RESTRICTED  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  TN/TF/M/30 
7 August 2009 
 (09-3837) 
Negotiating Group on Trade Facilitation   
  
 
MINUTES OF THE MEETING 
 
Held in the Centre William Rappard
 
from 29 June – 3 July 2009  
 
Chairman:  H.E. Mr. Eduardo Ernesto Sperisen-Yurt (Guatemala) 
 
 1. The Chairman
 recalled that the proposed agenda for the session had been circulated in 
WTO/AIR/3389.  As Members would have noticed from the airgram, the meeting sought to advance 
the work of the Negotiating Group (NG) on all elem ents of the mandate, concluding the cycle of 
refining the proposals it had initiated in February.  In addition, delegations would test a new, 
accelerated way of addressing those texts in the framework of a special drafting session.  Time would also be given to looking into the regular item of participation by the Annex D organizations.   
2. The agenda was adopted
. 
3. The Chairman  shared his ideas on how he wished to organize the Negotiating Group's work 
over the course of the week. 
4. The meeting's three primary objectives – concluding the current cycle of reviewing Members' 
proposals, testing a new, focussed way of addressing them, and advancing work on S&D – were reflected in the structure of the sessions, de dicating time to each of those tasks.  
5. Work would commence with the introduction of new proposals.  This would then be followed 
by their detailed discussion - as well as a review of the previously submitted texts - in the context of a 
series of informal working sessions, which were sc heduled to commence right after the end of the 
opening plenary. GATT Article VIII-related proposals w ould be addressed first, continuing Members' 
work from where they left it off in May.  From ther e, delegations would move to the Article V and the 
customs cooperation domain.   
6. Technical assistance and S&D matters would be the focus of attention on Thursday.  Work 
was going to be led by the Friend of the Chair who would then use the following day to report to the 
plenary on the outcome of his activities.  Friday would also update Members on the state of the Secretariat's needs assessment programme before concluding the meeting.   
7. The Group's mode of operation remained unchange d. Members would continue their tradition 
of conducting most of the exchanges in open-en ded, informal mode.  The presentation of new 
submissions would be considered formal while thei r detailed discussion remained off the record.    
8. The plenary
 session was adjourned  and the informal working sessions commenced . TN/TF/M/30 
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  A. N
EW AND REVISED PROPOSALS  
9. This part of the meeting was conducted in informal mode  with the exception of the following 
presentations of new submissions: 
10. The representative of Korea  introduced proposal TN/TF/W/138/Rev.3, explaining that during 
the discussions and workshops over the past few year s, Members had come to realize the usefulness 
of a single window to trade facilitation.  They had been able to enhance their understanding of the 
single window proposal and several Members had already started to provide traders with a single window scheme even though the proposal was still unde r discussion.  It was in that context that 
Korea, together with Singapore and Thailand, s ubmitted the third revision of their Single Window 
proposal, reflecting the valuable comments raised by other Members.  The main changes were the 
following:  
11. In the third sentence of the first bullet, new language had been created.  The text now read: 
"After the examination by the relevant authorities or agencies of the documentation and/or data, the 
single window shall notify the results to the applicants in a timely manner".  
12.  During the previous meeting, several Memb ers had raised concerns about whether the 
relevant authorities or agencies could notify the r esult to the applicants.  The single window had a 
primary responsibility to give a reply to applican ts.  However, the sponsors did not oppose the idea 
that the relevant authorities might be allowed to pr ovide the examination resu lt to the applicants, if 
necessary.  
13. In bullet 3, the words "which may include" had b een changed into "including", as indicated at 
the previous meeting.  The language identified th e minimum elements which Members should notify 
to the Trade Facilitation Committee. 
14. In order to strike a balance between specific ity and flexibility of commitments, the sponsors 
wished to maintain bullets 2, 4, 5 and 6 as they  had been, except for minor linguistic changes.   
15. It was hoped that the revision would give Me mbers more comfort to understand the single 
window proposal. 
16. The representative of Switzerland
 introduced document TN/TF/W/133/Rev.3, noting that it 
represented a small revision of the previous vers ion of the proposal.  Initially, the sponsors had not 
planned to prepare a revision.  But since the Chair had invited all delegations at the last meeting to 
provide revisions as fast as possible, they had tried to integrate those elements of other Members' remarks which seemed less controversial and ha d also used the opportunity to make certain 
corrections.  There had been a corrigendum to the last revision of the proposal which had now been 
integrated into the main text in order to have a common basis for Members' work in the future. No 
major revisions of the substance had been intende d as there had not been enough time to consult in 
detail with all the Members concerned.  The main changes were the following: 
17. In the first paragraph, there had been a small ch ange in the form of an addition. In the last 
sentence, the word "traffic" had been added so that the text now read:  (...) "shall be deemed to be 
traffic  in transit".  This correction had been made to  avoid misunderstandings a nd to make sure that 
the means of transport should not in themselves be considered a good in transit but part of "traffic in 
transit" as defined in the first part of the paragraph.  
18. The word "warehousing" had been added in th e first paragraph as well.  This had been 
suggested several times with respect to the last re vision of the proposal in order to make the text  TN/TF/M/30 
 Page 3 
 
