. /.  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  G/SPS/GEN/1047 
12 October 2010 
 
 (10-5232) 
Committee on Sanitary a nd Phytosanitary Measures Original:   French 
  
 
MEASURES TAKEN BY MOROCCO TO  IMPLEMENT THE TRANSPARENCY 
OBLIGATIONS OF THE SPS AGREEMENT (ARTICLE 7) 
 
Communication from Morocco
 
 
 
 The following communication, received on 11 Octo ber 2010, is being circulated at the request 
of the delegation of Morocco . 
 
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 A. I
DENTIFICATION OF THE NATIONAL NOTIFICATION AUTHORITY AND THE NATIONAL 
ENQUIRY POINT  
1. Pursuant to paragraph 10 of Annex B, Morocco  has designated "a single central government 
authority" as responsible for the implementation, on the national level, of the provisions concerning 
transparency.  This authority is the Office National de Sécurité Sanitaire des Produits Alimentaires , 
ONSSA (National Office for Food Safety), under the responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture and 
Marine Fisheries. 
2. In accordance with paragraph 3, prior to Ja nuary 2010, Morocco had designated two enquiry 
points to respond to all reasonable questions and to  provide the relevant documents on SPS matters.  
These were the Directorate of Livestock and Veteri nary Services in the case of sanitary questions and 
the Plant Protection, Technical Inspection and Anti- Fraud Directorate for all phytosanitary matters.  
After January 2010, following the creation of  the National Office for Food Safety (see 
notification G/SPS/GEN/1039 of 6 September 2010), a single enquiry point was designated to be 
responsible for all SPS questions.  The WTO Secr etariat has been informed of this change. 
3. In order to implement the SPS Agreement, Mo rocco has set up a national SPS committee to 
be responsible for implementing the SPS Agreement.   The regulatory text establishing this national 
SPS Committee has been notified to the WTO and was published in Official Journal No. 5862 of 5 August 2010.  It can be downloaded from the ONSSA website ( http://www.onssa.gov.ma
). 
B. APPLICATION OF PARAGRAPH 5 OF ANNEX B (PREAMBLE ) OF THE SPS  AGREEMENT  
4. Morocco has notified all the regulatory texts it considers could have a significant effect on 
trade.  For example documents G/SPS/N/MAR/29 of 10 May 2010 and G/SPS/GEN/1039 of 
6 September 2010. 
C. REQUEST FOR DOCUMENTS RELATING TO A NOTIFICATION  
5. In acknowledging receipt, Morocco provided all the elements needed to reply to the questions 
raised by Members regarding its notifications.  Un fortunately, Morocco was unable to respond to the 
needs of certain countries for the translation of do cuments, into English in particular.  Moreover, G/SPS/GEN/1047 
Page 2  
 
  taking into account time constraints and the need  to coordinate replies among the structures 
concerned, Morocco was not able to reply to  the questions within the recommended period 
(five working days). 
D. P
UBLICATION OF THE REGULATIONS  
6. All legislative texts (laws) and regulations (Decree by the Prime Minister, Orders by 
Ministers) are published in Morocco's Official Jour nal in two languages, Arabic and French.  These 
texts enter into force on the date they are published.   Once they have been published, they are put on 
the website ( http://www.onssa.gov.ma ) of the National Office for F ood Safety, which is the national 
authority and enquiry point for SPS-related matters. 
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