WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  G/TBT/W/239 
24 June 2004 
 (04-2726) 
Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade Original:   Spanish 
  
 
COLOMBIA'S EXPERIENCE WITH GOOD REGULATORY PRACTICE 
 
 
 The following communication, dated 23 June 2004,  is being circulated at the request of the 
delegation of Colombia
.  
 
_____________ 
  
I. INTRODUCTION 
1. Pursuant to the recommendations of the Third Triennial Review on good regulatory practice
1, 
Colombia would like to share its experience in the area with other WTO Members.   
II. FRAMEWORK FOR COMMUNITY ACTION 
2. For Colombia, the Agreement on Technical Barrier s to Trade (TBT Agreement) is a valuable 
instrument that contributes to improving market acc ess.  Since it was adopted in 1995, the national 
authorities have sought to implement and comply w ith the provisions in the different areas of the 
Agreement, attaching particular importance to regulatory practice. 
3. In doing so, they have tried to maintain ac tive participation in the different regional and 
multilateral forums in order to benefit from progr ammes and actions aimed at reaching standard 
regulatory agreements.  It also applies Decisi on 562 of the Commission of the Andean Community2 
which contains guidelines for drawing up, adopti ng and implementing technical regulations in the 
Member countries and at the Community level.   
4. This Decision, which is mandatory for the five countries of the Andean subregion, has been in 
force since July 2003 and has become a tool for trad e facilitation.  In the ar eas of transp arency and 
equivalence, the following elements are worth noting: 
• The Decision promotes transparency by providing technical regulations, both at the 
national and the Andean Community level, with a harmonized structure that enables 
any interested party  (Articles 2.9.1 and 2.11 of the TBT Agreement) to become 
acquainted with the mandatory technical re quirements for the products covered by a 
particular regulation.  It also provides information on registration, on conformity 
assessment procedures, and on the regulatory authorities. 
• It provides for a notification and counter-notification procedure which, in addition to 
making it easier to become acquainted with the projects and to submit comments, has 
                                                      
1 Paragraph 14 of document G/TBT/13. 
2 Available at www.communidadandina.org.  
 G/TBT/W/239 
Page 2  
 
 helped to build up "mutual confidence" between the different national regulatory 
entities. 
• It provides for the creation of the "Andean  Centre for Information on Standards, 
Technical Regulations, and Conformity A ssessment Procedures" grouping together 
the five national enquiry points and the Co mmunity enquiry point, located in the 
General Secretariat of the Andean Community.  The interconnection of these six 
enquiry points will be the basis for the "export alert" system, which will enable any commercial operators (importers, exporters , producers, distributors) to acquaint 
themselves with the mandatory technical re quirements for the product they wish to 
export to another member country of the Andean community, thereby helping to improve the utilization of the expanded market. 
 The creation of this Centre forms part of the European Community's cooperation and 
technical assistance programme in the area of quality, and should be completed within six months.
3 
• The impact on intra-Andean Community tr ade of the harmonization of technical 
regulations through the implementation of D ecision 562 will also facilitate trade with 
third countries and contribute, in the me dium term, to the development of the 
principle of equivalence. 
III. NATIONAL EXPERIENCE 
A. LEGAL FRAMEWORK  
5. Colombia has its National System of Sta ndardization, Certification and Metrology 
(SNMCM)4 which is designed to be flexible and reli able, to promote the quality and competitiveness 
of industry, to facilitate domestic and internati onal trade, and to protect consumer interests. 
6. The system relies on (i) the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Tourism as the chief authority for 
the formulation of national quality and standardization policy;  (ii) entities with the authority to issue technical regulations;  (iii) the National Stan dardization Body (ICONTEC), responsible for 
coordinating the development and publication of Co lombian technical standards (NTC);  (iv) the 
sectoral standardization units;  (v)  the Supervisory Authority for Industry and Trade (SIC);  (vi) the 
Advisory Technical Council for Accreditation;  (v ii) the sectoral technical committees;  (viii) the 
accredited certification and inspection bodies;  (i x) the accredited testing, trial and calibration 
laboratories;  and (x)  other government institutions  involved in accreditation and control, such as the 
National Institute for the Surveillance of Food and Drugs (INVMA) and the Colombian Agricultural 
Institute (ICA). 
B. 
REGULATORY PROCESS  
7. The regulatory process in Colombia is b ased on the work carried out by ICONTEC.5  As the 
entity responsible for coordinating the development and publication of Colombian technical standards 
                                                      
3 This programme was presented by Colombia at  the Seminar on Technical Assistance held in 
March 2003. 
4 Created in 1993 by Decree 2269. 
5 Non-profit entity set up by the Colombian Government as the national standardization body in 1984.  
Its mission is to develop, manage and promote the application of Colombian technical standards (NTC).  It manages some 5,200 NTCs, and has 133 technical standardization committees developing standards for 
different productive sectors.  G/TBT/W/239 
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 (NTCs), it has been instrumental in facilitating regu latory work and fostering the adaptation of the 
productive sector to the technical regulations issued .  This has been possibl e because the technical 
standards on which the regulations are based were drawn up according to the principles of 
transparency and consensus by  technical committees in which the various private-sector and 
government interests are represented.6 
C. EXPERIENCE ACQUIRED IN IMPLEMENTING THE ANDEAN DECISION AND THE PROVISIONS OF 
THE TBT AGREEMENT  
8. With respect to the implementation of Decision 562, Colombia would like to highlight the 
following elements: 
• Decision 562, incorporating the recommendations of the Committee on Technical 
Barriers to Trade, stipulates that the period of time between the publication of a draft 
technical regulation and its entry into force shall not be less than 6 months, except 
when it is not possible to fulfil the legitimate objectives pursued.  The implementation and fulfilment of this provi sion has helped the regulatory bodies to 
realize the importance of reaching agreement with the productive sector on the entry into force of the measures in question. 
 
