RESTRICTED  
  
WT/REG/M/82  
 
4 November 2016 
(16-6054) Page: 1/9 
Committee on Regional Trade Agreements  
Eighty -second Session    
 
NOTE ON THE MEETING OF 27 SEPTEMBER 2016 
Chairm an: Ambassador Daniel Blockert (Sweden)  
A. ADOPTION OF THE AGEN DA 
1.1.  The 82nd Session of the Committee on Regional Trade Agreements (hereinafter 'CRTA' or the 
'Committee') was convened in Airgram WTO/AIR /RTA/7 /Rev.1 dated 16 September  2016. 
1.2.  The Chairman  welcomed Members to the 8 2nd Session of the CRTA . Under other business it 
was his intention to inform Members about the proposed schedule of meetings for the rest of the 
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 T rade Agreement between  the Dominican Republic and Central 
America (C osta Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua) , 
Goods and Services  
III Free Trade Agreement between  the Dominican Republic, Central America 
(Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua) and the 
United States, Goods and Services  
IV Free Trade Agreement between the United States and Panama, Goods and 
Services  
V Free Trade Agreement between Chile and Viet Nam, Goods  
VI Free Trade Agreement between the Republic of Korea and New Zealand, 
Goods and Services  
C. Consideration of Regiona l Trade Agreements  involving WTO non -Members  
I Stabilisation and Association Agreement between the European Union and 
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Services  
D. Follow -up on the Ministerial Declaration from MC10. Report from Chair's Consultations  
E.  Other Busine ss 
 
1.4.   The Chairman  welcome d participants from the Advanced Course on RTAs and the WTO which 
was taking place in Geneva.   
1.5.  He inform ed Members that following the submission made by LAIA countries (circulated in 
document WT/REG/W/105) and the discussion held d uring the last Session of the CRTA, the 
European Union ha d requested the Secretariat to circulate a number of questions on the LAIA 
submission , which had  been recently circulated in document WT/REG/W/109.  
1.6.  The representative of the United States  appreciated  the submission from the EU that he had 
asked for in writing at the last meeting  and looked forward to continuing the exchange and 
dialogue with Members on outstanding notifications.  
1.7.  The representative of the European Union  highlighted that it had circulat ed the list of 
questions that it had put forward at the last meeting in writing to all Members for overall WT/REG/M/82  
 
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  transparency. The EU was ready to engage and looked forward to receiving a response from LAIA 
Members so that a constructive discussion could take th is long -standing issue forward.  
1.8.  The representative of Brazil  thanked the EU for its constructive approach . He said that LAIA 
countries were still struggling to provide answers to the questions  and h oped to be able to 
circulate responses in the near future.  
B. CONSIDERATION OF REG IONAL TRADE AGREEMEN TS 
1.9.  The Chairman  provided Members  with an update on the Committee's work and the 
implementation of the Transparency Mechanism. A total of 39 early announcements were currently 
on the WTO website (not counting thos e which ha d been subsequently notified). He thank ed 
Members who ha d submitted information in line with the requirements of the Transparency 
Mechanism and encourage d others to do so. He reminded  Members to inform the Secretariat of 
any changes in the status  of early announcements.  
1.10.   As regards the preparation of the factual presentations under the remit of the CRTA, in the 
case of RTAs involving WTO Members only there were currently 26  RTAs for which a factual 
presentation ha d to be prepared, counting goods a nd services separately. 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 procedures. Thus, factual presentations on a further 36 RTAs 
involving non -members were to be pr epared. Members had agreed that those RTAs 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 Transparency Mechanism ha d been sent to the 
relevant  parties. Regarding the issue of non -notified RTAs, an updated list had been  recently 
circulated as WT/REG/W/107 and contain ed 72 RTAs issued in factual presentations up to 
22 September 2016.  
1.11.   Turning now to RTAs for which the factual consideration was del ayed due to lack of 
comments from parties, he had continued consultations with delegations. An updated list of such 
RTAs had been recently circulated as WT/REG/W/108. He hoped that outstanding comments would 
soon be made available and the factual considera tion of these agreements could be undertaken.  
