The United Nations has adopted a treaty involving global trade in goods, and China's Ministry of Commerce stated the convention fully demonstrates China’s steadfast adherence to true multilateralism and its determination and actions to promote the reform and improvement of global governance as a sponsoring party.
On its official website on the 17th, China’s Ministry of Commerce released a press statement announcing that the 80th United Nations General Assembly officially reviewed and adopted the “United Nations Convention on Negotiable Goods Documents” on the 15th local time, and authorized Ghana to host the signing ceremony in 2026.
The press statement said that China is the sponsoring and main driving party of the convention, which fully demonstrates China's commitment to genuine multilateralism, its efforts to provide global public goods, and its determination and actions to promote reform and improvement of global governance.
The Ministry introduced that, in order to fill the gap in international rules concerning the property certificate function of cross-border railway consignment notes, China formally submitted a proposal to the 52nd session of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) in July 2019, suggesting the study and formulation of new international rules to address this issue. In July and December 2025, the 58th session of UNCITRAL and the 80th United Nations General Assembly respectively reviewed and adopted the draft convention, thus finalizing the convention.
According to the statement, the convention aims to resolve the property rights effectiveness issues of various cross-border transport documents, including railway consignment notes, provide legal guarantees for financing transactions of transport documents, alleviate funding pressures especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, reduce land trade transaction costs, improve transaction efficiency, and inject new momentum into the prosperity of global trade and economic development.