G/TBT/W/439  
19 January 2016  
(16-0374)  Page: 1/2  
Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade  Original: Spanish  
 
  ECUADOR: EMERGENCY TECHNICAL REGULATION OF THE ECUADORIAN 
STANDARDIZATION INSTITUTE (RTE INEN) NO. 088: 
"SURFACE TENSION AGENTS" 
STATEMENT BY MEXICO TO THE COMMITT EE ON TECHNICAL BARRIERS TO TRADE 
4-6 NOVEMBER 2015 
The following communication, dated 15 January 2016, is being circulated at the request of the 
delegation of Mexico. 
 
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1. Mexico wishes to reiterate its trade concern with respect to Emergency Technical Regulation of 
the Ecuadorian Standardization Institute (RTE INEN) No. 088: "Surface tension agents", issued by 
Ecuador on 22 November 2013 and notified to WTO Members in document G/TBT/N/ECU/117 and 
its addenda. 
2. This concern was first raised at the March 2015 Committee meeting and was reiterated in this 
forum at the June meeting of the same year. Furthermore, on 8 May 2015, we circulated the 
"Statement by Mexico to the Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade at its meeting of 18-19 March 2015" regarding this regulation, which was published on 11 May as document G/TBT/W/405. 
3. Mexico has expressed its concerns to Ecuador on a bilateral and formal basis, but no replies 
have yet been received. For this reason, this specif ic trade concern is submitted on the basis of the 
following points: 
a. First of all, Mr Chairman, Mexico did not find in the regulation any specification or 
reference concerning unexpected events of an urgent nature that might have justified its 
issuance on an emergency basis. 
b. Paragraph 10.1 of RTE INEN No. 088 stipulates that evidence of compliance with the 
technical regulation, in the form of a "certificate of product conformity" issued by an accredited product certification body designated in the country, must be produced prior to the marketing of domestic or imported  products covered by the regulation. For 
imported products, the regulation requires that the certificate be issued by an accredited 
product certification body, with accreditation recognized by the Ecuadorian Accreditation Agency or by a product certification body de signated in accordance with the Law on the 
Ecuadorian Quality System. 
c. Mexico considers that the measure imposed under paragraph 10.1 of RTE INEN No. 088 
may infringe Articles 5.1.1 and 5.2 of the TBT Agreement as regards access to Ecuador 
for Mexican products, since, according to information from the Mexican industry, there is 
no certifying body in Ecuador that can issue the "certificate of product conformity" for the products covered by the technical regulation in question. G/TBT/W/439 
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  d. According to information provided by the Mexican industry, almost none of the countries 
from which Ecuador receives imports have bodies accredited to assess the conformity of products covered by RTE INEN No. 088, because the sanitary regulations are met through registration or notification. Mexico therefore requests information as regards 
compliance with all the provisions of  Article 5.2 of the TBT Agreement. 
4. In view of the foregoing, Mexico submitted its formal comments on 24 February 2014, along 
with the following requests: 
a. To give consideration and respond to all the comments submitted by Mexico with respect 
to compliance with the TBT Agreement. 
b. To explain or justify the urgent problems wh ich arose or threatened to arise for Ecuador 
that led it to adopt this "emergency" technical regulation and to disregard the 
transparency obligations laid down in Ar ticles 2.9 and 5.6 of the TBT Agreement, 
respectively; and in the light of the risk of not immediately applying RTE INEN No. 088, to consider providing for a transitional period to allow for comments and a possible 
adjustment of foreign suppliers to  the measures finally adopted. 
c. To clarify the rationale for imposing these labelling requirements, which differ from those 
contained in Andean Community Decision 706 and its regulations. 
d. To provide information as regards compliance by the bodies accredited to assess 
conformity of the products covered by RTE INEN No. 088 with the provisions of Article 5.2 of the TBT Agreement. 
5. Lastly, as indicated with respect to the technical regulation on cosmetics, in the bilateral 
dialogue that was held with Ecuador, we were to ld that a more recent version of this technical 
regulation would be published around the middle of this year. We cannot, however identify any notification of this measure. Could Ecuado r give us any information in this regard? 
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