1.12.   Regarding the backlog in the receipt of data necessary for the preparation and drafting of 
factual presentations for certain RTAs, again he had continued consultations with a number of 
delegations and hoped th at delegations would provide the missing information as soon as possible.  
1.13.   Lastly, concerning implementation reports, an updated schedule for the submission of such 
reports had been distributed by the Secretariat (WT/REG/W/101 and Corr.1). Implementation 
reports were already due for 129 RTAs, and the end of implementation (EOI) for 11 RTAs was in 
2016. The EOI for 106 RTAs was from 2017 onwards, and for one RTA the EOI year was not 
available. There were seven RTAs for which an implementation report had alrea dy been circulated. 
It was clear that there was a considerable number of RTAs for which an implementation report was 
long overdue and he encouraged all delegations to submit their implementation reports 
accordingly.  He added a personal reflection: he had b een chairing the Committee for a little less 
than a year and he had had consultations with many delegations. He understood the challenges 
especially for smaller delegations to keep track o f this, but he saw a tendency for some of the 
consultations to begin  over from scratch. There was a meeting, a few months passed, and then the 
next consultation  began again . He urged delegations to respect the requests for data so the 
conversation did not need to begin again.  
1.14.   A representative of the Secretariat  said that w ith regard to factual presentations of RTAs 
between WTO Members: for EU -ESA, goods, the factual presentation had been sent to the parties 
with comments due by 20 April. For Korea -India, services, the data request had been sent out in 
2010. Data had been re ceived 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 but clarification was awaited on some 
tariff-related issues  from the Russian Federation . For EU -Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and 
EU-Cameroon, both goods only, data had been received from the EU only. For GCC -Singapore, 
services, data had been received from Singapore only. For EU -Ukraine, goods and servic es, data 
had been received from the parties and the factual presentation was being drafted. For the WT/REG/M/82  
 
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  Seychelles' accession to SADC, goods, data had been received from the Seychelles and some of 
the SADC parties. For China -Korea, goods and services, data had  been received from Korea only. 
For Viet  Nam-Korea, goods and services, data had been received from Korea only. Viet  Nam had 
submitted some data but this was incomplete. For Japan -Mongolia, goods and services, full data 
had been received from Japan only. F or Armenia -Kazakhstan, goods, some data had been received 
from Kazakhstan. For Mexico -Panama, goods and services, data was due by 28  October.  
1.15.   With regard to RTAs involving non -Members, the situation was as follows: for 
Iceland -Faeroe Islands, goods and ser vices, the factual presentation had been sent to the Parties 
in 2009. Final comments were awaited from the Faroe Islands. For the Customs Union between the 
Russian Federation, Belarus and Kazakhstan, and the EAEU, some data had been received from 
Kazakhsta n and the Russian Federation. 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 had 
been due by 3  December 2015. For EU -San Marino, goods, the factual present ation was being 
drafted. For Russian Federation -Azerbaijan, goods, the factual presentation was being drafted but 
additional information from the Russian Federation was awaited.  
1.16.   For EFTA -Lebanon, Turkey -Syria, CEFTA Enlargement, Ukraine -Azerbaijan, Ukraine -
Turkmenistan, the Common  Economic Zone, Russian Federation -Turkmenistan, all goods, and 
EU-CARIFORUM, goods and services, data was not complete.  
1.17.   A third category concerned three  agreements – ASEAN -Japan, the new CIS  Agreement, all 
goods and EU -Central Am erica, goods and services – for which not all parties had ratified the 
agreement. The Secretariat intend ed to wait until the agreement ha d entered into force for all the 
parties before commencing the preparation of factual  presentations. She urged  the part ies to 
notify the Secretariat when their respective agreement enter ed into force for all the parties. This 
was recently the case for the EU -Côte d'Ivoire agreement which she understood was now in force 
for all of the parties. She urged Members  to make ever y effort to comply with the deadlines as 
requested so that the Secretariat could  do its best to adhere to the CRTA's work programme.  
