RESTRICTED  
  
WT/REG/M/79  
 
1 December 2015  
(15-6346)  Page: 1/6  
Committee on Regional Trade Agreements 
Seventy-ninth Session   
 
NOTE ON THE MEETING OF 16 NOVEMBER 2015 
Chairman: Ambassador Amr RAMADAN (Egypt) 
A. ADOPTION OF THE AGENDA 
1.1.  The 79th Session of the Committee on Regional Trade Agreements (hereinafter 'CRTA' or the 
'Committee') was convened in Airgram WTO/AIR/RTA/4 dated 5 October 2015. 
1.2.  The Chairman welcomed Members to the 79t h Session of the CRTA. He announced that he 
would inform Members of two issues under Other Business: technical cooperation activities 
conducted in 2015 and those scheduled for 2016 in th e area of regional trade agreements; and the 
proposed schedule for CRTA meetings for next year. 
1.3.  The following Agenda was adopted: 
A. Adoption of the Agenda 
B. Consideration of Regional Trade Agreements 
I. Status Report on the Committee's Work - Non-notified RTAs   Implementation of the RTA Transparency Mechanism 
II. Free Trade Agreement between Mexico and Central America – Costa Rica, 
El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, Goods and Services  
C. Adoption of the Annual Report (2015) of the CRTA to the General Council 
D. Other Business 
1.4.  The Chairman recalled that the Latin Amer ican Integration Association (LAIA) had been 
granted observer status in the CRTA on an ad hoc basis and sought confirmation to extend an 
invitation to LAIA to attend the Committee's next session.  
1.5.  It was so agreed.  
B. CONSIDERATION OF REGIONAL TRADE AGREEMENTS ITEM B.I STATUS REPORT ON THE CO MMITTEE'S WORK - NON NOTIFIED RTAS 
(WT/REG/W/97) AND IMPLEMENTATION OF  THE RTA TRANSPARENCY MECHANISM 
(WT/REG/W/98) 
1.6.  The Chairman provided an update wi th regard to the Committee's work and the 
implementation of the Transparency Mechanism. A total of 37 early announcements were currently 
on the WTO website (not counting those which had been subsequently notified). He thanked 
Members who had submitted information in line with the requirements of the Transparency 
M e c h a n i s m  ( T M )  a n d  e n c o u r a g e d  o t h e r s  t o  d o  s o .  H e  a l s o  r e m i n d e d  M e m b e r s  t o  i n f o r m  t h e  Secretariat of any changes in the status of early announcements.  
1.7.  With regard to the preparation of the fact ual presentations under the remit of the CRTA, in 
the case of RTAs involving WTO members only there were currently 43 RTAs for which a factual presentation had to be prepared, counting goods and services separately. He recalled that at the 
Committee's 52nd Session held on 4 March 2009, Members had agreed to begin considering RTAs 
involving non Members under the TM's procedur es. Thus, factual presentations on a further 
34 RTAs involving non-Members were to be prepared. Members had agreed that those RTAs WT/REG/M/79 
 
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notified since 14 December 2006, including future notifications, should be taken up before the 
others. Data requests for RTAs notified since the adoption of the TM had been sent to the relevant Parties.  
1.8.  Regarding the implementation of the Transp arency Mechanism, there were three main issues 
that led to delays in fulfilling the Committee's mandate. These were non-notification of RTAs, 
delays in the receipt of data once the RTA had been notified, and delays in the receipt of comments once the factual presentation had been sent to the parties. He suggested that the 
Committee look at all three elements, including th e update from the Secretariat, and then he 
would ask delegations for comments.  
1.9.  Regarding non-notified RTAs, an updated lis t had been recently circulated as WT/REG/W/97 
and contained 75 RTAs issued in factual presentations up to 9 November 2015. The Secretariat 
had informed the Chair that it had been in touch with some LAIA countries to clarify issues related 
to non-notified RTAs.  
1.10.  Regarding delays in the receipt of data necessary for the preparation of factual 
presentations, the Chair had held consultations with certain delegations and was pleased to report 
their willingness to provide missing information as soon as possible.  
