RESTRICTEDWORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONWT/ACC/LTU/33
26 May 1999
(99-2117)
Working Party on the
Accession of LithuaniaOriginal: English
ACCESSION OF LITHUANIA
Communication from Lithuania
The Permanent Mission of the Republic of Lith uania has submitted the following information
on Lithuania's progress in adopting the legislation required for accession to the WTO.
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Lithuania’s efforts to accede to the WTO have gone hand in hand with the implementation of
significant economic reforms in the country and have indeed strongly stimulated the reform process.
Lithuania has been actively adapting its legislation a nd adjusting its trade regime to bring them in line
with the requirements of WTO membership.
The provisions of all WTO Agreements are already de facto  being applied in Lithuania with
only minor exceptions such as, in particular, minimum import prices for sugar, grain, vegetable oil
and oil products, poultry meat and matches and  differentiated taxation of activities related with the
importation of some products. Lithuania has decided that all these controversial measures will be
abolished at the latest upon 1 January 2000.
The most recent version of the draft Report  of the Working Party on Accession, shows that
Lithuania is prepared to undertake the commitments of the various WTO Agreements without asking
for transitional periods.
Since the Working Party meeting in October 1998 Lithuania has made very considerable
progress in the adaptation of its legislation. Several legal acts have been approved and steps taken for
their implementation. The remaining required legislatio n is now rapidly being adopted or at the final
stage of drafting.
The most important measures recently taken by Lithuania are highlighted hereafter and the few
remaining issues are briefly listed.
1. Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade
2. Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures
Lithuania applies national treatment on TBT and SPS measures. Most obligations imposed by
those two Agreements have already been implemented. As notified to the WTO Secretariat, since
November 1996 a TBT enquiry point has been functioning at the Standardization Department; the
SPS enquiry point was established in 1998 at the Ministry of Agriculture and will carry out the
notification obligations of the WTO SPS Agreement. The document on “Lithuania’s Progress in
Implementing the Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures” (WT/ACC/LTU/22/Rev.1 ofWT/ACC/LTU/33
Page 2
17 March 1999) gives details on the latest developments in the SPS area. Measures already
implemented as well as those planned are described in that document.
In the fields of TBT/SPS, the following legal acts and organisational measures have recently
been adopted:
TBT
Legislation adopted:
- Law of 6 October 1998 on Conformity Assessment;
- Rules of 14 April 1999 Governing the Exchange of Information between Ministries Involved in- Standards Issues (including the notification requirements);
- Basic Rules of 22 February 1999 of Procedures for Technical Work for the Preparation of
Lithuanian Standards and for the Adoption of International and European Standards;
Legislation about to be adopted or at the final stage of preparation:
- The draft Law on Standardisation is before the Parliament for consideration;
- The Code of Good Practice as required by Annex 3 of the TBT Agreement is expected to be
approved in June 1999;
SPS
Legislation adopted:
- Law concerning Lithuania’s membership of the European and Mediterranean Plant Protection
Organization;
- Hygiene norms and the many other acts li sted in document WT/ACC/LTU/22/Rev.1 of 17
March 1999);
Legislation about to be adopted or at the final stage of preparation:
- The draft Law on Food is now before the Parliament for consideration. The law contains
regulations of food safety for human health and contains inter alia  provisions on risk
assessment;
- The ratification of the International Plant Protection Convention is foreseen to take place at the
latest by the end of 1999.
The WTO transparency obligation for TBT/SPS matters will be implemented through
publication in the “Official Gazette” pursuant to a general order applicable to all legal acts as well as
through the enquiry points. Conformity assessment issues are directly regulated by the relevant law
and obligations such as national treatment, equivalency, substantiation, etc. are already covered in the
relevant legal acts.