 
  consistent with GATT Article V.  The omission ha d simply been a mistake when translating the 
wording of GATT Article V in its current form.  There was no change in substance.   
19. In paragraph 2, the sponsors had tried to streamline the wording.  They had deleted the words 
"establishes or maintains a State ente rprise, wherever located, or".  Th e reference to "State enterprise" 
did not seem necessary.  The text appeared clear enough without t hose words, which was why that 
part of the sentence had been deleted. 
20. The previous version of the proposal had c ontained a reference to general and security 
exceptions. The co-sponsors assumed that such a reference would, if at all, be of a cross-cutting nature 
and had therefore deleted it from the current proposal.  There was, however, no change in intention.  
GATT Articles XX and XXI would fully apply, the way they always had. 
21. Paragraph 4 contained a new addition in bracket s: "[for traffic in transit to or from the 
territory of other contracting partie s]".  It made the text consistent  with GATT Article V, but, at the 
same time, reduced the level of ambition.  Memb ers would have to discuss further what level of 
ambition they wanted.  This was subject to furthe r discussion. It had been put it into brackets to 
highlight the need for further clarification.  
22. In paragraph 5, the sponsors had changed the wording and substituted "contracting parties" 
w i t h  " M e m b e r s " .   T h i s  h a d  b e e n  d o n e  t o  m a k e  the wording consistent.  There was no change in 
substance. 
23. In paragraph 6, the title "National Treatment" had been dropped as it did not add anything to 
the text and was misleading.  Members might recall that some of the discussions on this paragraph had been on the question of what the benchmark fo r such treatment would be, and, as the sponsors 
proposed to take import and export traffic as be nchmarks, and not domestic traffic, "national 
treatment" was a misleading title.  Furthermore, the benchmark had been changed slightly. Instead of 
"its own exports or imports" it now  said "its own export or import traffic".  The change had been 
made to make the wording more consistent with GATT Article V which was about "traffic in transit" 
as opposed to just "transit".  There was an elaborate de finition of "traffic in transit" in paragraph 1 of 
that Article and the sponsors had wanted to make su re that the language of their proposal was as close 
to that as possible.  There was no change of intention behind the new wording. 
24. Still in paragraph 6, the sponsors had added th e clause of the principle referring to "like 
products being transported on the same route under lik e conditions".  It was identical to the one 
already contained in GATT Article V.     
25. In paragraph 8, the wording had been revised a bit, especially with respect to the second part 
of the first sentence.  The language of the earlier version of the proposal had not been that clear and 
the issued corrigendum on the matter had not really brought more clarity.  The new wording was proposed for smoother reading.  The intention re mained the same.  The idea was to extend the 
protection offered by GATT Article V: 6 to goods not only retroactively, but also pro-actively, so as to 
exclude discrimination based on future transit.  It was a marginal correction, a marginal improvement 
of the text and there were probably only very few s ituations where this could be applied.  A possible 
case of application could be a landlocked count ry which played off two ports in different 
neighbouring countries who depended on  revenue from traffic in transit by steering traffic one way or 
the other through unequal treatment ex-ante of transit.   
26. With respect to paragraphs 9 to 12, it had been  remarked at the last session that the wording 
was not consistent.  The sponsors had therefore tried to make it more consistent.  Given that transit 
duties and fees were forbidden, there was no point  in having disciplines on them.  Disciplines were 
only needed on charges.  The wording had been made more consistent w ith that intention.  Paragraphs TN/TF/M/30 
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  10 to 12 could be dropped in later revisions of the te xt if Members agreed to take on board "transit" in 
the scope of Article X provisions on publi cation and availability of information. 
27. In paragraph 13, there was a new addition in the chapeau.  The words "and where applicable" 
had been added at the end to take account of the f act that many of the disciplines in this paragraph 
were applicable only to certain means of transport and to make the whole paragraph less prescriptive.  
This also intended to address, at least to some extent, the concerns that had been expressed with 
regard to the scope article and the inclusion of wording on infrastructure by making sure that the 
disciplines would only apply to means of  transport where that made sense. 
28. The same intention was behind the change in paragraph 13.(i) where "lanes" had been 
replaced by "transit infrastructure" to ensure that applicable means of transport were not artificially 
limited.  
29. There was a partially new paragraph, paragraph 14.  It contained reservations and had been 
moved to a new paragraph in order to make sure that  all provisions in paragra ph 13 were covered.  It 
also served to clarify the original GATT Article V wo rding.  If one read Article V very closely, and 
literally, it could be understood to mean that one might delay goods unnecessarily if there was a 
breach of law, which certainly was not the intended m eaning.  All that was actually implied was that 
that goods could be delaye d, but not unnecessarily.   
30. With respect to paragraphs 15 and 16, a cha nge had been made to accommodate a comment 
made, putting "requires a guarantee" instead of "operates a guarantee system".   
31. In paragraphs 18 and 20 (iii), the term "author ized trader" was used instead of "authorized 
economic operator" to make the wording cons istent with that of other proposals.   
32. In paragraph 17, the sponsors had put brackets around the paragraph to indicate that there 
were some fundamental issues with this paragraph that had to be discussed.  Reading the comments  
in the worksheets, one saw that there were a number  of comments that had not been addressed in the 
current revision of the text.  Neve rtheless, they had certainly been noted by the sponsors who hoped to 
be able to deal with them at a later stage.  
33. In paragraph 20, a small typo had been corrected, making clear that it should be the plural 
form with respect to the words "agreement s or arrangement s".  Furthermore, the term "contracting 
parties" had been replaced by "Members" to ensure  consistency in the use of language.  "Members" 
meant Members of the WTO while "contracting parties"  meant contracting parties to the international 
agreement which the provision was about. 
34. In paragraph 20 (v), "infrastructure" was used in stead "road" to make sure that all means of 
transport were covered and that there was no artificial limitation to road transport. 
35. Finally, in paragraph 22, the word "adequa te" had been deleted to accommodate comments 
made by Members at the last session. 
36. Those were the changes made.  They mostly c onsisted of changes in wording. There was no 
change in intention.  While some of Members'  comments had not been taken into account, their 
concerns had been noted and the sponsors hoped to discuss them further bilaterally.    
37. One of those concerns related to how to deal with GATT Article V's specification that 
freedom of transit was only valid "for traffic in tr ansit to or from the territory of other contracting 
parties" and the question of its pr ecise meaning.  Did "to or from" refer to neighbouring countries or  TN/TF/M/30 
 Page 5 
 