1.18.   The representative of the United States  said that his delegation had mentioned in the past 
that the way the Agenda was stru ctured was a bit awkward in trying to tackle some of the issues 
relating to the full implementation of the Transparency Mechanism. For example, he did not know 
where or when the discussion on the EU questions on LAIA would come up and he was surprised 
that it had come up right away. He was also surprised that with respect to an Agenda item labelled 
"Implementation of the RTA Transparency Mechanism", only one document and two agreements 
were listed which  seemed arbitrary. He suggested that implementation of the RTA Transparency 
Mechanism should be listed as a heading equal to the consideration of RTAs and there should be 
space to enable the discussion of notification issues (such as those listed in document 
WT/REG/W/107 ), delayed comments (as in document WT/R EG/W/108 ), and more time to discuss 
the information contained in the Secretariat's intervention concerning those factual presentations 
that were delayed. He indicated that his delegation would have specific questions  as was its right 
under the Transparency  Mechanism with respect to some RTAs that had been on the lists for some 
time. For instance, India -Republic of Korea and Republic of Korea -ASEAN had been on the list 
since 2010. He intended to  ask India and ASEAN for an update on the missing data. For GCC -
Singapore, he would like to get an update from the GCC about missing data. Likewise he intended 
to ask questions about  China -Republic of Korea and Viet Nam -Republic of Korea. He said that he 
had tried repeatedly to have greater transparency on the list but had been blocked in that 
attempt. The next option was to go one -by-one down the list. It was important to have a full 
discussion on implementation issues and have an Agenda item that reflected a space where that 
conversation could be h eld, rather than rev ersing the conversation to fit the Secretariat documents 
that had been provided. If it was not acceptable to have a Chair -designated Agenda item, he 
would be happy to make a suggestion. The Committee was at a point where it was necessary to 
carve out some space to discuss the backlog issues  in order to improve its  functioning .  
1.19.   The representative of China  said that following the consultation s with the Chairman the 
previous week, his capital had informed him that data for China -Republic of Korea would be 
provided by the end of October.  
1.20.   The representative of Saudi Arabia  said that a number of GCC countries had provided the 
Secretariat with data, though there was still a need for further data.  WT/REG/M/82  
 
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  1.21.   The representative of Qatar  said that it had submitted some data  and had received s ome 
requests for clarification.  
1.22.   The representative of the European Union  said that regarding comments due on the EU -ESA 
factual presentation, her delegation was working with one of the Parties on one outstanding issue 
and it hoped to be able  to submit comments as soon as possible. The EU was also working on end 
of implementation reports for a number of countries and hoped to be able to submit them before 
the next meeting of the Committee.  
1.23.   The Chairman  said that some of the GCC parties had sub mitted information, but the 
Secretariat required all outstanding information in order to do its work. Regarding the US proposal 
for re -ordering the Agenda to make it more interactive and organized more along the lines of the 
items on specific agreements, h e said he would consider the proposal and would be in contact with 
delegations. Any delegation could raise questions at any time, but it was important that the 
discussion be organized as efficiently as possible. His personal reflection was that the Committ ee 
needed to see how it dealt with the issue in the future as it was becoming problematic for the 
CRTA , and the Organization as a whole , that information requested from Members in terms of 
notifications was not forthcoming in many committees. While he had sympathy for delegations that 
had capacity constraints in provid ing data, this issue was crucial to having  a well -functioning 
Organization. The issue was part of a bigger discussion and was worth noting  and he would come 
back to it at a later point.  
1.24.   He drew Members' attention to the fact  that the original Agenda of the meeting had l isted 
seven RTAs. One RTA, Iceland -China, had been dropped from the Agenda at the Parties' request 
since officials from Beijing had unfortunately not been able to make the dates  of the meeting. The 
agreement would be rescheduled for a later meeting.  
ITEM B.II FREE TRADE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 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.)  
