. /.  RESTRICTED  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  WT/REG156/M/2 
7 February 2006 
 
 (06-0506) 
Committee on Regional Trade Agreements 
Forty-First Session Original:  English 
 
 
 
EXAMINATION OF THE FREE TRADE AGREEMENT  
BETWEEN TURKEY AND CROATIA 
 
Note on the Meeting of 23 January 2006  
 
Chairman:  Mr. R. Saborío Soto (Costa Rica) 
  
1. The meeting was convened in document WTO/AIR/2734 
2. Under Agenda Item C.IV of its 41
st Session, the Committee on Regional Trade Agreements 
(hereinafter CRTA or the Committee) took up the second round of examination of the Free Trade Agreement between Turkey and Croatia. 
3. The Chairman
 said that the proceedings of the first round of examination of the Agreement, 
which had taken place in the Committee's Thirty -Seventh Session in October 2004, had been 
distributed in document WT/REG156/M/1, and the recen t exchange of questions and replies had been 
circulated as document WT/REG156/4.  Given that the Committee had already had a round of 
discussion under each of the headings of the Sta ndard Format, document WT/REG156/3, he proposed 
to open the floor for comments and questions by broad Section. 
4. Under Section I ("Background Information of the Agreement"), the representative of the 
United States  noted from the data provided by the Parties that there could be opportunities for 
expanded trade for both Parties in the agricultural sector, and asked whether there had been any new 
openings in this area.  The representative of Turkey  answered that no new openings in the agricultural 
sector had been envisaged and that concessions in Ta bles A and B of Protocol II remained unchanged 
so far, although Article 11 of the Agreement provi ded for the possibility of the Joint Committee to 
convene once a year and negotiate further concessi ons in that sector.  In this context, the 
representative of Japan  referred to the answer provided to question two in document WT/REG156/4; 
there it was said that the coverage of Turkey's impor ts of Croatian industrial goods would be 100 per 
cent after the transition period while the correspondi ng coverage for agricultural goods would remain 
at 41.1 per cent (based on data for the latter ha lf of 2003).  She asked what would be the total 
coverage of Turkey's imports of Croatian goods afte r the transition period on the basis of the latest 
data available.  The representative of Turkey  indicated that according to 2003 data, the coverage of 
agricultural trade was not 41.1 per cent but 25.5 pe r cent, and that November 2005 data showed a 
coverage of 39 per cent.  Further to a query of the representative of Australia  on whether such 
coverage was in terms of tariff lines or trade, the representative of Japan , stressed that her delegation 
was interested in total coverage (i.e. not only for agricultural products) on the basis of trade volume.  
The representative of Turkey  clarified that the percentages given before referred to trade volume; in 
terms of tariff lines, there had been no change in the coverage, which remained as described in Tables 
A and B of Protocol II.  He also informed that tr ade-based overall coverage rates were 77.9 per cent at 
zero duty, 14 per cent at less-than-MFN duties and 8.7 per cent at MFN duties; as of 1st January 2006 
there had been new developments in Table B of Protocol I and from then on, zero-duty trade accounted for 86.2 per cent, less-than-MFN for 5 pe r cent and 7.8 per cent was still at MFN rates. WT/REG156/M/2 
Page 2  
 
  5. The representative of United States
 was concerned that total duty-free coverage was only 86 
per cent, which in her view fell short of the basic st andard of "substantially all trade" in Article XXIV 
of the GATT.  She considered that additional liber alization could be achieved in agricultural products 
and urged the Parties to continue their liber alization process and make the Agreement more 
comprehensive.  The representative of Turkey  clarified that the previous figure related to Croatian 
imports from Turkey whereas 98.8 per cent of Turkis h imports from Croatia entered at zero duty.  
With regard to agricultural concessions, he re iterated that both Parties were willing to enlarge 
concessions and for that purpose the Jo int Committee would meet once a year. 
6. With relation to Section II ("Trade Provisions"), the representative of the United States  
enquired how did Articles 13 (Specific safeguards), 17 (Structural adjustment) and 19 (Emergency 
actions on imports of particular pr oducts) work together:  were they mutually exclusive or could, for 
example, a structural adjustment safeguard be put in place in response to an emergency?  The representative of Turkey
 replied that Article 13 was designed for concessions given in agricultural 
products, Article 17 referred to concessions in industrial products, and Article 19 was a general 
clause.  The difference was that the first two ar ticles related to the concessions offered in the 
Agreement whereas Article 19 was general, in line with WTO rules. 
7. The Chairman  said that the second round of examination of the FTA between Turkey and 
Croatia had allowed the Committee to clarify some  questions, but a number of issues remained 
pending.  He asked delegations wishing to submit wr itten questions to forward them to the Secretariat 
by 17 February 2006 and for the Parties to submit written replies by not later than 10 March 2006.  
The examination of the Agreement would continue at  a future Session of the Committee.  It was so 
agreed . 
8. The Committee took note  of the comments made. 
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