• This process of drawing up and implem enting measures involves consultation and 
reconciliation of the legitimate objective pursued and the time needed for the 
productive sector to adapt to the regulation. 
 
• Transparency has been enhanced through the publication of the different draft 
regulations, standards and conformity a ssessment procedures on the websites of the 
regulatory bodies as they emerge from the meetings between the public and private 
sectors, irrespective of subsequent notification to the other WTO Members under Articles 2.9 and 5.6 of the TBT Agreement. 
 
• It has become clear that the regulatory bodi es are aware of the importance of working 
in coordination with the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Tourism.  Efforts are currently being made to produce a guide to good regulatory practices so that the 
different regulatory bodies can soon be provided with mandatory guidelines. 
 
D. 
ELEMENTS FOR THE PREPARATION OF A GUIDE TO GOOD REGULATORY PRACTICES  
9. In developing a guide to good regulatory practi ces, Colombia has sought to identify a number 
of steps to be followed: 
• Expressly identify the NTCs and the internati onal standards relating to the area to be 
regulated before initiating any regulatory proposal; 
 
• facilitate the conformity assessment proce dures in accordance with the requirements 
contained in the draft regulation, taking account of the least costly and least trade-restrictive alternatives for the entreprene ur, without sacrificing the objective pursued; 
 
• at the first stage of the proposal, enable the private sector to provide regulatory 
alternatives in order to secure the essential input that is often missing in the NTCs; 
                                                     
 
6 Participation of:  industry, confederations, associ ations, business, private service entities, consumers, 
public service entities, and educational institutions. G/TBT/W/239 
Page 4  
 
 • design a "systematic follow-up" mechanism to monitor the evolution of the 
implementation of technical regulations which enables both the entities in charge of monitoring compliance, and the entreprene urs and consumers, to submit comments 
and observations; 
 
• determine the capacity of country's laboratories and certifying entities. 
 
E. 
EQUIVALENCE  
10. Colombia, together with the other Andean countries and with the help of the General 
Secretariat of the Andean Community and the above-mentioned interna tional cooperation, has 
launched a process of standardization at the Andean  Community level which will make it possible to 
achieve equivalence of certain voluntary standards,  the idea being that they should be used as a 
starting point when initiating a technical regulati on procedure in the framework of the Andean 
Community. 
11. Accordingly, Colombia is working to fine -tune the Andean Standardization Regulation 
contained in Resolution 313 of the General Secr etariat of the Andean Community, issued as a 
supplement to Decision 419, Articles 4, 14 and 397, for the chief purpose of facilitating the 
development of Andean standards. 
IV. REQUESTS TO THE COMMITTEE 
12. Colombia considers the support of the TBT Commi ttee to be extremely useful in advancing 
the above-mentioned projects desi gned to improve its technical regulation process.  The Committee 
should move forward in establishing parameters to he lp define more broadly when a standard should 
be considered international within the meaning of  Article 2.4 of the TBT Agreement, and how that 
standard can come to form the basis for the regulatory process of WTO Member countries.  The 
following considerations, inter alia , should be borne in mind: 
• The process of developing an international st andard that could come to be considered 
relevant (Article 2.4 of the TBT Agreemen t) should involve the effective and express 
participation of the majority of the intern ational community.  It is not enough simply 
to declare that all of the standards issued by a given international body qualify as 
international standards per se  for the purposes of Article 2.4 of the Agreement. 
 
• Genuine access of developing countries to the standard developing process conducted 
by international organizati ons should be facilitated, inter alia  through: (i) the creation 
of regional chapters;  (ii) teleconferencing;   (iii) substantial reduction in membership 
fees;  (iv) training programmes with the participation of the academic sector;  
(v) creation of mechanisms that enable countries to be informed of the specific 
reasons underlying the results of a particular process and that provides for the possibility of setting up expert meetings, etc. 
 
• It should be made easier for the regulat ors from the developing countries to use 
international standards in a flexible a nd economical manner, without the stringent 
copyright protection that they involve. 
 
• Genuine exchange of documents, opinions  and advisory services of international 
standardization bodies should be facilitated in  order to provide countries with access 
                                                     
 
7 Available at www.comunidadandina.org .  G/TBT/W/239 
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 to the background information and studies pert aining to a particular standard, thereby 
enabling the developing countries to a dopt a more economical and flexible 
standardization process. 
 
13. In the area of equivalence, Colombia consid ers that the Committee should seek to design a 
procedure that facilitates equivalence of regulations between WTO Member countries, or if that is not 
possible, a procedure that can shed light on th e differences in regulatory processes and make it 
possible to begin working to wards mutual adjustment. 
 
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