JOB/CTG/11  
 
30 October 2017  
(17-5895) Page: 1/1 
Council for Trade in Goods  Original: English  
 
COLLABORATIVE ACTION S ON PESTICIDE MAXIM UM RESIDUE LEVELS (M RLs) 
COMMUNICATION FROM K ENYA, UGANDA, AND TH E UNITED STATES  
The following communication, dated 30  October  2017, is being circulated at the request of the 
Delegations of Kenya, Uganda, and the United States.  
 
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Agricultural producers report growing concern over the impact on their exports of missing and 
misaligned maximum residue levels (MRLs) for pesticides in markets around the world. 
Since  2014, Members of the Committee on San itary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) have 
discussed these concerns and heard from experts from the Codex Alimentarius (Codex), the World 
Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization, regulatory authorities of Members, 
producer groups and ot her industry experts on collaborative work underway in other fora to reduce 
the impact of missing and misaligned MRLs on exports of food and agricultural products, 
particularly for developing countries.  
 
Discussions in the SPS  Committee included a focus on  the causes of missing and misaligned MRLs. 
Despite extensive recent improvements, additional efforts to address current capacity limitations in 
Codex are needed to develop the array of MRLs needed to support global trade. In addition, the 
data packages ne cessary to evaluate safety are expensive to develop, and in some cases (such as 
for pesticides that have gone off patent, or for minor -uses and specialty crops) there is little 
economic incentive to develop these data packages. Additional work is needed to  address these 
issues, including greater support for the collaborative work on data generation and submission, as 
well as support for creative initiatives underway in, inter alia , the Asia Pacific Economic 
Cooperation (APEC) and the  East African Community (EAC). In addition, work in the Organization 
for Economic Development (OECD) on common dossiers and standard methodologies for 
calculating national MRLs can help to address unnecessary variations in MRLs across major 
markets.  
 
In March  2017, Kenya, Uganda,  and the United States put forward a set of recommendations to 
the SPS  Committee for voluntary, collaborative actions to reduce these MRL -related trade barriers. 
(See G/SPS/W/292 and revisions that incorporate comments from other Members.) The actions 
focus on efforts to increase the capacity and efficiency of Codex in setting international standards 
on pesticide MRLs; to improve transparency and predictability in Members' setting of national 
MRLs; to achieve greater harmonization across national and region al MRLs; and, to enable greater 
access to lower -risk pesticides and pesticides for minor -use crops, particu larly in developing 
countries.  
 
Following extensive exchange and consultation with other Members on our proposal, we a re 
seeking agreement of the SPS  Committee on these actions at its meeting on 2 -3 November  2017, 
and endorsement of a Ministerial Decision for MC -11. Ministerial recognition of the 
recommendations would elevate them from their current technical and regulatory context and 
provide signific ant momentum towards resolution. We request the CTG to take note of the 
SPS Committee action, and to forward this action to the General Council.  
 
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