G/RO/W/195  
 
1 May  2020 
(20-3387) Page: 1/2 
Committee on Rules of Origin  Original: English  
 
UPDATE ABOUT THE "OR IGIN FACILITATOR", A  JOINT INITIATIVE BY  THE WTO, ITC 
AND WCO – STATEMENT BY THE WTO AND THE I TC SECRETARIATS  
STATEMENT BY THE RUS SIAN FEDERATION  
The following submission1, dated 5 March 2020, is being circulated at the request of the delegation 
of the Russian Federation.  
 
_______________  
 
 
"The transparency is one of the key principles of WTO system which is implemented through 
publication of trade regulations and its submission to the Secretariat. Such notified informat ion 
facilitates predictable trade conditions and reciprocal access between Members to the information 
on trade regulations.  
The analysis of notifications submitted  by Members  under the framework of the Committee on Rules 
of Origin and Committee on Trade F acilitation shows that there is a connection, which to our view, 
should not be disregarded in order to enhance transparency, predictability and reciprocity. In the 
framework of our analysis we identified certain issues connected with notifications related to the 
rules of origin submitted to the Committee on Rules of origin and the Committee on TFA.  
Firstly, there are discrepancies in the notification of documents to these  WTO bodies in terms of up -
to-date information.  
Secondly, there is a problem with the w eb-links provided by Members in their notifications – certain 
links often present an issue for us not being able to get the needed information or simply don’t work.  
Thirdly, certain trade regulations notified by WTO Members to the Committee on Rules of ori gin are 
not up -to-date which results in differences between the provided links and official documents.  
Therefore, Members should consider the necessity of compliance of notification discipline, its 
correlation between the work of WTO bodies, maintenance o f the notified information up -to-date. 
We would like to provide examples on the status of notifications in numbers.  
According to the TFA database 90 Members out of 149 Members have notified the legislation on rules 
of origin by providing mainly the Intern et link as it is stipulated in the Article 1.4 of the Agreement 
on TFA . 
At the same time, according to the 25th Annual Review of the Implementation and Operation of the 
Agreement on Rules of Origin (G/RO/N/90) , only 50 Members have notified to the Secretar iat that 
they apply non -preferential rules of origin, 59 Members have informed about not applying any 
non-preferential rules of origin, while the rest notifications are still missing.  
If we trace 50 notifications on applying non -preferential rules of orig in over the last 25 years, we 
will notice that 18 of them were provided between 1995 and 2000, 11 of them between 2001 and 
2010, and only 21 notification after 2011.  
 
1 Statement delivered at the Formal Meeting of the Committee on Rules of Origin, 5 March 2020.  G/RO/W/195  
 
- 2 - 
 
  Therefore, the majority of notifications submitted within the framework of the Committee on Rules 
of origin have neither been updated nor contain the link to the legislation notified under TFA.  
In the absence of the correlation between what was notified by certain Members under TFA and ARO 
it is unclear whether the trade regulations stayed unchanged. Moreover, we are of the opinion that 
such situation impedes the collection of respective data for  the Rules of Origin Facilitator launched 
in 2019.  
The Russian Federation calls upon Members to verify the information on rules of origin submitted  to 
the Secretariat under TFA and ARO and if necessary, to provide the Secretariat with updates on the 
status of notifications within this Committee.   
This work would contribute to the collection of information on non -preferential rules of origin for the 
Facilitator within the framework of this Committee. " 
__________