. /.   WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  G/TBT/N/CHE/96 
13 February 2008 
 (08-0644) 
Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade Original:   English 
  
 
NOTIFICATION 
 
The following notification is being circ ulated in accordance with Article 10.6. 
 
1. Member to Agreement notifying:   SWITZERLAND
 
If applicable, name of local government involved (Articles 3.2 and 7.2):         
2. Agency responsible:   Federal Office for Communications 
Name and address (including telephone and fax numbers, e-mail and web-site 
addresses, if available) of  agency or authority designated to handle comments 
regarding the notification shall be  indicated if different from above:    
State Secretariat for Economic Affairs 
Non-tariff Measures Division Effingerstrasse 1 CH-3003 Berne Tel: (+41) 3 1324 4477 
Fax: (+41) 3 1324 0958 
e-mail: tbt@seco.admin.ch 
3. Notified under Article 2.9.2 [  X ], 2.10.1 [   ], 5.6.2 [   ], 5.7.1 [   ], other:         
4. Products covered (HS or CCCN where applicable, otherwise national tariff heading. 
ICS numbers may be provided in  addition, where applicable):   Telecommunications 
equipment: radio equipment and tel ecommunications terminal equipment 
5. Title, number of pages and language(s) of the notified document:   Draft Revision of the 
Decree on telecommunications installations (OIT ), (2 pages, available in German and 
French). 
6. Description of content:    
Partial revision of the Decree on telecommunica tions installations (OIT). The modification 
concerns the simplification of the conditions of placing on the market and their alignment 
on the legislation of the European Community . This revision removes the requirement of 
the compliance with the Swiss national freque ncy allocation table as a condition for the 
placing on the market of radiocommunication equipments. After the entry into force of these modifications, radiocommunication equipm ents fulfilling the administrative and the 
essential requirements may be placed on the market even if they cannot be operated in Switzerland. To ensure the information to th e user, the actual provisions will be completed 
with the introduction of a conformity marki ng. This marking placed on the equipment and 
on the packaging in conjunction with the othe r already required marking shall indicate the 
compliance of the equipment with the provision of the applicable legislation and if it may be used in Switzerland. This information has also to be present if the equipment is offered on a 
catalogue, by Internet, … The Office may recognize other conformity marking from G/TBT/N/CHE/96 
Page 2  
 
  economies having a mutual recognition agreemen t (MRA) with Switzerland that establishes 
the equivalence of applicable essential  requirements and corresponding conformity 
assessment procedures (as the MRA Switzerland - European Community). At the moment, only the CE marking will be recognized as equiva lent to the Swiss conformity marking. A 
one year transition period is also foreseen to permit equipment which don't carry this 
conformity marking to continue  to be placed on the market until 30 April 2009. After this 
date all telecommunication equipments have  to carry the conformity marking.  
This revision also removes the requirement th at radio amateur equipment available on the 
market has to be blocked on radi o amateur frequencies above 30 MHz.  
Some editorial changes have been made as th e update of the reference to 2 European 
directives that have been changed (new LVD directive - 2006/95/EC and new EMC 
directive - 2004/108/CE). 
7. Objective and rationale, including the na ture of urgent problems where applicable:  
OIT must be amended to introduce simplifica tions in the regulation and some editorial 
changes. 
8. Relevant documents:   Decree on telecommunications installations (RS: 784.101.2), 
available in French, German and Italian. 
9. Proposed date of adoption:   
Proposed date of entry into force:    16 April 2008 
1 May 2008 
10. Final date for comments:   10 April 2008 
11. Texts available from:  National enquiry point [  X ] or address, telephone and fax 
numbers, e-mail and web-site addresses, if available of the other body:   
http://members.wto.org/crnattach ments/2008/tbt/CHE/08_0418_00_f.pdf