Every year since 1997, students from around the world have been invited to Switzerland to debate and exchange views on the most interesting topics of international trade. This time the 25th edition of Model WTO conference was held from 06-13 April 2022. Topic 2022 was WTO and Sustainable Food System. 70 participants from 32 countries participated in this conference. The participants were divided into 12 countries under 6 committees.

Two GTK students, Tanvir Alam Shahi (Doctoral School of Economics, 2nd year) and Jihua Ren [Ryan] (International Economy and Business MSc, 2nd year) represented our Faculty.

Tanvir: My supervisor, Dr. Sarolta Somosi recommended me this conference and supported me during the process. The participants had to submit their CV. After the successful evaluation of the CV, the participants were told to submit an essay (2 pages) based on the topic of the WTO 2022. The best 70 essay-writers were finally invited to participate in the conference as delegates.

Ryan: Everyone in this program should have a proposal related to the committee topic. Firstly, we needed to make sure there were no contradictions between the proposals of each of us and those of the other members of the same delegation. Then, we discussed our proposals in our respective committees with delegators from different countries. I was elected as a member of the Australian delegation and participated in the Fourth Committee on Food Standards. The selected countries in Model WTO are classified as developed and developing countries, so our task was to make agreements between developing and developed countries.

Finally, we had to make a working paper that is the result of our negotiation. We participated at presentations every day with WTO officers and agricultural experts. To some extent, this activity has had a significant impact on my future study and life. I would like to thank my professor Dr. Sarolta Somosi. With her introduction, we had the opportunity to meet Szilárd Mogyorósi from the Hungarian mission.

Tanvir: I was in the committee titled Environmental Footprint of Internationally Traded Food and was the delegate of Costa Rica. In connection with the conference, we visited the WTO Costa Rican mission in Geneva and exchanged views with the ambassador and learned about the activities of the Costa Rican WTO mission. We encourage GTK students to participate in this event in the future.