1.11.  Turning to RTAs for which the factual consideration was delayed due to lack of comments 
f r o m  p a r t i e s ,  a n  u p d a t e d  l i s t  o f  s u c h  R T A s  h a d  b e e n  r e c e n t l y  c i r c u l a t e d  a s  W T / R E G / W / 9 8 .  I n  
addition, the Chair had held consultations with delegations. He hoped that outstanding comments would soon be made available and the factual consideration of these agreements could then be undertaken.  
1.12.  A representative of the Secretariat provided Members with the status of the preparation of 
factual presentations for RTAs. With regard to factual presentations of RTAs between WTO 
Members, for CAFTA-DR, goods and services, the factual presentation had been sent to the parties 
in 2009. Comments had been received from the United States, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, 
Honduras and the Dominican Republic. Comments from El Salvador were outstanding. For US-Panama goods and services, comments on the factual presentation were due on 23 February 
2015. For Korea-India, services, the data request had been sent out in 2010. Data had been 
received from Korea and some from India. For Korea-ASEAN, services, the data request had been sent out in 2010. Data had been received from Korea only. For Georgia-Russian Federation, goods, data had been received and the Secretariat was awaiting clarification on some tariff-related issues 
by the Russian Federation. For EU-Papua New Gu inea, Fiji, and EU-Cameroon, both goods only, 
data had been received from the EU only. Fo r EFTA-Central America, Japan-Australia, and 
Korea-Australia, goods and services, comments had been received from the parties and the 
Secretariat expected to issue the factual presentations shortly. For Canada-Korea, 
Canada-Honduras, EFTA-Colombia, Iceland-China,  all goods and services, factual presentations 
had been sent to the parties. The Secretariat had recently received comments from Colombia. For 
the Dominican Republic-Central America, the fact ual presentation had been prepared and would 
soon be sent to the parties. For EU-ESA, goods, data had been received and the factual presentation was being drafted. For Chile-Viet Nam, goods, data had been received from Chile only. For GCC-Singapore, services, data was due by 23 November 2015. For ASEAN-India, 
services, data was due by 12 January 2016.  
1.13.  With regard to RTAs involving non Members, for Iceland-Faeroe Islands, goods and services, 
the factual presentation had been sent to the Parties in 2009. Comments had been received and 
the Secretariat hoped to issue the factual presenta tion shortly. For the Customs Union between the 
Russian Federation, Belarus and Kazakhstan, and the EAEU, the Secretariat had not received any data from the parties. For Armenia's accession to the EAEU, goods and services, data had been 
received from Armenia. For the Kyrgyz Republic's accession to the EAEU, data was due by 
3 December 2015. For EFTA-Bosnia and Herzegovina,  goods, comments had been received and the 
factual presentation would be issued shortly. Fo r Russian Federation-Serbia, goods, the factual 
presentation had been sent to the parties. For EU-San Marino, EFTA-Lebanon, Turkey-Syria, CEFTA 
Enlargement, Ukraine Azerbaijan, Ukraine-Turk menistan, the Common Economic Zone, Russian 
Federation-Azerbaijan, Russian Federation-Turkm enistan, all goods, and EU-CARIFORUM, goods 
and services, data were not complete and the Secretariat could not start to draft these factual 
presentations.  WT/REG/M/79 
 
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1.14.  A third category concerned 5 agreements – ASEAN-Japan, EU-Côte d'Ivoire, the new CIS 
Agreement, all goods and EU-Central America and EU-Ukraine, goods and services – for which the 
Secretariat understood not all parties had ratified the agreements yet. The Secretariat intended to wait before the agreement was ratified by all the parties before commencing the preparation of 
factual presentations. She urged the Parties to notify the Secretariat when their respective 
agreement had been ratified by all the Parties so  it could start the TM process. She also urged 
Members in general to make every effort to comp ly with the deadlines as requested so that the 
Secretariat could ensure that the CRTA's work programme proceeded as intended. 
