Medical products are essential, highly regulated and often highly-priced, making them prone to illicit trade. The trafficking of substandard, unregistered, falsified and/or counterfeit medical products threatens human health and safety, endangers jobs and economic activity, stifles innovation and undermines trust in global supply chains, setting back efforts to use trade to support global health security and sustainable development. The costs of inaction are high. A multi-faceted response is required to tackle this complex, multi-dimensional problem.

Convened by the WTO at the 2022 Global Review of Aid for Trade, heads of international organizations will share perspectives on the impact of illicit trade, with a focus on medical products. They will collectively identify the resources, interventions and innovative tools needed to fight illicit trade and create new opportunities for legal trade in medical products with a view to protecting people's health. Areas to be explored include harnessing trade facilitation, ensuring compliance with applicable quality standards and promoting the balanced and effective enforcement of intellectual property rights. On this occasion, the Director-General will launch the WTO report “Tackling Illicit Trade in Medical Products: Better international co-operation for better health”.

Moderator

Ms. Anabel González

Deputy Director-General, WTO

Speakers

Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

Director-General, WTO

Dr. Gerd Müller

Director-General, UNIDO

Dr. Kunio Mikuriya

Secretary-General, WCO

Ms. Rebeca Grynspan

SG, UNCTAD (video message)

Dr. Mariângela Batista Galvão Simão

Assistant Director-General, Access to Medicines and Health Products, WHO

Mr. Edward Kwakwa

Assistant Director-General, WIPO