earlier this year, when he called for a deal to be done on "one of the important issues of our time.”
An estimated USD 20 billion (EUR 17.9 billion) is paid out annually to subsidize the cost of fuel that allows vessels to operate thousands of miles from home. The bulk of the subsidies are paid out by a handful of nations and around 85 percent of the figure goes to large-scale industrial fleets, rather than smaller near-shore artisanal fisheries.
The pressure was ramped up in 2015, when all United Nations member-states agreed to Sustainable Development Goal 14.6 to eliminate or prohibit harmful fishery subsidies by 2020. The goal has been a priority for developing countries that depend on the sea for protein, yet many of the same countries have entered into deals giving fishing companies from China and elsewhere access to their territorial waters.
