From September 10 – 12 Secretariat of the World Trade organization is organizing a regional seminar for Central European and Central Asian countries on trade and environment. Minister for environment and regional development, Vladimirs Makarovs will be holding a speech at the opening of the seminar.

Seminar will focus on trade and environment aspects, arising from the decision by the WTO fourth Ministerial Conference on launching a new round of negotiations. A special emphasis will be put on the issues related to positioning and interrelations between multilateral environment agreements (MEAs) and WTO provisions, also considering the political connotation of this matter.

The issue of specifying relations between multilateral environment agreements and multilateral trade rules, that are agreed within the WTO, is now particularly important and is pursued by environment activists and non-governmental organizations closely involved in the environment protection. European Union and a number of other countries in Europe have rated this matter as a priority in the new round of multilateral trade negotiations.

Additionally on the agenda will be matters of technical barriers to trade, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, ecolabelling, fishery subsidies, etc.

As participants in the seminar from Latvia's part are ministries of Foreign Affairs, Economy, Environment and Regional Development, Agriculture and several other related institutions.

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