ITEM B.III FREE TRADE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE DOMINICAN REPUBL IC, CENTRAL AMERICA 
(COSTA RICA, EL SALV ADOR, GUATEMALA, HON DURAS AND NICARAGUA)  AND THE UNITED 
STATES, GOODS AND SE RVICES  
(The minutes of the consideration of this Agreement are being distributed as a separate 
document.)  
ITEM B.IV  FREE TRADE AGREEMENT  BETWEEN THE UNITED S TATES AND PANAMA, GO ODS AND 
SERVICES  
(The minutes of the consideration of this Agreement are being d istributed as a separate 
document.)  
ITEM B.V  FREE TRADE AGREEMENT  BETWEEN CHILE AND VI ET NAM, GOODS  
(The minutes of the consideration of this Agreement are being distributed as a separate 
document.)  
ITEM B.VI  FREE TRADE AGREEMENT  BETWEEN THE REPUBLIC  OF KO REA AND NEW ZEALAND,  
GOODS AND SERVICES  
(The minutes of the consideration of this Agreement are being distributed as a separate 
document.)  
 
 WT/REG/M/82  
 
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  C. CONSIDERATION OF R EGIONAL TRADE AGREEM ENTS INVOLVING WTO N ON-MEMBERS  
ITEM C.I STABILISATION AND ASSOCIATION AGRE EMENT BETWEEN THE EUROPEAN UNIION 
AND BOSNIA AND  HERZEGOVINA, SERVICES  
(The minutes of the consideration of this Agreement are being distributed as a separate 
document.)  
D. FOLLOW UP ON THE MINISTERIAL DECLARATION FROM MC10. REPORT FROM THE 
CHAIR'S CONSULT ATIONS  
1.25.   The Chairman  did not think th e item needed a lot in terms of introduction since Members 
had heard him talk about th e issue during the last couple of meetings of the CRTA. Since he took 
over as Chair for the CRTA he had been consulting with Members o n the basis of paragraph 28 of 
the Nairobi Ministerial declaration that explicitly stated that the CRTA should do two things: 
explore if the provisional Transparency Mechanism could be turned into a permanent one; and 
initiate a systemic dialogue concernin g the relationship between RTAs and the multilateral trading 
system.  
1.26.   Concerning the first issue , he had reported to Members before that the appetite for 
negotiating a permanent Transparency Mechanism was not that strong. That was also consistent 
with the r esponse that the Chair of the Negotiating Group on Rules had received in his 
consultations. As Members were aware, th e issue had been negotiated in the Rules group 
previously.  
1.27.   However, during his last round of consultations several Members had reminded him  that 
while the Transparency Mechanism might not be at the top of their priorities at the moment, it was 
still important for them that th e issue moved forward. He wanted to make it clear  that th e point 
was taken. He said he would continue to consult with M embers on th e issue, he would talk again to 
the Chair of the Rules Negotiations, and he would come back to the issue in the CRTA  meeting  in 
November.  
1.28.   He encourage d Members to reflect further on th e issue themselves, since there were 
technical and administr ative matters to consider. The Transparency Mechanism had been 
discussed previously within the framework of the Rules negotiations. Yet the Nairobi declaration 
had instructed the CRTA to deal with the issue. So w here did Members want to have th e 
discussion ? Should both groups be involved? For instance, he could imagine a scenario where the 
issue was discussed and prepared in the CRTA, while actual negotiations on the next step would be 
referred to the Rules negotiations . But there could be other alternative s. In addition there was the 
issue of reviewing the Transparency Mechanism. Where should th e review take place? He 
encouraged Members to consider  the issues . One difficulty was that negotiations in the Rules 
Group were not active and the issue of the Trans parency Mechanism was at the bottom of 
priorities. Thus h e could not foresee any negotiation on th e issue in the Rules Group in the near 
future. What effect did this have for Members? He said he would consult with Members about th e 
issue and was interested  in hearing Members' views on how to take it forward.  
