RESTRICTED  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  WT/REG/M/50 
24 October 2008 
 (08-5180) 
Committee on Regional Trade Agreements 
Fiftieth Session  
 
 
 
NOTE ON THE MEETING OF 18-19 SEPTEMBER 2008 
 
Chairman:  Mr. D. Brauns (Germany ) 
 
 
A. ADOPTION OF THE AGENDA  
1. The 50th Session of the Committee on Regional Trad e Agreements (hereinafter CRTA or the 
Committee) was convened in Airgram WTO/AIR/3202 and Corrigendum 2, dated 5 June and 9 July 
2008, respectively.  The current Session of the CRTA had originally been scheduled for 17-18 July 
but had been postponed due to the Ministerial meetings at that time.   
2. Under "Other Business" the Chairman  announced his intention to provide the remaining 
programme of meetings for the year. 
3. The following Agenda was adopted: 
A. Adoption of the Agenda 
B. Consideration of Regiona l Trade Agreements (RTAs) 
I. Status report on the Committee's work 
II. Comprehensive Economic Coopera tion Agreement between India and 
Singapore, goods and services 
III. Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreem ent between Brunei 
Darussalam, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore, goods and services 
IV. Free Trade Agreement between Chile and China, goods 
V. Bilateral Protocol between El Sa lvador and Panama to the Free Trade 
Agreement between Central America and Panama, good and services 
VI. Protocol of Montevideo on Trade in Services in The MERCOSUR 
C. Other Business  
4. The Chairman
 recalled that the Latin American Integration Association (LAIA) had been 
granted observer status to the CRTA on an ad hoc  basis and sought confirmation to extend an 
invitation to LAIA to attend the Committee's next meeting.  It was so agreed . 
B. CONSIDERATION OF REGIONAL TRADE AGREEMENTS (RTA S) 
B.I. Status Report on the Committee's work 
 
