Germany's Interest in the WTO

Every fourth job in Germany depends on exports. Therefore Germany has a high interest in the functioning of the multilateral training system and the success of WTO. Today it is difficult to develop new international rules. Bilateral and plurilateral trade agreements are stepping stones for an improved multilateral system.

Biography of the Speaker
Since September 2015, Ambassador Walter Hugo Werner is Head of the WTO Unit at the Permanent Mission of Germany in Geneva and Alternate Permanent Representative to the WTO. Dr Werner received his PhD in Trade Law from the Münster University in Germany in 1983 when he was functioning as an attorney at the District Court Münster. He started his career at the Federal Ministry of Economics in Bonn in 1985 at the Competition Policy Unit and later at the European Industrial Policy Unit. From 1990 to 1994, he worked at the Federal Chancellor’s Office in Bonn on economic questions of German unity.

Dr Werner became part of the Economic Division of the German Permanent Mission in Geneva in 1989 before he served again at the WTO Unit of the Geneva based Permanent Mission from 1999 to 2004. In 2005, Dr Werner became Head of the Trade Policy Unit Services and Intellectual Property Rights at the Ministry of Economics in Berlin and from 2008 to 2015, before coming back to Geneva, he acted as Head of the Arms Export Control Policy Unit at the Foreign Ministry of Economics in Berlin.