WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  WT/REG/M/47 
1 October 2007 
 (07-4126) 
Committee on Regional Trade Agreements 
Forty Seventh Session  
 
 
 
NOTE ON THE MEETING OF 13 SEPTEMBER 2007 
 
Chairman:  Mr. J. Metcalfe (United Kingdom ) 
 
 
A. ADOPTION OF THE AGENDA  
1. The 47th Session of the Committee on Regional Trad e Agreements (hereinafter CRTA or the 
Committee) was convened in Airgram WTO/AIR/3031/  and Corrigendum.1 dated 11 June and 6 July, 
respectively. 
2. The Chairman  announced that under "Other Business",  he wished to inform Members about 
new dates for the next CRTA meeting.  
3. The following Agenda was adopted.  
 A. Adoption of the Agenda 
 B.  Consideration of Regi onal Trade Agreements (RTAs) 
  I. Status report on the Committee's work 
  II. Free Trade Agreement between the EFTA States and Chile, goods and 
 services 
  III. Free Trade Agreement between th e United States and Australia, goods and 
   services  C. Other Business 
 
4. The Chairman
 proposed to close the morning session at 12:30 p.m. and reconvene at 3 p.m.  
He would keep delegations informed of the futu re timings of the meeti ng which would depend on 
progress made, but in any case he would give all the parties an opportunity to refer questions back to capitals overnight.  The meeting would therefore be convened the following day in order for the 
parties to reply to questions as best as they could.  
5. The Chairman
 recalled that the Latin American Integr ation Association (the 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  
B.1. Status Report on the Committee's work 
 
