Twenty-nine years ago today, December 9, 1996 (October 29, 1996, the first WTO Ministerial Conference was held. From December 9 to 13, 1996, the first five-day WTO Ministerial Conference was held in Singapore. More than 2300 representatives from 128 WTO members attended the meeting. The meeting adopted the Singapore Ministerial Declaration. Yao Zhaodong, Chairman of the meeting and Minister of Trade and Industry of Singapore, said that during the meeting, the ministers participating in the meeting analyzed the development of international trade in the two years since the establishment of the WTO and committed to continue to promote trade liberalization to promote the development and employment of all members, stability and prosperity. The Singapore Ministerial Declaration pointed out that the growth of global trade brought about by trade liberalization has created more job opportunities for many members. Changes in the international economy, including trade in services and direct investment, and increasing economic integration have provided unprecedented opportunities for economic growth, job creation and development. On the most controversial issue of labour standards, the Declaration recognized ILO as an effective body for setting and dealing with labour standards, stressed that labour standards issues should not be allowed to create new trade protection measures, agreed not to challenge the comparative competitive advantage of members, especially low-income developing members, and stipulated that cooperation between WTO and ILO must fully respect their different scopes. With regard to investment policy and competition policy, the Ministers agreed in the Declaration to form two working groups to examine the relationship between these two issues and trade, respectively. Attachment: Introduction to the World Trade Organization The World Trade Organization (referred to as WTO) was formally established on January 1, 1995. It is a permanent international organization independent of the United Nations. It is headquartered in Geneva and has 125 members. It replaces the GATT and is responsible for managing the implementation of the Uruguay Round package of agreements and managing the world economic and trade order. The Bretton Woods Conference held in July 1944 envisaged the establishment of an international trade organization at the same time as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, thereby making them the "money-finance-trade" trinity that shaped the world economy after World War II. institution. The Havana Charter signed by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Employment in 1947 agreed to establish the WTO. Later, due to opposition from the United States, the WTO was aborted. In the same year, the United States initiated the formulation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade as a temporary contract to promote trade liberalization. After the Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations was launched in 1986, the European Community and Canada formally proposed proposals to establish the WTO in 1990. It was only at the GATT Ministerial Conference held in Marrakesh, Morocco in April 1994 that it was formally decided to establish the WTO. The purpose and basic principles of the WTO are basically the same as those of the GATT. It aims to achieve the goal of promoting world trade liberalization through principles such as market openness, non-discrimination and fair trade. However, it is different from the GATT. It has a broader jurisdiction than the GATT. In addition to managing traditional and newly determined trade in goods, it also includes areas such as intellectual property rights, investment measures and trade in services that have long been outside the GATT. The WTO is an international organization with legal personality and has higher authority and effectiveness in mediating member disputes. The highest decision-making authority of the WTO is the Conference of Ministers, which meets at least every two years. It has a General Council and a Secretariat, which are responsible for daily meetings and work of the WTO. The General Council has three councils on trade in goods, trade in services, and intellectual property rights, and three committees on trade and development, balance of payments, and administrative budget. The Secretariat has 1 Director General. On November 29, 1995, the WTO also established a seven-member arbitration body, the Appeals Tribunal, which is responsible for arbitrating differences between WTO members. The WTO is divided into founding members and new members. Founding members must be contracting parties to the GATT, and new members must be approved by a 2/3 majority vote by their decision-making body, the Conference of Ministers, to join. On July 11, 1995, the WTO General Council meeting decided to admit China as an observer of the organization. Since it applied to return to the GATT in 1986, China has been working for 10 years to resume GATT and join the WTO. However, due to obstruction from individual countries, China, which ranks 11th in world trade rankings in terms of import and export trade, has always been excluded from the WTO.