5. Under this Agenda item, the Chairman  provided Members with an update on the 
implementation of the Transparency Mechanism.   First he informed them that 31 early 
announcements had been placed on the WTO website  (not counting three RTAs which had been 
subsequently notified).  As regards the factual ab stracts to be prepared on those RTAs for which a 
factual examination had already been completed, 19 had been posted on the WTO website, and 32 had 
been prepared and sent to the relevant parties for their comments.  He urged those parties to submit WT/REG/M/50 
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  their comments as soon as possible.  The remaining th ree factual abstracts were being drafted.  The 
Secretariat had informed him that the preparation of factual abstracts in services were underway and 
that these would be sent to the relevant parties for comment as soon as they had been drafted. 
6. As regards the preparation of the factual pr esentations under the remit of the CRTA, there 
were presently 51 RTAs for which a factual presen tation had to be prepared, counting goods and 
services separately.  The figure did not include 35 RT As for which factual presentations were on hold 
involving non-Members, or for which specific commitments had not yet been agreed.  Following informal consultations with Members on the ques tion of agreements involving non-Members, the 
view seemed to have been that factual presentations  for these RTAs should continue to be held in 
abeyance.  He asked the Secretariat to provide  further details on the preparation of factual 
presentations. 
7. A representative of the Secretariat
 said that 18 RTAs (counting goods and services separately) 
had been scheduled for consideration in the CRTA meeting scheduled for July which had had to be 
cancelled for the preparation of the Ministerial meet ing, and nine had been scheduled for the current 
session under the Committee's work programme.  Of th ese, eight were actually on the Agenda of the 
meeting.  The situation with regard to the othe rs was as follows:  for Jordan-Singapore, goods and 
services;  EFTA-Egypt, goods;  EFTA-Tunisia, goods ;  Japan-Chile, goods and services;  and 
Japan-Mexico, goods and services, th e factual presentations had been recently issued and would be 
considered at the CRTA meeting in November.  Fo r SACU, the Secretariat had received comments on 
the factual presentation which had been sent to  the Parties on 11 March 2008 from four of the 
five SACU parties;  this morning the Secretariat had received comments from South Africa, therefore, 
the consideration of the Agreement would be sche duled for early 2009 since the deadline had been 
missed for the circulation of the document for th e CRTA meeting in November 2008.  For EC-South 
Africa, data had been initially requested from the Parties in February 2007 and had been received 
from the EC in May 2007.  In August 2007 South Afri ca had indicated that it would be able to provide 
data by June 2008, but then had requested an ex tension until the end of August 2008.  At the 
beginning of September, South Africa had inform ed the Secretariat that the data would not be 
available until the end of September or the beginning of October.  The Secretariat was in touch with 
the South African authorities in an effo rt to try to speed up the process.   
8. For EU Enlargement (25), services, the EC was not presently in agreement with the 
Secretariat's draft and discussions were continuing.  The factual presentation of EU(27), goods and services, was therefore on hold until this issue was r esolved.  For Turkey-Tun isia, there were some 
outstanding data issues which the Secretariat was tr ying to resolve with the Parties.  The Agreement 
would probably be considered in early 2009 if this  problem was resolved.  For EC-Egypt, originally 
scheduled for consideration in July 2007, the Secret ariat was still awaiting tariff data from Egypt.  For 
Japan-Malaysia, some data had been received from Malaysia;  Japan had submitted data in July but 
there were some problems with the data from both Par ties that the Secretariat w as trying to resolve.  
Consideration of this agreement had been resch eduled for early 2009.  For Japan-Thailand, the 
Secretariat had received data from Thailand;  Japan would resubmit its data.  The Secretariat therefore did not expect to consider this agreement until early  2009.  For Costa Rica-Mexico, data requested by 
7 December 2007 had been received only from Costa Rica.  The Secretariat had rescheduled this agreement for 2009 and was in contact with the Mexican authorities for provision of the data.  For EFTA-Korea, goods and services, the Secretariat had ha d some problems with Iceland's data.  It was 
in discussion with the parties and would r eschedule this agreement for early 2009. 
9. Fourteen RTAs were scheduled for the next m eeting of the CRTA in November.  However, a 
number of these would be rescheduled for the fo llowing reasons: for US-Bahrain, data originally 
requested in July 2007 for submission in October 2007 had been received from the US but not from Bahrain;  for Mexico-Northern Triangle, data from Mexico had been received recently and this 
agreement had been rescheduled for consideration in  early 2009;  for Korea-Singapore, the Secretariat  WT/REG/M/50 
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  had received all the data requested and the agr eement would be considered in 2009;  and for 
Mexico-Nicaragua, data originally requested by  November 2007 had still not been received.  For 
CAFTA-DR, the Secretariat was awaiting notifi cation from Costa Rica that the Agreement had 
entered into force for Costa Rica before proceeding with the consideration of this Agreement.  She 
finished by thanking those parties who had respon ded in a timely fashion to requests for data and 
comments and stressed that without Members' cooperation, the Secretariat would not be able to keep 
up with the timelines mandated by the Transparen cy Mechanism for the preparation of factual 
presentations, nor would it be able to reduce the back log of agreements for which the Secretariat had 
to prepare factual presentations. 
10. The Chairman  opened the floor for comments that Members wanted to make on the 
Committee's work. 
11. The representative of India  said that given the growing role of RTAs in global trade, the 
Committee had a pivotal rule to play and he was sure  that the Chairman would bring his considerable 
ability to bear on the functioning of the Committee.  He thanked to the Secretariat for having provided 
the Members with the status report;  it was indeed disappointing to note the backlog, and Members all 
had to make greater efforts to see how this i ssue could be addressed.  As regards transparency, 
paragraph 29 of the Doha Ministerial declaration had called for negotiations aimed at clarifying and 
improving disciplines and procedures under the exis ting WTO provisions applying to regional trade 
agreements.  Under the rules negotiations, a Tr ansparency Mechanism had been negotiated and 
established in December 2006 by a General Council deci sion.  The consideration of five RTAs in the 
current meeting was a result of this decision.  On  the same date, the Gene ral Council had invited the 
Committee on Trade and Development (CTD) to consid er transparency for preferential arrangements, 
other than RTAs under paragraph 2 of the Enabling Cl ause.  Text based negotiations were ongoing in 
the CTD and the Chair of the CTD was keeping the Ge neral Council informed of progress in this area.  
A text co-sponsored by Brazil, the United States, Ch ina and India was being negotiated.  During these 
negotiations it had been felt that several non-recipr ocal schemes remained outside the coverage of any 
transparency mechanism and therefore, there had been  an effort to include such schemes for reasons 
of transparency.  While on the one hand, Memb ers sought greater coverage for transparency 
mechanisms, on the other hand they could end up in a situation where significant RTAs were 
excluded from consideration in the CRTA or the CT D just because one or a few members were not 
Members of the WTO.  In his view, this would negate the positive trend towards increasing transparency and was an important systemic issue.   His delegation would suggest that Members had 
more detailed discussions on this issue in the next meeting of the CRTA. 
12. The representative of Japan
 shared the interests of India, and supported India's suggestion to 
discuss the issue at the next CRTA meeting,  perhaps in an informal session first. 
13. The Chairman  agreed with those delegations that ha d spoken that the consideration of RTAs 
including non-Members was an issue which Members would have to tackle at some point in time.  
That was why he had held informal consultations with a number of Members on the question.  He had 
received very different reactions: some Members had been clearly interested in discussing this issue, but for others, although they were open to discussion, the issue was not a priority for them.  Others had asked legal questions of different kinds – for ex ample, whether this was an Article XXIV of the 
GATT 1994 issue or more related to MFN and had sugg ested that these legal issues needed to be 
clarified before Members discussed the issue.  Othe rs were concerned that raising this issue would 
bring up divisive legal questions in the Committee and saw no necessity or priority for discussions.  
They had suggested that the Committe e first work on the backlog whic h had been growing in the last 
few years.  Thus, his conclusion was that while this  was an issue that Members would have to tackle 
at some point in time, his sense was that Members did not feel a strong enough need to discuss the issue in the Committee at present as they were more or less satisfied with the present situation.  Thus, 
his conclusion was to continue with the status quo which was to hold these agreements in abeyance, WT/REG/M/50 
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  i.e. keep them on hold.  Nonetheless, he was ready to take up consultations any time, but only if he 
had very clear indications from Members that there was an interest.  He suggested that Members took 
note of the statements that had been made.  He i nvited Members to come back to the Chairman as 
soon as possible with clear expressions of interest and maybe also of position, so that they could have 
an informal discussion of the issue.  He woul d wait for Members' interventions, comments and 
positions on the issue. 
14. He took the opportunity to remind Members that, as communicated to Members in fax no. 
260, dated 4 September 2008, there would be an informal session of the Committee directly following the conclusion of the current Session of the CRTA during which the Secretariat would make a presentation of the RTA-IS database which was foreseen in the Transp arency Mechanism. 
B. II-VI. (The minutes of the consideration of th e Agreements listed under agenda items B.II-VI are 
being distributed as separate documents).  C. O
THER BUSINESS  
15. Under this Agenda item, the Chairman  informed Members of the dates for the CRTA's 
remaining meeting in 2008 scheduled for 27-28 November. 
16. The Committee took note  of the comments made. 
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