G/L/1127  
 
21 October 2015  
(15-5559)  Page: 1/2  
   
 
 REPORT (2015) OF THE COMMITTEE ON RULES OF ORIGIN 
TO THE COUNCIL FO R TRADE IN GOODS 
1. This report is being submitted to the Council for Trade in Goods in accordance with 
Article 6.1 of the Agreement on Rules of Origin (the Agreement), which provides that 
"The Committee shall review annually the implementation and operation of Parts II and III of this Agreement having regard to its objectives.  The Committee shall annually inform the Council for 
Trade in Goods of developments during the period covered by such reviews." 
2. The Committee on Rules of Origin (CRO) held two formal meetings in 2015: on 30 April and 
on 15 October under the chairmanship of Mr. Ken Chang-keng CHEN (Chinese Taipei) and of Mr. Christian WEGENER (Denmark) respectively.  In addition, the Committee held a dedicated 
informal session on preferential rules of origin for Least-developed countries.  A number of 
informal meetings and consultations were also held in 2015. At its meeting of 15 October, the CRO conducted the twenty-first review  of the implementation and oper ation of the Agreement and took 
note of the notifications that had been submitted during the year. 
3. The main area of work of the CRO relates to  negotiations to harmonize non-preferential 
rules of origin (Harmonization Work Progra mme, HWP). These negotiat ions, mandated under 
Part IV of the Agreement, were initiated in 1995 and conducted in collaboration with the Technical 
Committee on Rules of Origin at the World Customs Organization (WCO). Despite substantive progress in elaborating specific rules of origin for thousands of tariff lines, the negotiations came to a virtual halt in 2007 due to divergences on a number of "core policy issues" and have since lost 
momentum.  As noted in the 2013 Report of the CRO to the Council for Trade in Goods 
(G/L/1047), Members hold different views regarding the need to finalize or not the HWP.  Given this differences, it is difficult for the Chairman to propose any technical work on the draft 
harmonized rules of origin. 
4. Pending the continuation of the HWP, the Committee agreed to initiate a transparency 
exercise to exchange information about non-preferential rules of origin currently in place.  In fact, 
in the absence of harmonized rules, the only disc iplines that apply to non-preferential rules of 
origin are those of Article 2 of the WTO Agreemen t on Rules of Origin. Therefore, some Members 
presented to the Committee their current non-pref erential rules of origin and shared their 
experiences regarding application of such ru les. In addition, the Committee also heard 
presentations about the impact of rules of origin on international trade and on customs operations 
from the World Customs Organization (WCO), the International Trade Centre (ITC), the International Chamber of Commerce and the UNCTAD. 
5. Furthermore, the Committee reviewed the resu lts of the transposition exercise which had 
been conducted by the Secretariat.  All draft harm onized rules of origin have now been transposed 
to the most recent version of the Harmonized System (2012) and compiled in a single document 
(JOB/RO/5/Rev.1 and JOB/RO/5/Rev.1/Corr.1). Me mbers agreed that comments to the draft 
transposed rules should be sent to the Secretariat by 15 March 2016 and that the Committee should consider this item again at its next meeting. 
6. With respect to preferential rules of origin, the Committee held dedicated discussions on the 
rules which apply to LDCs under preferential trade agreements. At the meeting, Members heard 
presentations made by several LDC representative s and learnt more about how existing rules of 
origin may hinder market access opportunities for the LDCs. For each agenda item, the LDCs 
recalled the "benchmarks" set in the 2013 Bali Ministerial Decision on Rules of Origin for LDCs 
(WT/L/917) and provided examples of existing ru les which, according to them, did not meet these G/L/1127 
 
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  benchmarks.  For each agenda item, the LDCs prop osed specific reforms which, according to them, 
would enhance their ability to effectively use preferential market access opportunities. 
7. Finally, the CRO also conducted a review of new developments in preferential rules of origin 
for LDCs according to the requirements of Ministerial Decision WT/L/917.  In that context, the 
Committee considered the preferential rules of origin in place in Thailand (G/RO/N/130/Corr.1) and 
in China (G/RO/N/132) and recent modifications made to the rules applied by Japan (G/RO/N/131).  As mandated by the Ministerial Decision, the Committee adopted a report of such 
review for the General Council and will also in form the Sub-Committee on LDCs accordingly. 
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