1.15.  The representative of the United States thanked the Secretariat for its timely report and 
noted that the U.S. had made progress with re gard to the U.S.-Panama goods and services 
comments. The comments had been substantial and it had taken more time to work through the 
issues including a number of data tables. The dome stic process of reviewing and consolidating the 
comments had been concluded and the U.S. was communicating directly with Panama to ensure that Panama understood and had had a chance to review the U.S. comments. They expected 
comments would be delivered shortly. The U.S. had also held consultations with El Salvador and 
hoped that comments on the U.S. CAFTA-DR agreement would move quickly. 
1.16.  As at the previous meeting, the U.S. indicated that there was complete overlap and 
duplication between documents RD/RTA/29 and WT/REG/W/98. He suggested these two 
duplicative documents be merged into one to then try to address the delays. There was no purpose in repeating document WT/REG/W/98 which was a subset of document RD/RTA/29. 
1.17.  On non-notified RTAs, there had been a very  good initial conversation at the previous CRTA 
meeting, particularly among LAIA members abou t taking another look at their notification 
responsibility and the annual report they provided  to the CTD and seeing if that format might be 
acceptable for using the work already done in those annual reports as a way to fulfil the 
notification requirements. He did not know if there were any updates but thought it would be 
useful to continue that discussion. He also noted certain issues such as related to the age of certain agreements that the Committee had dealt with at the outset of the TM by having factual 
abstracts for older agreements that had been proper ly notified prior to their entry into force. It 
was unfortunate that many of the 75 agreements should have been notified prior to the TM. 
However, the U.S. was open to some conversation that if the concern was an enormous backlog, the Committee could find a way to work through such  concerns. The priorities on the list included 
very current and significant agreements; for those that were quite dated, perhaps a solution could 
be found without prejudicing where the line would be drawn. The U.S. was open for discussion in 
this regard. A list of 75 was a real problem for the Committee that the U.S. wanted to help 
address. If there were no updates on this ma tter he would ask the Chair to consider a more 
dedicated discussion on some of these issues in the next meeting. If it needed to be Member 
driven, it could be Member driven but it was a conversation that the Committee needed to have, 
particularly given that there was only one agreement being considered by the CRTA, and looking 
forward, the pipeline would not be as robust as Members would like if they did not address the 75 agreements. 
1.18.  With regard to comments on the CAFTA-DR agreement, the representative of El Salvador 
said El Salvador was ready to present its comments but was still awaiting some inputs from the 
capital. 
1.19.  The representative of Korea indicated th at the government would provide comments on the 
factual presentation of the Canada-Korea FTA in the current week. 
1.20.  The representative of the European Union,  referring to the issue of non-notified RTAs, 
encouraged those who were on the list to fulfil their obligations and notify their agreements as 
soon as possible so that the TM could work as it should. As discussed in previous meetings, half of 
the agreements on the list were bilateral ag reements under the 1980 Treaty of Montevideo. 
Members who were signatories to those agreements needed to comply with their notification obligations under part B of the Transparency Decision for RTAs. However, the EU also noted, like 
the U.S., that at the previous CRTA meeting, certain Members that were signatories to those 
agreements had stated that their notification obli gations had been done on the basis of Section II 
of the Annual Report on the Instruments Conc luded under the 1980 Treaty of Montevideo, the 
most recent of which were contained in document  WT/COMTD/85. The EU believed, like the U.S. 
that these indications and the conversation held at  the last meeting had been helpful and had been WT/REG/M/79 
 
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a first step. The EU was prepared to consider wa ys to move this process forward with the LAIA 
countries. 
1.21.  The representative of Canada said that Canada would be providing comments with respect 
to the Canada-Korea FTA within the next day or two. With respect to the Canada-Honduras FTA, 
Canada had been in touch with the Secretariat and Honduras and more time was needed as 
Honduras was awaiting the Spanish translation of the factual presentation. Canada also had a systemic interest in ensuring that all Members respected their obligations under the TM and would 
wish to be part of any conversation on how to reduce the backlog of non-notified agreements. 
1.22.  The representative of the United States said that as there had been no objections to 
consolidate RD/RTA/29 and WT/REG/W/98, he assumed that document WT/REG/W/98 could 
reflect the full extent of document RD/RTA/29 at the next meeting. 
