G/L/1495  
G/STR/34  
 
20 October 202 3 
(23-7091) Page: 1/2 
Council for Trade in Goods  
Working Party on State Trading Enterprises    
 
 
REPORT TO THE COUNCIL FOR TRADE IN GOODS   
ON IMPROVING THE FUNCTIONING OF  
THE WORKING PARTY ON STATE TRADING ENTERPRISES  
ADOPTED ON 20 OCTOBER 2023  
1  INTRODUCTION  
1.1.  This report is being prepared at the request1 of the Council for Trade in Goods (CTG). All CTG 
subsidiary bodies were asked to produce written reports summarizing their discussions on improving 
their respective functioning, and describing the improvements they had agreed on. On 30 June 2023, 
the CTG Chair held a meeting with the Chairs of the subsidiary bodies at which all Chairs were 
requested to submit their reports no later than in the first week of November 2023, and to ensure 
that all improvements made since the conclusion of MC12 were appropriat ely reflected in those 
reports.2  
1.2.  Reference is made to document G/L/1456  - G/STR/32  containing the report on the functioning 
of the Working Party submitted on 28 November 2022 by the Chair of the Working Party, under his 
own responsibility, to the CTG. The report described the functioning of t he Working Party as well as 
steps taken over the years to improve that functioning. Based on what was contained in that report 
and in all other reports of Chairs of CTG subsidiary bodies, the CTG Secretariat circulated a 
"Comparison Matrix" providing a gen eral overview of the main elements that seemed to be 
comparable across the reports.3 
1.3.  At the regular autumn meeting of the Working Party on 21 October 2022, the Chair of the 
Working Party reported to Members on the consultations ongoing at the time at the level of the 
General Council and the CTG regarding WTO reform, and indicated that all subsidiary bodies were 
tasked to take stock of what had been done in their respective bodies and explore ways to improve 
their daily functioning and better deliver on the ir respective mandates. The Chair of the Working 
Party also referred to the consultations held by the Chair of the CTG with delegations and with the 
Chairs of the CTG subsidiary bodies, and to the request by the CTG Chair to all those Chairs to 
submit, und er their own responsibility , reports on the current functioning of their different bodies.4 
2  PROCESS AND PROPOSALS  
2.1.  The following summarizes the key procedural aspects and proposals considered:  
a. Members discussed possible improvements to the functioning of the Working Party in an 
informal mode at the regular Working Party meeting of 28 April 20235, and at the informal 
meeting held on 9 June 2023.6 
b. During the informal discussions of 28 April 2023, Members proposed eight possible steps 
to improve the functioning of the Working Party. Among those eight steps, there appeared 
to be an emerging consensus around five, with some delegations however requirin g more 
 
1 JOB/CTG/29  and JOB/CTG/33 . 
2 JOB/GC/345/Add.1 , p. 2.  
3 G/C/W/824/Rev.1 . 
4 G/STR/M/41 . 
5 G/STR/M/42  and RD/STR/51 . 
6 RD/STR/52 . G/L/1495 • G/STR/34  
 
- 2 - 
 
  time to consider them. The Chair therefore proposed submitting those five steps to 
Members for possible approval through a written procedure.7 The written procedure was 
conducted in May  2023 and resulted in agreement on the five steps at issue8, which are 
described in section  3, below.  
c. As regards the other three of the eight steps proposed at the meeting of 28 April 2023, 
some Members had objections. A further informal meeting was therefore scheduled for 
9 June 2023 to hold further discussions on t hose three steps, and to consider any 
additional proposals for improvement by Members. No additional proposals were made9, 
and there continued to be no consensus on the three steps that had not been agreed in 
May 2023.10  
3  IMPROVEMENTS TO THE FUNCTIONING O F THE WORKING PARTY  
3.1.  As a result, the Working Party has agreed to implement the following five steps to improve its 
functioning:  
General area11 Improvements in the functioning of the Working 
Party on State Trading Enterprises  
A. Assistance to delegates   • The Secretariat will organize relevant hybrid training in 
the autumn/winter 2023, with a focus on how to comply 
with the notification requirements under 
Article  XVII:4(A) of the GATT 1994 and paragraph 1 of 
the Understanding on the Interpretatio n of Article XVII 
of the GATT 1994.   
B. Planning and organization of 
meetings   • The Working Party will agree on the dates of both formal 
meetings of each year at the autumn meeting of the 
previous year;   
• For each formal meeting of the Working Party, the final 
airgram will be issued 15 days before the meeting or, if 
that is a WTO non -working day, the previous 
WTO working day.   
C. Conduct of formal meetings  • The time taken to produce minutes will be shortened.  
F. Substantive work  • The "Status of Notifications Submitted by WTO 
Members under Article XVII:4(A) of the GATT 1994 and 
Paragraph  1 of the Understanding on the Interpretation 
of Article XVII of the GATT 1994" will be circulated twice 
a year, before each formal meeting of the Wor king 
Party, after the closing of the airgram for the meeting.   
 
__________  
 
 
7 RD/STR/51 . 
8 G/STR/33 . 
9 See ICN/RUL/STR/2 . 
10 RD/STR/52 . 
11 For the present reports on improving the functioning of CTG subsidiary bodies, these categories are 
harmonized across all CTG  subsidiary bodies. As a result, some categories do not apply and the corresponding 
headings (D, E, and G) are absent from this table.