1.29.   On the systemic dialogue there had been a stronger engagement by Members  and m any 
had made it clear to him that it was a priority for them. He had yet to encounter any Member who 
was against it. The dif ficulty was to identify wh at type of systemic discussion Members wanted and 
how it should be organi zed. 
1.30.   His personal assessment was that Members  should be ready to move from consultations and 
discussions about how things should be discussed and move into the substance. He hoped that 
Members could start th e discussion  at the next meeting of the CRTA in November. He knew that 
Members had been discussing how such a dialogue could be organized and what kind  of discussion 
they could have. He knew that such discussions were close to maturity and hopefully would be  
ready to be shared soon. He hoped that Members were ready to move to a systemic discussion as 
they had been instructed by Ministers . Members participated in other groups and committees and 
many items wer e negotiated in the house where there were strong substantial disagreements 
among Members. It would be very unfortunate if Members could not even move items forward 
when there was  no actual disagreement.  WT/REG/M/82  
 
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  1.31.   The representative of the United States  said his com ment applied to both issues raised by 
the Chair . He thought it was important to bear in mind the origins of paragraph 28 because he did 
not think that Members should be reinterpreting it in a way that was not necessarily correct. 
Paragraph 28 had been  cham pioned by one delegation and agreed to by others, but there had not 
been an overwhelming groundswell or ground -level push for such issues. Therefore to suggest that 
Ministers had wanted it was pushing a square peg in to a round hole. Some Ministers had agreed to 
what one Minister had wanted and that Minister had not come forward with a plan yet. So 
Members were still awaiting leadership from the champion of paragraph 28.  
1.32.   With respect to making the Transparency Mechanism permanent, again he thought that the 
Committee was skipping over some fundamental questions about its work on the actual 
implementation of the Mechanism. The whole point of making the Mechanism permanent and 
doing the review was to figure out in large part what Members had got wrong when the Mechanism 
had been  created, as they had not known  exactly how the Mechanism would work  and how easy it 
would be to comply with. And t here were some serious compliance problems. It would be useful to 
have a conversation to find out whether it was just that Members chose to be non -transparent and 
would not comply with the Transparency Mechanism , regardless of what it said. Were there 
differences of opinion  about the Mechanism ? Members had touch ed upon that issue in the ALADI 
discussions about what constituted  a notification and that was something that needed to be 
explored further. If Members were going to make the T ransparency Mechanism  permanent it had 
to be made permanent in a way that all Members understood and complied with. And there was no 
point in maki ng permanent something that had massive compliance problems . Members were not 
performing  a service by just ignoring the fact that clearly there were problems , and if such 
problems were not id entified, blessing them and re -endorsing them would not be useful .  
1.33.   On the systemic discussion, it should be telling that there was not much engagement on the 
Agenda item. So what were the systemic issues, as they came up in each and every agreement 
that the Committee reviewed? They were not necessarily coming up. He di d not want the 
Committee to fall into the trap of so many other committees that took an agenda item and tried to 
make  it work to make Members feel good. There were lots of RTA  issues that could be discussed, 
but that was not why the Committee had been crea ted. If there was not a serious appetite for 
looking at the systemic issues that underlay the origins of the Committee then they could not be 
forced.  If Members were not willing to engage and ask questions then they probably were not 
willing to engage in a  serious conversation about the systemic implications of things such as partial 
scope, limited coverage of agricultural products , or other issues that had an actual impact on what 
Members were doing in the ir RTAs and the overflow impact on the multilateral  trading system.  