1.23.  The representative of Brazil, as in the pr evious meeting said that the merging of the two 
documents would not help Members to increase the rate of notifications. Thus Brazil wanted to 
keep discussing other alternatives to tackle the issue raised by the United States, the EU and 
Canada. 
1.24.  The representative of the United States said that the first two items of RD/RTA/29 were 
exactly the same as WT/REG/W/98 and the very first item on RTAs involving non-members was 
exactly the same in both documents. If WT/REG /W/98 had been created to raise the profile or 
address the issue of getting Members to engage, th ere was no reason to pull out three items from 
RD/RTA/29 and not all of them. There was a massive  list of 75 non-notified agreements, a very 
long list of items that had been delayed because data had not been provided, essentially non-
participation, and then there were delays because comments took longer than wanted. So those 
who were trying harder were being singled out and not those that were not participating. That was not acceptable from a transparency perspective. Documents WT/REG/W/97 and RD/RTA/29 
provided the full waterfront, which raised the question why the Committee needed document 
WT/REG/W/98. If the idea was to raise the profile then all of the issues in RD/RTA/29 should be 
raised equally. The U.S. was confused by Brazil's  comment that raising this transparency issue did 
not help address the issue. The U.S. was trying very delicately to raise the issue but if this was not 
possible, something less delicate might be required in order to get at the problems in the Committee. 
1.25.  The Secretariat clarified that there were two different lists based on a decision taken a 
number of years ago by the then Chair of the Committee to try to unblock factual presentations 
that had been drafted by the Secretariat but for which comments had not been available. In fact, 
this list (WT/REG/W/97) was a continuation of the longer list (RD/RTA/28) which included 
agreements for which data had not been provided and so the Secretariat could not even start 
drafting the factual presentation for such agreements. 
1.26.  The Chairman encouraged Brazil and the Unit ed States to continue discussions bilaterally to 
find a way forward.  
1.27.  Turning to the issue of implementation repo rts, the Chairman reminded delegations that an 
updated schedule for the submission of such re ports had been distributed by the Secretariat 
(WT/REG/W/90 and Corr.1) in January 2015. As of 7 January 2015, implementation reports were 
due for 123 RTAs, and the end of implementation (EOI) for 13 RTAs was in 2015. The EOI for a 
total of 98 RTAs was from 2016 onwards, while for three RTAs the EOI year was not available. Only one implementation report had been received  in the current year (Ukraine-Azerbaijan issued 
as document WT/REG245/R/I on 13 July 2015). He encouraged other delegations to submit their 
implementation reports in order to comply with this obligation. He then invited delegations to comment on the Ukraine-Azerbaijan implementation  report and also to provide details on when 
they intended to submit their own reports, partic ularly in the case of those reports that were 
overdue. 
1.28.  The representative of the European Union said that implementation reports could help 
Members in gaining an overview of the final resu lts of each agreement and contributed to overall 
transparency and a fuller understanding of RTAs and their role in the multilateral trading system. 
The report submitted by Ukraine and Azerbaijan  had given a good overview. The EU commended WT/REG/M/79 
 
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the parties for their efforts in its preparation. However, the EU noted, from a procedural point of 
view, that the factual presentation of the Agreement was still pending as the Secretariat was still waiting to receive complete data. Consequently , Members had never discussed the Agreement in 
the CRTA and the submission of the implementation  report did not exempt the parties from their 
obligations to submit the required data to the Secretariat and to cooperate in the preparation of 
the factual presentation. From a substantial poin t of view, considering that the Agreement had 
never been discussed in the Committee a number of i ssues could be raised but the EU limited its 
comments to aspects presented in the EOI report. As described in paragraph 2.4, under the 
Agreement the parties should avoid the introduction of quantitative restrictions in mutual trade, although they could be imposed unilaterally on a temporary basis in certain cases; in paragraph 2.13 the Parties had clarified that export restrictions had been applied for selected 
grains since 2012. The EU asked of these were the only restrictions applied and if other restrictions 
had been applied and for what reasons. On paragr aph 4.19 the EU asked if the parties had applied 
any measure to protect their legitimate objectives, and if so, under which circumstances. The EU 
would submit its questions in writing. 
