<span style="color: #222222;">The World Trade Organisation, WTO ministerial meeting of developing countries began in New Delhi today. </span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">The two-day meeting is being held at a time when the multilateral rule-based-trading system is facing serious and grave challenges. </span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">The meeting will provide an opportunity for the Ministers to discuss various issues and the way forward. </span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">On the first day today, a meeting of senior officers of the participating countries is being held. The Ministerial Meeting will be held tomorrow.</span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">Sixteen developing countries and six Least Developed Countries, LDCs are participating in the meeting. </span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">It includes China, South Africa, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Kazakhstan and Bangladesh. The Director-General of WTO Roberto Azevedo is also participating in the meeting. </span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">Speaking at the inaugural session, Commerce Secretary Dr Anup Wadhawan said that the existential challenges to the multilateral rules-based trading system are manifest in a spate of unilateral measures and counter-measures, deadlock in key areas of negotiations and the impasse in the Appellate Body. </span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">He said, the logjam in the Appellate Body is a serious threat to the dispute settlement mechanism of the WTO and the implementation function of the organization. </span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">Our correspondent reports, it is an effort to bring together the developing countries and Least Developed Countries on a platform for sharing common concerns on various issues affecting the WTO and work together to address the issues. </span><br />