1.34.   The representative of Australia  thanked the Chair for his update on his consultations and for 
his efforts in trying to take forward work to implement the MC10 outcome on RTAs, particularly the 
instruction by Ministers for the Committee to initiate a discussion on the systemic implications of 
RTAs for the multilateral trading system and their relationship with WTO rules. Australia supported 
the Chair's call for Members to begin substantive discussions on ways to implement this limb of the 
MC10 outcome without delay. Australia believed that Members now needed to start playing their 
part by following through with what had been  agreed in Nairobi. As the Chair had rightly 
mentioned, there had been discussions among Members, there was an interest and hopefully this 
work could come to a head soon. Australia had a long history of supporting the creation of an 
institutionalized discussion of systemic issues in the CRTA. As Australia ha d outlined in previous 
interventions on the topic, this was because  the emerging body of RTAs and RTA practice raised 
some relevant issues for the multilateral trading system and the interplay between these two 
universes merited further consideration and discussion among WTO Members. In Australia's view,  
as time passed , the need to discuss such issues comprehensively only increased. He wished to 
update Members that earlier in the month several WTO Members at the G20 Leaders ' Summit in 
Hangzhou had recognized this fact when they had acknowledged that RTA -related issues were  of 
common interest and importance in today's economy and were a legitimate issue for discussion in 
the WTO ( see paragraphs 26 -27 of the Leaders Communiqué). For background, the Communiqué 
had been  endorsed by leaders from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Can ada, China, France, Germany, 
India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, the Russian Federation, Saudi 
Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union. 
Given the strong political level of endors ement received from leaders and trade ministers it was 
important that Members delivered in a swift, comprehensive and inclusive manner. He underscored 
Australia's view that work to implement this limb of the Nairobi outcome on RTAs was 
self-standing and wi thout prejudice, and separate to progress on other areas of the Committee's WT/REG/M/82  
 
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  work.  Australia nonetheless remained fully committed to enhancing the Committee's effective and 
fulsome consideration of individual RTAs and was committed to improving the processi ng of 
notifications made under the RTA Transparency Mechanism and associated efforts to improve 
compliance with notification requirements. Australia looked forward to working with the Chair and 
other Members to develop a mechanism for making such a systemi c discussion part of the CRTA's 
regular work at the November meeting and before it. Australia was confident that following 
through on such work would deliver value addition to the Committee and to the WTO.  
1.35.   The representative of Brazil  expressed his appreci ation for the Chair's work in this area, his 
openness to consult with Members and the efforts he had put into the process. Brazil believed that 
advancing the work of the MC10 Declaration was an important task, both to the regular activities 
of the Committe e and to the WTO. At MC10 in Nairobi, Members had agreed to a paragraph in 
which Ministers had directed the future work of Members in two main areas: the systemic 
implications of RTAs for the multilateral trading system and its relationship with WTO rules;  and 
the transformation of the provisional status of the Transparency Mechanism of 2006. It was true 
that Members had a good foundation of decisions that allowed them to carry out their work. Not 
only were both elements part of the recent Ministerial Decla ration, but both of them had been 
mentioned individually in a variety of documents and occasions such as in the G20 Leaders ' 
Summit,  the mandate of the CRTA and in the disciplines of the Transparency Mechanism itself in 
which all Members had had a say. Bra zil appreciated the Chair's conclusion on the consultations  
and would interact with the Chair and other Members to develop further the alternatives in front of 
them.  
1.36.   The representative of Hong Kong, China  shared the general sentiment of the Committee 
conce rning pursuing follow up work on the systemic discussions and the provisional Transparency 
Mechanism. In general, Hong Kong, China supported further work to make the T ransparency 
Mechanism  permanent and was prepared to play a constructive role in any such discussions. Yet , 
taking into account Members' prevailing sentiment and prioritization, Hong Kong, China had no 
problem with first moving forward with the systemic discussion. On the substance, Hong Kong, 
China would welcome any discussion to be pursued al ong thematic lines, i.e. to discuss specific 
areas that were the subject of rule -making in RTAs. Topics of interest to Hong Kong, China 
included ecommerce, digital trade, competition, investment, and regulatory cooperation. It might 
be useful to have prese ntations by Members of a specific topic, sharing their experience of RTAs to 
be complemented by an analytical assessment prepared by the Secretariat, for example on global 
trends, and the emerging body of RTA rules or practices vis-à-vis relevant WTO rules , if any. This 
could be followed by a discussion among Members. On the process, Hong Kong, China was open to 
having such discussions held in dedicated sessions of the CRTA or separate seminars held back -to-
back with CRTA meetings. Hong Kong, China was read y to take part in any consultations that the 
Chair would conduct and/or small group initiatives on these issues.  