The Lithuanian delegation considers that substantially all the problems in TBT and the SPS
areas are now resolved or nearly so. Lithuania is ready to consider any remaining points that members
of the Working Party might wish to raise.WT/ACC/LTU/33
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3. Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights
The recently adopted new Law on Competition (11 February 1999) containing inter alia
norms for geographical indications, the ratification in December 1998 of the Rome Convention for the
Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonog rams and Broadcasting Organizations, the
establishment in the Ministry of Interior of a Subdivision in charge of the Protection of Intellectual
Property, the creation of contact points (as circul ated in document WT/ACC/LTU/29 of 12 November
1998) are important steps in completing the legal framework to implement the TRIPS Agreement. The
final building blocks will be the draft “Law on Copy rights and Related Rights”,  the draft “Law on the
Ratification of the Geneva Convention on the Pr otection of Producers of Phonograms Against Non-
Authorised Duplication of their Programmes” which are now before the Parliament for final approval
this summer and a number of needed amendments to the “Criminal Code” and “Code of Criminal
Process”.
Only the draft “Law on the Protection of Inte llectual Property for Imported and Exported
Goods” is still at the preparatory stage. However, it is foreseen that this law will be discussed and
adopted after the passage in the Parliament of the “Law on Copyrights and Related Rights”. Evenwithout that law, intellectual property questions in the trade field are currently being resolved by
recourse to the provisions of the Customs Code and those of other relevant legislation.
The above description shows that the missing legal instruments for fully implementing the
TRIPS Agreement are about to be put into place.
4. Requirements on customs valuation
The Government Resolution on the new Order of Customs Valuation, fully in conformity
with the Agreement on Implementation of Article VII of the GATT 94 will be presented for approval
by the Government in May 1999. As the validity of the present customs valuation system (includingminimum import prices and “prices-in-checking”) expires at the end of the year, the new Order will
come into force on 1 January 2000.
5. Amendment to the Law on Alcohol Control
The “Law on Alcohol Control” was amended on 10 December 1998 to remove the import
prohibition of alcoholic beverages with alcohol content of more than 50 percent ( inter alia  “mead”).
Importation of the alcoholic beverages concerned now benefits from the new non-discriminatoryregime.
6. Notifications of exclusive rights in the alcoholic beverages production sector
Lithuania has submitted to the WTO a notification describing the exclusive right bestowed to
a state enterprise and to special purpose enterprises to produce alcoholic beverages whose ethylalcohol volume exceeds 22 percent. The notification also concerns the exclusive right to produce
alcoholic beverages whose volume exceeds 50 percent enjoyed only by “Lietuviskas Midus Ltd”
producing under this right only one type of beverage, namely mead.
7. Sugar Law
The Lithuanian Government is about to adopt draft amendments to the current “Sugar Law”
which will eliminate all non-conforming provisions including for example the clause permitting the
introduction of minimum import prices and of impor t quotas, the exemption of sugar producers fromWT/ACC/LTU/33
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the “Competition Law” and   requirements to buy up quotas of domestic sugar beets prior to the
importation of sugar.
8. Application of taxes
The provisions of the “Law on Excise Duties” be stowing tax benefits to small sized breweries
considered in the accession Working Party to be incompatible with “national treatment” obligations
will in response to requests of some Working Party members and pursuant to a new proposed Law,
lapse on 1 January 2000.
A Government Resolution of 23 June 1998 lays down that the annual stamp taxes charged for
the combined right to import alcoholic beverages a nd to engage in wholesale is the same as that
charged for the right to engage in only the wholesale of these products. Uniform stamp taxes for suchactivity licences compatible with the national treatment obligation will apply from 1 January 2000.
The same measures have already been taken to equalize stamp taxes for imports of, and
domestic trade in, petroleum products.
The description above of eight areas in which decisive legislation and Governmental action
has been taken or planned for the immediate future - almost all of it since the October 1998 session of
the WTO Working Party - are evidence of the determination of Lithuania to bring its economic
policies and trading regime fully in line with WTO requirements.
Lithuania asks that the draft accession report should now rapidly be reconsidered by the
Working Party (and by the WTO Secretariat) with a view to simplifying, shortening or deleting
altogether several sections in the light of the action taken and the clarifications and assurances that
have been given. This is now, in its view, the first necessary step that has to be taken to advance the
accession process with a view to concluding it by the end of the year.
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