World Trade Organization members, meeting Sept. 27-28, swapped views on how to ramp up transparency on other members' agricultural measures. Members of the Committee on Agriculture suggested "streamlining and simplifying the current export subsidy notification requirements" and mulled over a proposal from the committee chair to specifically address transparency, WTO said.

The World Trade Organization will host a virtual event Oct. 11 at 7 a.m. EDT covering trade-facilitating measures pertaining to product rules of origin. Tanzania's Elia Mtweve, current chair of the Committee on Rules of Origin, will open the event, which will discuss "initiatives being implemented to simplify rules of origin and facilitate compliance with origin requirements," WTO announced. Also speaking will be WTO member government representatives, international organization officials and academics.

Costa Rica submitted an application to start talks on joining the Government Procurement Agreement 2012, the World Trade Organization announced. Costa Rica's trade minister, Manuel Tovar, said that joining the agreement "would open new government procurement markets for our country" and also "add legal certainly and support to the participation by Costa Rican suppliers in government procurement procedures abroad." The application is based on "open competition, transparency and non-discrimination," Costa Rica noted. Costa Rica would be the first Central American country to join the deal.

China's Political Bureau of the Central Committee on Sept. 27 held its eighth study session on World Trade Organization rules and revision efforts, with President Xi Jinping noting the need for reform and China's participation in these efforts. The nation's Ministry of Commerce said Xi emphasized the WTO's need to safeguard the multilateral trading system with the trade body as the core and to restore the normal operation of the dispute settlement mechanism, according to an unofficial translation.

World Trade Organization members conducted an "informal retreat" at the trade body's headquarters Sept. 25-26 to talk trade and industrial policy as part of a broader reform discussion, the WTO said. The members emerged with three primary themes: "policy space in support of industrialization in developing countries including least developed countries; industrial subsidies -- opportunities and challenges for the global trading system; and the way forward." WTO members' senior officials will meet Oct. 23-24 to hand their negotiators "political direction" ahead of the 13th Ministerial Conference, which is set for Feb. 26-29.

The World Trade Organization opened registration for interested parties to attend the dispute panel proceedings in the EU's case against the U.S. antidumping and countervailing duties on ripe olives from Spain. The panel's "substantive meeting" will run from Oct. 25-26. Applications to attend a live screening of the event must be received by Oct. 10.

The World Trade Organization's Committee on Agriculture Working Group on Sept. 21 reviewed the food security coordinatory's report in a bid to advance talks on the food crises and gather consensus on recommendations to be issued by November, the WTO said.

China and the EU held the "10th EU-China High-Level Economic and Trade Dialogue" on Sept. 25, discussing the effect of Russia's war in Ukraine on global economics, food and energy security. Also discussed were "EU concerns on access to the Chinese market," prospects for rebalancing the EU-China trade relationship "on the basis of transparency," and predictability and reciprocity, the European Commission said.

Australia will continue its case at the World Trade Organization against China's tariff treatment of wine imports and reject Beijing's proposal to curtail the issue to China's case against Australia's treatment of steel products. Australian Agriculture Minister Murray Watt told Australian Broadcasting Corp. that the government sees the cases as "entirely separate matters."

The draft text for curbing subsidies leading to overcapacity and overfishing released earlier in September received "broad support" from World Trade Organization members as the starting point for text-based negotiations, Iceland's Einar Gunnarsson, chair of the fisheries subsidies talks, reported, the WTO said. Noting the text's warm reception at the fifth "Fish Week" talks, held on Sept. 18-22, Gunnarsson said the next Fish Week will be dedicated to a "collective reading of the text" so line-by-line modifications can be proposed. The next Fish Week is set for Oct. 9-13.