G/RO/W/149  
 
28 October 2014  
(14-6255)  Page: 1/2  
Committee on Rules of Origin    
 
 TWENTIETH 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 a review w ill be the Committee's Annual Review to the Council 
for Trade in Goods on the implementation and operation of the Agreement on Rules of Origin. 
This background document is circulated by the Secretariat in preparation for the 20th 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 30 October 2014. 
 
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 Mr. Ken Chang-keng CHEN (Chinese Taipei) was elected Chairman of the Committee in 
April 2014.  
3. Meetings of the Committee on Rules of Origin 
3.1 The Committee on Rules of Origin (CRO) held two formal meetings on 10 April and 
30 October 2014. The minutes of these meetings are contained in documents G/RO/M/62 and 
[G/RO/M/63] respectively.  Some informal meetings  and a series of bilateral consultations between 
the Chairman and selected Members have also taken place in 2014.  
4. Notifications 
4.1 With regard to the work under Part III of th e Agreement, the CRO took note of a number of 
new notifications under Article 5, which significantly improved compliance with that notification requirement. According to notifications received  to date, 42 Members currently implement some 
type of non-preferential rules of origin while 50 other Members do no implement rules of origin for 
non-preferential purposes. Forty Members must still submit their notification under Article 5 of the Agreement. 
 
4.2 A number of notifications of preferential rules of origin have also been received. 
Most notifications were submitted to the Committee on Regional Trade Agreements and the 
Committee on Trade and Development and subsequently  circulated to the CRO. All Members of the 
WTO currently implement at least one set of preferential rules of origin, reflecting the widespread participation of Members in regional trade agreements.  
                                               
1 This document has been prepared under the Secret ariat's own responsibility and without prejudice to 
the positions of Members or to their rights and obligations under the WTO. G/RO/W/149 
 
- 2 - 
 
  5. Work of the Committee on Rules of Origin 
5.1 With regard to the Harmonization Work Pr ogramme under Part IV of the Agreement, the 
Secretariat informed the Committee that the transposition exercise had been concluded and that all draft harmonized rules had now been transposed to the most recent version of the Harmonized 
System.  The results of that work were presen ted to the Committee and circulated in document 
JOB/RO/5.  The Committee took note of that work  and examined the transposed draft rules of 
origin of HS Chapters 1 to 40 to validate the technical accuracy of the transposition exercise. 
 
5.2  Pending the continuation of the Harmoniz ation Work Programme, 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 disciplines that apply to 
non-preferential rules of origin are those of Ar ticle 2 of the WTO Agreement on Rules of Origin. 
Therefore, Members agreed to engage in an exer cise to better understand the design, coverage 
and effect of existing non-preferential rules. 
 
5.3  Finally, the CRO also conducted the first 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 Secretariat presented to the Committee the Database on Preferential Trade Agreements 
(http://ptadb.wto.org ).  In addition, the Committee reviewed the rules of a new duty-free and 
quota-free scheme put in place by  Chile for LDCs (G/RO/N/124). 
 
6. Annual Report to the Council for Trade in Goods 
6.1 The CRO considered its report to the CTG (G/RO/W/150). 
 
__________