Mrs. Nevin Gamea, Minister of Trade and Industry, announced during the conclusion of the meeting of African Ministers of Trade held in Geneva, Switzerland, the adoption of the Ministerial Declaration issued by the African Group at the World Trade Organization, which includes the support and adoption of the Egyptian proposal to assist the net food-importing developing countries and the least developed countries to meet the challenges of food security,  and to be submitted to the Twelfth Ministerial Conference, whose activities will start tomorrow.

The minister said that the Egyptian proposal, which was prepared by the Egyptian Commercial Office in Geneva in coordination with the Permanent Mission and the Trade Agreements Sector in Cairo, focuses on two main axes. The first is the implementation of the Marrakesh Agreement on measures related to the possible negative effects of the Agricultural Reform Programme in developing countries, through the development of a work programme aiming to create a financing mechanism that compensates for global pricing differences while protecting developing countries' rights and not reducing domestic development assistance axes.

The second axis, according to Gamea, includes launching the domestic support available to developing countries within the framework of the Egyptian government's goal of improving self-sufficiency rates of vital commodities, especially wheat.

The African Group's ministerial declaration emphasized the development dimension in the issues raised at the World Trade Organization's Twelfth Ministerial Conference, as well as reaffirming the organization's role in assisting African countries with comprehensive economic development and industrial modernization, with a special emphasis on food security and confronting of future pandemics.