1.37.   The representative of Canada  thanked the Chair for the update on his consultations  and 
recalled Canada's position with respect to the systemic discussion. The Committee knew what its 
mandate was: there was a clear mandate from Ministers and reiterations of this commitment in 
other fora such as the G20. So it was not a question of whether the Committee should proceed 
with the discussion, but how. That was the big question. The United States was right that there 
was a compliance problem in the Committee and Canada would not leave it unaddressed. From 
Canada's perspective th e issue would continue to be on its radar and could play a part as the 
system ic discussion moved forward. Canada did not think that the issue should hold up work in 
addressing the Ministerial Decision. Canada remained committed to moving the process forward 
into a more substantive discussion and was willing to participate . Canada  was open on how the 
discussion could unfold in the Committee and appreciated some of the suggestions that had been 
made by Hong Kong, China and others. Canada looked forward to continuing to work with the 
Chair and other Members in order to advance the comm itment that Members had made at the 
Ministerial level.  
1.38.   The representative of Japan  was encouraged by the updated report of the Chair with regard 
to the consultations. As mentioned previously, Japan was of the opinion that a study of the 
elements of RTAs wa s one way of proceeding with the discussion on systemic issues and their 
implications . In addition to the regular consideration of individual RTAs , Japan was of the opinion 
that it was meaningful for the CRTA to discuss specific areas covered by a range of  RTAs as had 
been mentioned by Hong Kong, China.  WT/REG/M/82  
 
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  1.39.    The representative of the European Union  thanked the Chair for his efforts and welcomed 
the conclusions of the Chair's consultations. The EU saw value in having a regular systemic 
discussion in the CRTA . In addition to the Nairobi Ministerial outcome , she recalled, as others had 
mentioned, that the CRTA already foresaw in its terms of reference such a discussion. As Canada 
had pointed out , the EU saw th e discussion as a complement and parallel process to the  
Committee's important efforts on notification compliance to which the EU, as well as other 
Members, attached a lot of importance. She recalled that the G20 Leaders' Communiqué , as 
mentioned by others , had  reiterated the importance of what was going on in RTAs. These were 
legitimate issues that should be addressed in the house. As the EU had already flagged at previous 
CRTA meetings, the EU believed that one avenue to explore was a thematic approach, as had been 
suggested by Japan and Hong Kong, China. The EU had also suggested a topic – trade facilitation 
– that could be a candidate in the EU's view. The EU stood ready to engage further with interested 
Members on a process and the exact contents of what the dialogue could look like.  
1.40.   The representative of South Africa  supported initiating a dialogue on RTAs, but as she had 
mentioned before, the process of choosing the themes and the representation in the discussion 
had to be transparent. South Africa was willing and able to participate in consultations ahead of 
the November meeting. She reiterated that the outcomes of such exchanges should not be taken 
as rules or recommendations that Members would have to take on board.  
1.41.   The representative of Norway  echoed the statements made by Canada, Australia, and the 
EU. This was a positive way of moving forward. She thanked the Chair for his efforts  and agreed 
that i t was important to have a systemic discussion.  
1.42.   The representative of Singapore  expressed support for a systemic discussion in the CRTA. 
RTAs were a feature of  the modern economy and it was important to see how Members could take 
on board some of the issues in RTAs in the WTO. Singapore supported the idea of having a 
thematic discussion, especially on issues such as trade facilitation and ecommerce.  
1.43.   The represen tative of Switzerland  concurred with most of the points made by the European 
Union and other delegations that it was time to have a systemic discussion.  
1.44.   The representative of Ecuador  said that the Committee should continue with the discussion 
of all of the  elements contained in paragraph 28 of the Nairobi Ministerial Declaration. The 
Committee could discuss RTAs in connection with the tariff advantages obtained by WTO Members 
in the multilateral ambit, such as the exception to GATT Article XXIV  and the cove red Agreements 
in the WTO.  