ITEM B.II FREE TRADE AGREEMEN T BETWEEN MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA – COSTA RICA, 
EL SALVADOR, GUATEMALA, HONDURAS AND NICARAGUA, GOODS AND SERVICES 
(The minutes of the consideration of this Agreement are being distributed as a separate 
document.) 
C. ADOPTION OF THE ANNUAL REPORT (201 5) OF THE CRTA TO THE GENERAL COUNCIL 
OTHER  
1.29.  The Chairman said that a draft of the Committee's Annual Report (2015) had been 
distributed in document WT/REG/W/99. In his fax of 16 October 2015, he had asked delegations to 
submit any preliminary comments on this Report to the Secretariat in advance of the meeting. No 
comments had been received thus far. 
1.30.  The representative of the United States noted that four sessions were foreseen in 2016 and 
suggested that when the Committee reconvened in March Members could have a conversation 
about efficient use of the CRTA's time. There had been a couple of meetings in 2015 in which there 
had only been one or two agreements to examine.  Work could be more efficient if there was a 
certain threshold but this went back to the problems the Committee had with the pipeline of agreements to be considered. Giving the impression that the Committee would soldier on with four 
meetings a year whether there were factual presentations or not, did not do justice to the fact that 
the CRTA needed to address the pipeline issue or use time more efficiently. 
1.31.  The Chairman said that for preparation purposes and also for providing services and 
translation for the meetings, the Committee needed to have provision at the beginning of the year 
for its meetings and then it could look at the point made by the United States. 
1.32.  The representative of the Russian Fede ration welcomed the Annual Report (2015) which 
illustrated the important role the Committee had continued to play in securing and enhancing 
transparency as a cornerstone of the multilateral trading system. He paid tribute to the Secretariat 
for its impressive work in the year and for its efforts in drafting the Annual Report which Russia fully supported. He drew Members' attention to paragraphs 7 and 8 of the report which indicated 
that no discussions had been held on either the improvement of the examination process or on the 
implications of RTAs for the multilateral trading system. Russia considered these two issues of escalating importance and believed it would be appropriate to launch a dialogue within the CRTA in 
2016. Russia was ready to participate and contribute substantially to such a process and expected 
colleagues in the CRTA to join the dedicated discussion.  
1.33.  The Committee adopted its Annual Report (2015) to the General Council. WT/REG/M/79 
 
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D. OTHER BUSINESS 
1.34.  The Chairman recalled that at the Committee's 32nd Session, it had been agreed to 
regularly review RTA related Technical Assistance activities undertaken by the Secretariat. He 
asked the Secretariat to give an account of such activities carried out in 2015 and planned for 
2016.  
1.35.  The representative of the Secretariat said that as Members could see from the table 
available electronically with the documents for the meeting (document RD/RTA/28), the 
CRTA Secretariat had conducted 13 Technical Assistance (TA) activities in 2015. In addition, it had 
participated in various seminars and conferences, including APEC seminars, funded by outside sources. 
1.36.  Thirteen activities were scheduled for 2016, seven of which were intermediate level regional 
activities (formally known as regional trade po licy courses), three were Geneva-based applied 
trade policy courses, two were Geneva-based thematic courses and one was an e-learning online course.  
1.37.  Most of the activities indicated in the ta ble had been financed by the WTO's regular budget, 
donations by Members, or by the Global Trust Fund for activities under the Doha Development Agenda.  
1.38.  The objectives of the activities listed va ried from raising awareness on RTA dynamics in 
global trade, to training and advising government  officials on WTO rules and procedures on RTAs, 
including the Transparency Mechanism. Virtually a ll TA activities were addressed to participants 
from broad regional groupings. Their underlying ob jective was to contribute to the development of 
RTAs that were beneficial to their members and that complemented the objectives of the WTO. 
Since Doha, the RTA Section had been entrusted with the additional task of clarifying issues related to the negotiations on RTA rules to WTO Members requesting such aid. 
1.39.  The Chairman informed Members of the dates scheduled for the CRTA's meetings in 2016. 
These would be held on 5-6 April, and in June, September and November, depending on the 
workload. Exact dates would be communicated to Members when available. 
1.40.  The Committee took note of the comments made. 
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