WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  G/TBT/W/269 
6 October 2006 
 
 (06-4809) 
Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade Original:   Spanish 
  
 
FOURTH TRIENNIAL REVIEW OF TH E OPERATION AND IMPLEMENTATION 
OF THE AGREEMENT ON TECHNICAL BARRIERS TO TRADE 
 
Communication from Colombia
 
 
 
 The following communication, dated 28 September 2006, is being circulated at the request of the delegation of Colombia
. 
 
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I. INTRODUCTION 
1. The purpose of this document is to contribute to a discussion of the factors that might be 
impeding trade between WTO Members as a result of the implementation of technical regulations, 
standards and other procedures relating to the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade.  We 
therefore attach vital importance to the assessme nt of implementation of the Agreement being 
conducted by the Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade on the occasion of the Fourth Triennial 
Review.  Colombia has encountered a variety of difficulties in implementing the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade, difficulties it wishes to  share with the other members of the Committee, 
with a view to finding solutions and improvements in  the context of the Fourth Triennial Review.  
2. Colombia has also benefited from the implementa tion of the TBT Agreement.  It is in our 
interest not only to discuss the difficulties encountered, but also to report on the benefits derived from the operation of this Agreement in areas such as technical regulation, conformity assessment 
procedures and ensuring transparency.  In our view, the triennial reviews must reflect both the drawbacks and difficulties encountered in implementa tion of the Agreement where trade is concerned, 
and also the benefits and the contributions by Members to the operation of the Agreement. 
3. Thus, this Fourth Triennial Review of the TBT Agreement also provides an opportunity to 
propose any improvements that may be deemed nece ssary for enhanced operation of the Agreement in 
certain areas of its application. 
II. GOOD REGULATORY PRACTICE 
4. The TBT Agreement contains no specific provisi ons regarding good regulatory practice.  In 
Colombia, a number of measures have been develope d at national and subregional levels, on the basis 
of experience gained in the area of technical regul ation, indicating the guidelines and conditions that 
must be complied with in preparing and issuing techni cal regulations.  In line with the Agreement, it 
is emphasized that regulation should be adopted, wh en necessary, solely on the basis of the risk 
associated with the products, and should be in conformity with international standards.  G/TBT/W/269 
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  5. The measures applied by Colo mbia are as detailed below: 
• At national level, in Decree 2360 of 2001, which establishes that "the criteria and 
formal and substantive conditions that must  be fulfilled for the issuance of technical 
regulations by the competent entities shall be those established in Resolution 3742 of 
2 February 2001 issued by the Superintendency of Industry and Trade". 
 
• At Andean level, in Decision 562 establishi ng guidelines for the preparation, adoption 
and implementation of Techni cal Regulations in the Member Countries of the Andean 
Community. 
 6. It is important to mention other factors that must be taken into account in order to achieve 
efficient and effective regulation: 
• Assessment of the signals sent by the mark et in the area of regulation, resulting from 
market failures. 
 
• The costs of implementation and certification and the administrative costs incurred by 
the productive sector in complyi ng with technical regulation. 
 
• Procedures for determining equi valency between regulations. 
 
• Acceptance of the results of the conformity assessment. 
 