 
  to the first origin and the ultimate destination of the traffic?  The level of ambition and the wording 
required further clarification.  
38. A second point related to the question of how to introduce the possibility of applying non-
discriminatory measures to limit traffic in transit in order to protect the environment or the infrastructure.  Switzerland believed that, to a ce rtain extent, it could be done with the provision 
formerly called "national treatment", but there were  clear indications that the matter required further 
discussion.  
39. A number of delegations had made comments w ith regard to paragraph 22 on regional transit 
agreements/arrangements, wondering how to limit the provision so that only Members capable of 
complying with the substantive criteria required fo r the participation in su ch regional agreements 
could profit from the discipline.  Further reflection w as required on how to integrate that point into the 
text. 
40. Another comment related to the obligation not to introduce a guarantee system for countries 
using other methods to prevent inland diversion.  Some wording had to be found on how to address 
the issue.  
41. Finally, some concerns had been raised with respect to the express inclusion of wording on 
infrastructure in the provision on scope.  While ther e had been some very useful discussions at the 
bilateral and plurilateral level, it had not been possible to reflect th e matter in the present revision.  
The co-sponsors hoped to work further in the future with all Members that had made comments on the 
text.  
42. The representative of Turkey
 introduced document TN/TF/W/146/Rev.2, explaining that it 
was a revision of an earlier version of the proposal on a free and transparent transit regime.  It had 
been prepared on the basis of the valuable comments made by de legations in the Negotiating Group 
and during bilateral talks with landlocked developing Members. 
43. The revised proposal was shorter, simpler, more practical and realistic without losing its main 
intention of improving freedom of transit and enhancing transparency in transit regimes. 
44. Looking at the proposal in more detail, one saw that the first paragraph had been deleted as a 
result of it having attracted some criticism for bei ng too strict.  The second paragraph in the earlier 
version of the proposal had become the first of th e current version with some modifications.  The 
expression "shall be applied in a transparent manne r" had been deleted since there was already a 
transparency requirement in paragraph 3.  Paragrap h 3 of the old version of the proposal had been 
kept as paragraph 2 of the current version without ch anges.  Since transit was a relatively new area in 
terms of judicial interpretation, one had to use the chance offered by the current negotiations to clarify 
the relationship between the freedom of transit principle and its exceptions. 
45. The elements in paragraph 1 and in paragraph 2 were nothing but an application of the current 
WTO jurisprudence on how provisions dealing with ex ceptions were interpreted to this specific case 
of transit.  
46. The notification mechanism for restrictions to tr ansit set out in paragraph 4 of the old version 
of the proposal had been kept in slightly modi fied form.  The necessity element had been deleted 
because it had also attracted some criticism by so me Members for going too far.  In the revised 
version, the elements to be notified were the objectiv e and the duration of the restriction.  The details 
of the notification process were open to further discu ssion.  This might include the question of which 
types of measures had to be notified. TN/TF/M/30 
Page 6  
 