6. Under this agenda item, the Chairman  provided Members with an update on the 
implementation of the Transparency Mechanism (TM).  He informed them that the system of early 
announcements appeared to be working well.  By the end of August, early announcements had been 
received on 26 RTAs and had been placed on the WTO website and he thanked all the parties 
concerned.  He also informed Members that a num ber of factual abstracts on the goods aspects of  WT/REG/M/47 
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  RTAs for which an examination had been completed, had been drafted and sent to the relevant parties 
for their comments.  Factual abstracts for which comments had been received would be posted on the 
WTO website shortly.  For factual abstracts of RTAs covering trade in services, the Secretariat would distribute a template during the meeting.  He asked Members to reflect on it and to forward any comments to the Secretariat and he would find an opportunity to address any outstanding concerns.  
7. There were currently 51 RTAs for which a Fact ual Presentation had to be prepared, counting 
goods and services separately.  This did not include RTAs involving non-Members, although that issue would need to be addressed at some point.  The figure of 51 included 41 in the backlog, i.e. those RTAs that had been notified to the WTO befo re the adoption of the TM in December 2006, and 
10 which had been notified since then.  The Secr etariat's objective was to keep abreast of new 
notifications for which, in accordance with para graph 6 of the TM, consideration needed to be 
completed within one year, while reducing the back log at the same time.  Progress in reducing the 
backlog had unfortunately been slower than expected thus far. 
8. There continued to be difficulties particularly  in respecting the dead lines mandated by the 
TM.  The Secretariat had tried to make adjustments to timing in response to some of the difficulties 
highlighted by Members.  For example, the Secr etariat's work schedule now provided for the draft 
Factual Presentation to be sent to the Parties 19 w eeks before the CRTA meeting to allow them extra 
time to comment on the draft and respond jointly to  questions posed by Members.  Despite this 
modification, some Members still appeared to be  having difficulties in meeting these deadlines.  
There had also continued to be difficulties with th e receipt of tariff and trade data.  He passed the 
floor to the Secretariat for further details.   
9. A member of the Secretariat
 noted that as had been established during the previous 
CRTA meeting the Secretariat would keep Me mbers informed about progress on Factual 
Presentations scheduled for the next CRTA meeti ng.  Under the work programme for 2007 only four 
of the seven RTAs which had been scheduled for consideration in the current session of the CRTA 
were on the agenda.  The other three had had to  be postponed for various reasons.  One was the 
factual presentation for the RTA between EFTA and Tuni sia which had been sent to the Parties with a 
deadline for comments of 28 August.  This Fact ual Presentation had been scheduled for the CRTA 
meeting in November, but the Secretariat still need ed comments from the Parties as soon as possible 
and would appreciate their full cooperation in meeti ng these deadlines.  For the Factual Presentation 
on the RTA between the EC and South Africa, the EC had provided the necessary data and the Secretariat was proceeding with its analysis of that data.  South Africa, however, had indicated that it 
was not in a position to provide the required data before June 2008.  So that Factual Presentation 
would inevitably have to be postponed.  Regardi ng the RTA between the EC and Egypt, again the EC 
had provided the necessary data.  The data received from Egypt contained a number of discrepancies 
which the Secretariat was trying to  resolve with the authorities. 
10. For the CRTA meeting scheduled for November  2007, 11 Factual Presentations had been 
originally scheduled, of which only four might be on the agenda (five if EFTA-Tunisia, originally 
scheduled for the current session, were to be in cluded).  These were US-Morocco goods and services, 
EC-Chile services, and Turkey-Morocco goods.  Dr aft Factual Presentations on these agreements had 
been sent to the Parties for comments:  for EC -Chile the Secretariat had received preliminary 
comments with final comments expected in early  September;  for US-Morocco, comments were 
awaited from the US while Morocco had required a Fr ench version of the Factual Presentation (which 
had now been sent to them) before it could prov ide comments;  for Turkey-Morocco, comments had 
been received from Turkey, but not yet from Morocco.   This meant that the Secretariat would have 
difficulty in issuing the documents ten weeks before the meeting.   
11. For the other seven RTAs originally schedul ed for the CRTA meeting in November 2007 the 
situation was as follows:  for Japan-Mexico, goods and services, data had recently been received from  WT/REG/M/47 
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  both Parties and the Secretariat was in a position to  draft the Factual Presentation and had scheduled it 
for consideration in 2008;  for Turkey-Tunisia, th e tariff phase-down data from Tunisia was awaited;  
for MERCOSUR services, some data had been r eceived, but some was still missing, and the 
Secretariat had been working with the authorities to  resolve outstanding issues;  for EU Enlargement 
(25) services, the data had been received and the F actual Presentation was currently being drafted;  for 
Panama-El Salvador goods and services, the draft ha d been prepared and would be scheduled for the 
first CRTA meeting in 2008.  She again requested the Parties to try and do their best to respect the 
deadlines mandated in the Mechanism.  The Secretar iat was also trying to do its best given its own 
internal pressures, such as transl ation, to ensure the smooth operation of the Mechanism and a 
reduction of the backlog. 
12. The Chairman  said that in response to requests from interested Members some of the 
deadlines had been relaxed to give more time for the provision of the necessary information, but it 
was vital for the Parties concerned to respect th e deadlines as far as possible, otherwise there would 
be adverse comments from outside stakeholders on the effectiveness of the TM.    
13. Regarding the Factual Abstracts, th e representative of the United States  asked how many had 
been sent for comment to the Parties, the number th at remained to be done and how long this would 
take.  On the scheduling problem for the Fact ual Presentations she suggested having fewer 
CRTA meetings during the year and to distribute the Factual Presentations well in advance of the 
meeting, to give Parties more time to comment and work on them.   
14. The Secretariat  noted that the Factual Abstracts that had been completed related only to the 
goods aspects of RTAs as had been agreed at an in formal CRTA meeting.  The Secretariat would be 
distributing a template for Factual Abstracts c oncerning the services aspects of RTAs during the 
meeting and would appreciate any comments on the te mplate.  Once the template had been approved 
the Secretariat could start work on the services aspects of RTAs including those concerning both 
goods and services where there may be overlap and it  may therefore make sense to do the goods and 
services aspects together in one Abstract.  She estimated that between 25 and 30 Factual Abstracts on 
the goods aspects had been sent to Parties for comment. 
15. The representative of Brazil  said it would not be necessary to have Factual Abstracts 
involving goods and services both in a single documen t and had a preference for separate abstracts for 
goods and services.  On the scheduling problems fo r Factual Presentations he was sure that the 
Secretariat and the Parties to the agreement were making their best efforts.  He appreciated the 
flexibility that had been shown on trying to accommodate specific requests for changes in dates or 
timeframes, but the flexibility w as limited.  Since the TM was operating on a provisional basis, these 
issues would need to be considered before it was made definite. 
16. On the issue of whether to prepare separate Abstracts for goods and services, the Chairman  
remarked that it was probably a question of resour ces, with a joint Abstract on goods and services 
being more efficiently produced.  He asked delegates to comment on this issue when sending back 
comments on the services Abstract template.  Members would be aware that there had been informal 
discussions to make changes to time lines in the preparation of Factual Presentations.  He was not going 
to suggest any formal changes to the TM at the pres ent time but was open to ideas.  There had to be a 
balance between providing the parties and other Member s with sufficient time to digest and provide the 
necessary information and the urgency of getti ng through the agreements.  The symposium on RTAs 
held earlier in the week had noted that RTAs were here to stay and their gr owth would be exponential 
suggesting that the work of the CRTA  would increase over time.  He was happy to discuss this at a later 
time. 
B.II – III. (The minutes of the consideration of th e Agreements listed under agenda items B.II-III are 
being distributed as separate documents). WT/REG/M/47 
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  C. O
THER BUSINESS  
17. Under this agenda item, the Chairman  announced that the CRTA meeting on 
31 October-2 November had been rescheduled to 29-3 0 November.  The change had in part reflected 
concerns over the availabi lity of rooms and had also become ne cessary due to the general slippages 
that had been experienced in the receipt of data and other information necessary to the preparation of 
the Factual Presentations.  He also reminded Members that he had promised to circulate the template 
on Factual Abstracts on the services aspects of RTAs and he proposed instead that the Secretariat send it by fax or electronically to Members by the beginning of the following week at the latest.  Finally, he 
thanked Members for their construc tive engagement, and the parti es, particularly those who had 
travelled a long way from Cap itals, and the interpreters. 
18. The Committee took note
 of the comments made.   
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