1.45.   The representative of the United States  said he was in agreement with Ecuador that 
Members need ed to ensure that they anchored their discussion on what was relevant and the 
anchor between the CRTA in the WTO and RTAs . First and foremost would be the GATT and GATS 
exceptions that formed the parameters under which Members evaluated whether RTAs were 
consistent with WTO obligations. He was surprised that Members were now pretending that 
"thematic" was the same as "systemic"  as he saw  a huge difference between the two. It sounded 
like Members wanted thematic discussions, not a systemic debate, but that did not check the box. 
His Minister could tell the difference. If the Committee wanted to set up thematic sessions it 
should be based o n Members' proposals and would have to be Member -driven. Again he was not 
sure that thematic sessions  would check the systemic box as they were two different things.  
1.46.    The representative of Brazil  welcomed the broad support to implement the systemic 
discuss ions. He understood that there were ways to implement a decision. The majority of 
Members had identified a way which was to go topic -by-topic, depending on alternatives that could 
be explored. This was a reasonable way to approach the issue and the majorit y of Members were 
in a position to go ahead with a substantive discussion in the near future. Depending on the topic 
it might have more or less interest among Members, but that did not mean that all Members were 
not taking the opportunity to benefit from t he discussion that they might have.  
1.47.   The Chairman  thanked the United States for clarifying some important points about the 
Transparency Mechanism. He was not going to point fingers but he agreed that there was a 
compliance problem in the CRTA  and other comm ittees and he was open to suggestions on how to 
deal with it. Members could tweak how the meetings were organized, if that would help, and he WT/REG/M/82  
 
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  was willing to look at other issues as well. But when it came to the Transparency Mechanism he 
had heard several d elegations strongly put forward that they wanted to see negotiations or pre-
negotiations  start again . Members should think about the Transparency Mechanism and if they  had 
something to add to that discussion, he invited them to contact him.  
1.48.   On the other i ssue he made  a comment to the U.S. delegation specifically on the Ministerial 
Declaration. As Chair of the CRTA he could not take into account which Minister had pushed for a 
paragraph or not. He was sure that there had been  different levels of enthusiasm about  the Nairobi 
Decision to limit export subsidies on agriculture , but the WTO would still hold all Members 
accountable to that decision. That was the only way he could interpret it as well. All Ministers had 
signed up to  the paragraph in the Ministerial  Declaration and it was his job , as had been made 
clear to him by the Chair of the General Council , to follow up on it and he could not take into 
account who had pushed the initiative and who had no t. When he had had consultations with 
Members he had seen a lot of engagement on the issue. He wished that delegations had been 
more concrete earlier on in the process, but he thought that Members might still get there. He 
encouraged delegations to look at it as a process. When he left the Committee two meetings hence 
he did not think that there would be a perfect dialogue on systemic issues in the CRTA but if the 
process had started, that would be a good thing and if the Committee started with thematic 
discussions and then decided that it was not giving Members m uch then it could be tweaked. As 
Members were aware this was a consensus -based organization and there was no process that the 
Chair could start that could not be killed by anyone at any time if desired.  He thought there was 
strong support for moving forwar d and that was his intention. He said that th e item would be on 
the Agenda of the next meeting regardless and he hoped that there would be concrete proposals 
to move into a substantive discussion. If so , he would come back to Members  and would not spring 
anything on them in November that they had not seen and had had a possibility to comment on 
and agree to. That would be done in writing, or in an extra -sessional meeting. If that did not 
happen then there would be a report by the Chair and he would target t he first meeting of the 
following year to have the first substantive discussion. But h is hope was that this could be done 
already in November.  
E. OTHER BUSINESS  
1.49.   The Chairman informed the Committee that the dates scheduled for the next meeting of the 
CRTA were 7 -8 November.  
1.50.   The Committee took note  of the comments made.  
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