RESTRICTED  
  
G/RO/W/144  
 
20 September 2013  
(13-4999)  Page: 1/2  
Committee on Rules of Origin    
 
 NINETEENTH ANNUAL REVIEW OF THE IMPLEMENTATION AND 
OPERATION OF THE AGREEMENT ON RULES OF ORIGIN 
NOTE BY THE SECRETARIAT1 
Article 6.1 of the Agreement on Rules of Origin provides that "the Committee shall review annually 
the implementation and operation of Part II and Pa rt III of this Agreement having regard to its 
objectives".  The outcome of such review will be the Committee's Annual Review to the Council for 
Trade in Goods on the implementation and oper ation of the Agreement on Rules of Origin. 
This background document is circulated by the Secretariat in preparation for the 19th annual 
review of the implementation and operation of th e Agreement, to be conducted at the meeting of 
the Committee on Rules of Origin on 26 September 2013.  
 
1. CRO Members and Observers 
1.1 Government representatives of all WTO Members and Observers are also Members and 
Observers to the CRO. In addition, the following international organizations also have observer 
status at the CRO: ACP, EFTA, IADB, IMF, OECD, UNCTAD, WCO and World Bank. 
 
2. Officers of the Committee on Rules of Origin 
2.1 Chairman:  Mr. Marhijn VISSER (The Netherlands) 
 3. Meetings of the Committee on Rules of Origin 
3.1 The Committee on Rules of Origin (CRO) held two formal meetings on 18 April and 
26 September 2013.  The minutes of these meetin gs are contained in documents G/RO/M/60 and 
[G/RO/M/61] respectively.  Some informal meetings  and a series of bilateral consultations between 
the Chairman and selected Members have also taken place in 2013. 
 3.2 With regard to the work under Part III of  the Agreement, the CRO took note of 20 new 
notifications under Article 5 and paragraph 4 of An nex II of the Agreement.  Notifications received 
in 2013 bring the total number of Members having noti fied some rules of origin to 87 (the EU and 
its Members States being counted as one).  The latter number reflects both notifications made to the CRO as well as to other relevant bodies of the WTO, that is, the Committee on Regional Trade 
Agreements and the Committee on Trade and Developm ent.  A full list of notifications available 
and those outstanding was prepared by the Secret ariat and reviewed by the CRO (RD/RO/7). The 
Chairman urged Members who had not yet notified their rules of origin to the Committee to do so 
as early as possible. 
 3.3. With regard to the Harmonization Work Pr ogramme under Part IV of the Agreement, the 
General Council, at its meeting on 27 July 2007, recognized that delegations in the CRO had 
encountered such difficulties on the "implications" issue and in the sector of machinery that guidance from the General Council was warranted on how to take these issues forward.  The recommendation of delegations in the CRO was that work on these issues be suspended until 
such guidance from the General Council would be forthcoming.  The General Council agreed and 
instructed the CRO to focus its work, in the meantime, on the technical aspects of the overall 
architecture. 
 
                                               
1 This document has been prepared under the Secret ariat's own responsibility and without prejudice to 
the positions of Members and to their rights and obligations under the WTO. G/RO/W/144 
 
- 2 - 
 
  3.4. Accordingly, the CRO, at its meetings on 18 April, continued technical discussions on the 
Rules of Appendix 2 on the basis of a compromise proposal made by the Chairman (first item in the Annex of G/RO/M/60).  While drawing support from many Members, the proposed text could 
not be endorsed and additional negotiations would be required to finalize the language of that 
Appendix. In addition, the CRO took note of the tr ansposition of draft harmonized rules of origin 
into more recent versions of the HS: 2002, 2007 and 2012.  During a technical workshop in April 2013, the WTO Secretariat presented the results of that work and informed Members that a fully 
consolidated text would be prepared containing all the draft harmonized rules of origin in their 
most recent version.  In addition, the Committee also took note of recommendations, submitted by the Technical Committee on Rules of Origin, of simplified rules of origin for draft rules transposed into the HS2002 and HS2007 versions (G/RO/W/143). 
 
4. Annual Report to the Council for Trade in Goods 
4.1 The CRO considered its report to the CTG (G/RO/W145). 
 
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