  47. Paragraph 5 of the older version of the proposal  had been left out based on the comments and 
suggestions by interested Members.  Paragraph 6 of  the previous version on fees and charges had also 
been deleted since this issue had been tr eated in detail in proposal TN/TF/W/133. 
48. Paragraph 4 of the new version contained a national treatment principle for transit.  In line 
with the spirit of Article III of the GATT, the provis ion compared transit traffic with domestic traffic. 
The provision was intended to apply to transit traffi c under like conditions.  It targeted regulations like 
weight limits, speed limits, fees collected for the u se of highways, fees collected for other services 
utilized by transit and domestic traffic under like conditions or environmental regulations. 
49. Turkey was open to Members' responses to the proposal and ready to reply to their questions. 
50. The Negotiating Group took note
 of the statements made.  
B.  A D HOC ATTENDANCE OF RELEVANT INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS , INCLUDING THE 
IMF,  OECD,  UNCTAD,  WCO  AND THE WORLD BANK, AT THE NEXT MEETING OF THE 
NEGOTIATING GROUP  
51. The Chairman  suggested inviting relevant internati onal organizations, including the IMF, 
OECD, UNCTAD, WCO and the World Bank to attend the next formal meeting of the Negotiating 
Group on an ad hoc basis, as provided for in the Work Plan. 
52. It was so agreed . 
C. O THER BUSINESS  
53. The Chairman  addressed the issue of the Negotiating Group's next meeting, suggesting to 
hold it from 5 - 9 October.  Details regarding its content and structure would be communicated to 
Members in due course.  
54. It was so agreed .  
55. The Negotiating Group took note  of the statements made. 
56. The meeting was adjourned . 
 
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