WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONWT/REG/10
10 October 2001
(01-4915)
REPORT (2001) OF THE
COMMITTEE ON REGIONAL TRADE AGREEMENTS
TO THE GENERAL COUNCIL
Chairperson:  Mrs. Laurence Dubois Destrizais (France)
I. INTRODUCTION
1. The terms of reference of the Committee on Regional Trade Agreements (CRTA) are:
"(a) to carry out the examination of agreements  in accordance with the procedures and terms
of reference adopted by the Council for Trade in Goods, the Council for Trade in
Services or the Committee on Trade and Development, as the case may be, and
thereafter present its report to the relevant body for appropriate action;
(b) to consider how the required reporting on the operation of such agreements should be
carried out and make appropriate recommendations to the relevant body;
(c) to develop, as appropriate, procedures to facilitate and improve the examination
process;
(d) to consider the systemic implications of such agreements and regional initiatives for the
multilateral trading system and the relationship between them, and make appropriate
recommendations to the General Council; and
(e) to carry out any additional functions assigned to it by the General Council."1
2. At its first meeting in 2001, the CRTA elected Mrs. Laurence Dubois Destrizais (France) as
Chairperson of the Committee. Ms. Margaret Liang (Singapore) and Mr. Alberto J. Dumont
(Argentina) were elected as Vice-Chairpersons at the Twenty-Ninth Session of the CRTA.
Dr. Vassili Notis (Greece) retained his position as Vice-Chairman.
3. During 2001, the Committee held three sessions (in February, July and September).  The
minutes of those meetings are listed in Attachment 1.  Informal consultations have also been held, in
an effort to reach convergence on the Committee's reporting on the examination of agreements. The
Committee plans to hold three meetings in 2002.
II. OBSERVER STATUS
4. The Committee agreed to grant observer status in the CRTA to the Latin American
Integration Association (LAIA), on an ad hoc  basis.  Definitive decisions on the requests for observer
                                                     
1 Document WT/L/127, paragraph 1.  The footnote attached to that paragraph is not reproduced here.WT/REG/10
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status listed in document WT/REG/W/11/Add.3 will be made in accordance with the guidelines to be
defined by the General Council.
III. EXAMINATION OF REGIONAL TRADE AGREEMENTS
5. To date, 239 RTAs have been notified to the GATT/WTO.2 Of these, 206 agreements were
notified under GATT Article XXIV, of which 124 are still in force today; 18 agreements were notified
under the Enabling Clause;3 and 15 were under GATS Article V.
6. The Committee has currently under examination a total of 110 agreements.4  The examination
of 96 of these agreements has been referred to th e Committee by the Council for Trade in Goods, and
13 by the Council for Trade in Services and one by the Committee on Trade and Development.
7. Examinations of individual RTAs represented a substantive amount of the Committee's work
during 2001.  For 23 RTAs, the Committee has not yet started the factual examination. 18 RTAs arecurrently undergoing factual examination.  The remaining 69 RTAs have already completed factual
examination and the draft examination reports are in various stages of consultation and finalization
(see Attachment 2).
8. In the attempt to finalize the five model draft reports currently under consideration by the
CRTA, a new format for these reports was employed as from February 2001.  In spite of someprogress made through informal, bilateral and multilateral consultations, Members remained divided
on the conclusions to be reached on the results of the examination.  In July 2001, the Chairperson
reported to the General Council on the persistent ly deadlocked situation in the Committee; the
General Council urged the Committee to continue its efforts to make progress in its work.
5
IV. REPORTING ON THE OPERATION OF AGREEMENTS
9. At the Twenty-Eighth Session of the CRTA, it was noted that all RTAs for which reports
were due in 1999 were included in the Schedule for the Submission of Biennial Report for 2001, with
the exception of three agreements which had been superseded by more recent ones and which were
currently under examination within the Committee.6
10. At that same Session, the importance of the biennial reporting process as an element of
transparency was reiterated and all Members were urged to ensure that reports were submitted
according to schedule in order to have the documents distributed in time for their discussion during
the Autumn session.
11. At its Thirtieth Session, the Committee considered five reports on the operation of
agreements.  Four of these had been submitted to  the WTO in accordance with the schedule for the
submission of biennial reports on RTAs for the year 2001.  The additional report fell under the 1999schedule, but had not been reviewed during the year 2000, and was thus referred for consideration to
the Committee meeting in Autumn 2001 (see Attachment 3).
                                                     