• Assessments of the impact of regulation. 
 7. Colombia is of the view that when, in the regulatory process, use is  made of indicative 
references or citations from techni cal standards, whether international, regional, national or at 
Association level, the relevant requirements mu st be transcribed, and the corresponding standards 
annexed to the regulation only in cases where they ha ve been adopted by our national standardization 
body as a Colombian Technical Standard, on account of  the possible copyright implications for the 
State. 
8. With regard to the relevant provisions of th e Agreement, concerning the use of applicable 
international standards or recommendations in the preparation of technical regulations, Colombia 
believes that international standards do not always fulfil Members' regulatory expectations.  There are 
a number of reasons why we hold this view, namely, that their requirements are not sufficient to defend legitimate rights;  that the levels of the requirements are not commensurate with the need to 
protect human, animal and plant life and health;  th at the requirements set forth in the standards are 
not intended to protect legitimate objectives but rather to secure market penetration;  that no technical 
standards have been prepared in the specific ar ea requiring regulation;  or else that copyright 
ultimately constitutes a barrier to their use, in cases where the national standardization body is not a 
member of the international or regional standardization entity. 
III. CONFORMITY ASSESSMENT PROCEDURES 
9. As regards the problem of conformity assessment procedures, Colombia believes that in 
utilizing international standards some WTO Members impose unnecessary additional burdens on 
exporters in WTO Member countries, when they deviate from the requirements established in the 
international standards by imposi ng new requirements or partially or totally modifying them, or by 
requiring an additional procedure for like products.  The practice of requiring documents additional to 
those commonly accepted internationally to verify the conformity assessment represents a technical  G/TBT/W/269 
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  barrier to trade, a practice applied in various count ries, even in our own, and one which complicates 
and distorts international trade flows.  For th is reason it is necessary to establish risk-associated 
guidelines, indicating when a declaration by a first,  second or third party is justified in the same way 
as the various types of certification facilitating trade between countries. 
10. Colombia attaches great importance to accreditation based on international standards.  We 
therefore believe that further work must be  done in the TBT Committee on the meaning of 
instruments for designation and accreditation in conformity assessment procedures.  We are 
convinced that the action to be taken in this ar ea will contribute significantly to eliminating the 
barriers caused by the limited availability of  laboratories, inspection bodies and accredited 
certification bodies. 
11. When utilized in specific circumst ances and for specified sectors,  the supplier's declaration of 
conformity constitutes a less costly and more flexib le means of ensuring conformity, especially when 
the intention is to prevent practices that may mi slead the consumer.  Confidence in a supplier's 
declaration of conformity can be a more economica l and efficient instrument and an alternative to 
third party certification in regulation of labelling, when it does not involve mandatory testing or other 
conformity assessment procedures, in guaranteeing compliance with the regulatory requirements and 
the country's legitimate objectives. 
12. We are concerned that, when one and the same  product is regulated by various bodies in a 
single country, the result is a proliferation of conf ormity stamps and marks;  Colombia accordingly 
proposes that the Committee should investigate whet her each technical regulation corresponds to a 
single conformity assessment procedure and is veri fied by means of one single document proving 
conformity per product.  If interest warrants, Colombia proposes that Members should consider 
further exploring this issue in greater detail at other events. 
13. We urge Members to consider and support the possibility of the Chair of the Committee being 
entrusted with the task of preparing an invent ory of the availability of conformity assessment 
procedures, containing information on accreditation,  certification and inspection bodies and testing 
and calibration laboratories.  The purpose is to enab le this inventory to be  consulted through the WTO 
web site, in the short term. 
IV. TRANSPARENCY 
14. With regard to the need for Members to fulf il their transparency obligations under the 
Agreement, in particular those related to the notifi cation of draft technical regulations and conformity 
assessment procedures, as required under Articles 2.9 and 2.10 of the Agreement, Colombia has 
adopted various practices to facilitate access to in formation, thereby improving application of the 
procedures to ensure transparency. 
15. Thus, starting in 2001, Colombia introduced a 90-day general deadline for submission of 
comments on notifications of draft technical regu lations and conformity assessment procedures, 
which may be extended when a Member makes a r easonable request for extension of the deadline 
fixed for comments, requests to which the country has customarily given favourable consideration. 
16. Colombia also gives voluntary notification of th e final text of the technical regulations and 
conformity assessment procedures as an addendum to th e original notifications.  This is to enable 
Members to verify that the comments made have b een taken into account, and to enable them  to 
check that the final texts correspond in substance to the draft texts notified.  Accordingly, we propose 
that Members consider notifying the final texts of  technical regulations and conformity assessment 
procedures as an addendum to the original notifications. G/TBT/W/269 
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  17. Colombia endorses exporters' interest in being info rmed of the notified draft or final texts of 
technical regulations or conformity assessment pr ocedures applicable to pr oducts intended to be 
placed on a given market, with a view to improving conditions for access.  This service is already implemented in our country through the "SIRT"  export early warning programme, which enables 
exporters and Members to download the full text of th e measure notified.  With a view to making this 
transparency measure more efficient, we pr opose that the Committee recommend that the WTO 
Secretariat create a link with this programme and with other databases developed by Members.
1 
18. With regard to the proposal by the Re public of Chile (document G/TBT/W/268 dated 
12 June 2006), that "Members should have access to  the replies to the most significant comments 
prompted by a notification", we suggest that the Committee secretariat prepar e a notification format 
for replies to the most significant comments receiv ed by a Member, to allow all Members to gain 
experience of issues that raise concerns about  TBT matters and of how they are resolved. 
19. At the formal meeting of the Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade on 7, 8 and 
9 June 2006, Colombia spoke in favour of the Committee establishing a reasonable period of time for 
consideration of the comments made by Members, between the deadline for formulation of comments 
and the adoption of the technical re gulations and conformity assessment procedures.  In our view, that 
period of time should not be 15 days, but longer, possibl y 60 days or more, in view of the complexity 
of the internal procedures between the entities res ponsible for preparing the drafts and the national 
notification authority. 
20. With regard to participation of developing c ountry Members in international standardization 
activities, Colombia considers that the developing countries are subjected to discriminatory treatment 
in the multilateral fora in which technical sta ndards are adopted, as they do not have access to 
Spanish-language versions of doc uments under discussion circulated in other languages, which would 
enable them to study, analyse and comment on them on an equal footing, with the result that language 
becomes a barrier to knowledge and to Members' potential contributions. 
21. Colombia believes it is of the utmost importan ce, when preparing international standards, 
guidelines and recommendations relating to the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade, that in 
addition to complying with the principles of tran sparency, openness, impartiality and consensus, 
efficacy, relevance and coherence, the standardi zation organizations and in stitutions should take 
account of the interests of the developing countries with a view to enabling their national standardization bodies to have access to technical standards, so that by adopting them they may 
become defenders of copyright in each of those c ountries;  in turn making those technical standards 
available in the developing countries, and thereby facilitating trade. 
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1 The Andean Community's notification and technical regulation information system was developed 
with technical assistance from the European Union.