. /.   WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  TN/MA/W/11/Add.9 
13 August 2009 
 (09-3887) 
Negotiating Group on Market Access Original:   English 
  
 
MARKET ACCESS FOR NON-AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS 
 
Agreement on Non-Tariff Barriers Pertaining to Stan dards, Technical Regulations, and Conformity 
Assessment Procedures for Automotive Products  
 
Communication from the European Communities 
 
Addendum  
  
 The following communication, dated 13 August 2009,  is being circulated at the request of the 
delegation of the European Communities.  
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1. The European Communities have the honour of an nouncing that they are to present comments 
on the proposal for an Agreement on non-tariff barrier s pertaining to standards, technical regulations, 
and conformity assessment procedures for automotive  products as contained in the compilation of 
texts of the Chairman of the Negotiating Group on Market Access of 6 December 2008 (TN/MA/W/103/Rev.3). These comments will take the form of textual additions to the current 
proposal, which are designed to complement it a nd make it compatible with those regulatory 
approaches for automotive products which are based on a type-approval systems. The completed textual proposal will incorporate the negotiating text  as currently included in the Chair's compilation. 
2. Such a completed textual proposal shall be seen as an effort to bridge systemic differences 
between regulatory systems based on self-certific ation and systems based on type-approval. The 
completed textual proposal shall equally respond concretely to the request made by the Global 
Automotive Industry Dialogue (GAID) to provide mean ingful solutions to non-tariff barriers in the 
trade of automotive products. The GAID currently c onsists of national automotive associations from 
seven WTO Members: EC, U.S., Japan, Korea, India, Brazil and Canada. 
3. The automotive industry is one of the most globalised manufacturing industries – as the 
current economic crisis has more than sufficiently demonstrated. Markets are interlinked to such an 
extent that only global approaches will bring vi able solutions. This completed textual proposal 
outlines a process leading to a situation where using one global set of international standards and a 
single type approval will be sufficient to comme rcialise in any participating Member country a 
vehicle produced in any other Member country. Unnecessary duplications and variations will no 
longer be required. 
4. The proposal will contain numerous elements of  voluntary participation of WTO Members. 
National regulators will thereby retain the full control on their participation in the process. 
Strengthening of international harmonisation thr ough a gradual convergence process is one of the 
cornerstones of the proposal. Specific provisions will address questions of mutual recognition and 
propose the use of functional equivalence. TN/MA/W/11/Add.9 
Page 2  
 
  5. Finally, aspects that have already been present in the earlier proposal text as collated by the 
Chair, such as for instance good regulatory practice and transparency, have of course been included 
into the completed textual proposal, to take acco unt of the global interc onnection relevant for 
regulation, production and trade in the automotive sector. 
6. The European Communities intend to present this  completed textual proposal in advance of 
the next NAMA week addressing non-tariff barriers as announced by the Chair. 
 
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