2 This figure corresponds to notifications of new RTAs, as well as of accessions to existing RTAs.
3 Differential and More Favourable Treatment, Reciprocity and Fulle r Participation of Developing
Countries , Decision of 28 November 1979.
4 Two RTAs notified under GATS Article V have not yet been transmitted to the Committee for
examination.
5 See document WT/GC/M/66, issue 13(a) on the agenda for a detailed account of the deliberations at
that meeting.
6 See document WT/REG/W/42.WT/REG/10
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V. SYSTEMIC IMPLICATIONS OF REGIONAL TRADE AGREEMENTS AND
INITIATIVES FOR THE MULTILATERAL TRADING SYSTEM AND THE
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THEM
12. On the basis of a document (WT/REG/W/38) entitled Further Work on Systemic Issues ,
presented by the former Chairman of the CRTA,7 in July 2000 the Secretariat had been instructed to
prepare horizontal, thematic surveys on the treatment of various policy provisions or measures in
RTAs, the first of which would address internal trade liberalization in RTAs.8
13. At the Committee's Twenty-Eighth Session, many delegations stressed the importance they
attached to such horizontal surveys as a means to enhancing the understanding of the impact of RTAs
on the multilateral trading system and agreed that the two crosscutting surveys being prepared by the
Secretariat on coverage and exceptions, and rules of origins regimes should be the focal point for theCommittee's further work on systemic issues.  At its Twenty-Ninth Session, a representative of the
Secretariat gave an update on progress on the two surveys, indicating that they would be circulated in
time for the Committee's September Session.  The two background surveys were distributed in mid-
September 2001 and were subject of a preliminar y discussion at the Committee's Thirtieth Session.
Consideration of these surveys by the Committee will be included in the agenda of the next session.
14. At its Twenty-Ninth Session, the Committee considered the proposal of the representative of
Hong Kong, China to organize an educational se minar on the relationship between RTAs and the
multilateral trading system for later this year or early 2002.  At the Committee's Thirtieth Session, the
Secretariat indicated that it was working on the date and modalities of the seminar.
VI. FINAL REMARKS
15. The Committee has pursued its examination work and succeeded in concluding the factual
examination of a number of RTAs, but has been unable to finalize reports on any of the examinations
before it.  As noted in paragraph 8 above, the Committee has discussed the practical difficulties and
broader issues preventing progress and the General Council has been informed of this state of affairs.
                                                     
7 Document WT/REG/W/38 was circulated under the Chairman's sole responsibility, but the
consultations held on it had showed a great degree of support for the approach it set.
8 That includes coverage and exceptions, rules of origin régimes and denial-of-benefits rules, as well as
the liberalization processes and transitional provisions.WT/REG/10
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ATTACHMENT 1
Minutes of the Meetings held in 2001
Twenty-Eighth Session – 22 February 2001
WT/REG/M/28
( Accession of the Kyrgyz Republic to the Customs Union
( Kyrgyz Republic and the Russian Federation
( Kyrgyz Republic and Ukraine
WT/REG/GEN/M/6 ( Kyrgyz Republic and Uzbekistan
( Kyrgyz Republic and Moldova
( Kyrgyz Republic and Kazakhstan
( Kyrgyz Republic and Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus,
Georgia, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Russian Federation,Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan
WT/REG108/M/1 Estonia and Ukraine
WT/REG69/M/4 EC and Tuni sia (Euro-Mediterranean)
WT/REG91/M/2 EFTA and Morocco
WT/REG83/M/2 Hungar y and Lithuania
WT/REG84/M/2 Hungary and Latvia
WT/REG80/M/2 Poland and Latvia
Twenty-Ninth Session – 2-3 July 2001
WT/REG/M/29
( Accession of the Kyrgyz Republic to the Customs Union
( Kyrgyz Republic and the Russian Federation
( Kyrgyz Republic and Ukraine
WT/REG/GEN/M/7 ( Kyrgyz Republic and Uzbekistan
( Kyrgyz Republic and Moldova
( Kyrgyz Republic and Kazakhstan
( Kyrgyz Republic and Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus,
Georgia, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Russian Federation,
Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan
WT/REG108/M/2 Estonia and Ukraine
WT/REG83/M/3 Hungar y and Lithuania
WT/REG84/M/3 Hungary and Latvia
WT/REG80/M/3 Poland and Latvia
WT/REG64/M/2 Estonia and the Faroe Islands (Government of Denmark)
WT/REG78/M/1 Poland and the Faroe Islands (Government of Denmark)
WT/REG69/M/5 EC and Tuni sia (Euro-Mediterranean)
WT/REG91/M/3 EFTA and Morocco
WT/REG107/M/1 Turkey and PolandWT/REG/10
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Thirtieth Session – 26-27 September 2001
WT/REG/M/30
WT/REG78/M/2 Poland and the Faroe Islands (Government of Denmark)
WT/REG64/M/3 Estonia and the Faroe Islands (Government of Denmark)
WT/REG108/M/3 Estonia and Ukraine
WT/REG107/M/2 Turkey and Poland
WT/REG116/M/1 Turkey and Latvia
WT/REG115/M/1 Turk ey and FYROM
WT/REG117/M/1 EF TA and FYROM
WT/REG109/M/1 EC and MexicoWT/REG/10
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ATTACHMENT 2
List of RTAs Under Examination9
RTAs for which factual examinations have been completed  and the draft examination reports are in
various stages of consultation and finalization (69):
ANZCERTA (services) EFTA-Bulgaria Poland-Latvia
Bulgaria-FYROM EFTA-Estonia Poland-Lithuania
Canada-Chile EFTA-Hungary Romania-Moldova
Canada-Israel EFTA-Israel Slovak Republic-EstoniaCEFTA EFTA-Latvia Slovak Republic-Latvia
Czech Republic-Estonia EFTA-Lithuania Slovak Republic-Lithuania
Czech Republic-Latvia EFTA-Morocco Slovak Republic-Turkey
Czech Republic-Lithuania EFTA-Poland Slovenia-Croatia
Czech Republic-Turkey EFTA- Romania Slovenia-Estonia
EC-P. of Andorra EFTA-Slovenia Slovenia-FYROM
EC-Bulgaria Estonia-Latvia-Lithuania Slovenia-Latvia
EC-Czech Republic Estonia-Ukraine Slovenia-Lithuania
EC-Enlargement (goods and
services)Hungary-Latvia Switzerland-Faroe Islands
EC-Estonia Hungary-Lithuania Turkey-Bulgaria
EC-Hungary (goods and
services)Iceland-Faroe Islands Turkey-Estonia
EC-Latvia Israel-Czech Republic Turkey-Hungary
EC- Lithuania Israel-Hungary Turkey-IsraelEC-Poland (goods and services) Israel-Poland Turkey-Lithuania
EC-Romania Israel-Slovak Republic Turkey-Poland
EC-Slovak Republic (goods and
services)Israel-Slovenia Turkey-Romania
EC-Slovenia NAFTA (goods and services)
EC-Tunisia Norway-Faroe Islands
                                                     
9 Unless otherwise indicated, the examinations of RTAs listed below refer to trade in goods only.WT/REG/10
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RTAs under factual examination (18):
EC-Faroe Islands Kyrgyz Republic-Azerbaijan, Armenia,
Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Kazakhstan,Russian Federation, Ukraine, Uzbekistan
and TajikistanKyrgyz Republic-
Uzbekistan
EC-Mexico Kyrgyz Republic-Kazakhstan MERCOSUR
EC-Turkey Kyrgyz Republic-Moldova Poland-Faroe Islands
EFTA-FYROM Kyrgyz Republic-Russian Federation Turkey-FYROM
Estonia-Faroe Islands Kyrgyz Republic-Russian Federation,
Belarus, Kazakhstan  and TajikistanTurkey-Latvia
European Union
(services)Kyrgyz Republic-Ukraine
RTAs for which factual examination has not yet commenced (23):
Canada-Chile (services) EC-South Africa Georgia-Turkmenistan
Chile-Mexico (goods and
services)European Economic Area (services) Georgia-Ukraine
EC-Bulgaria (services) EFTA-Pales tinian Authority Hungary-Estonia
EC-Czech Republic
(services)EFTA-Mexico Kyrgyz Republic-Armenia
EC-Israel Georgia-Armenia Mexico-Israel
EC-Morocco Georgia-Azerbaij an New Zealand-Singapore
EC-Palestinian Authority Georgia-KazakhstanEC-Romania (services) Georgia-Russian FederationWT/REG/10
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ATTACHMENT 3
2001 Schedule for the Submission of Biennial Reports on RTAs
Reports submitted and considered by the CRTA (5)
European Free Trade Association (EFTA)
EFTA/Czech Rep.
EFTA/Slovak Rep.
EFTA/TurkeyAustralia-New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement (ANZCERTA)
10
Reports not submitted to the WTO (16)
ANZCERTA
Australia-Papua New Guinea Agreement (PATCRA)
Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM)
Central American Common Market (CACM)
Czech/Slovak Customs UnionEuropean Communities (EC)/Algeria
EC/Cyprus
EC/Egypt
EC/Iceland
EC/JordanEC/Lebanon
EC/Malta
EC/Norway
EC/Certain Non-European C ountries and Territories II
EC/Syria
EC/Switzerland and Liechtenstein
United States/Israel
__________
                                                     
10 Report submitted under the 1999 schedule for the submission of biennial reports on RTAs