. /.   WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  G/TBT/W/314 
10 June 2009 
 
 (09-2795) 
Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade Original:   English 
  
 
FIFTH TRIENNIAL REVIEW OF THE AGREEMENT  
ON TECHNICAL BARRIERS TO TRADE 
 
COMMENTS 
 
Communication from India
 
   The following communication, dated 8 June 2009, is being circulated at the request of the 
delegation of India
. 
 
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I. GLOBAL RELEVANCE OF INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS (COMMENTS ON 
SUBMISSION BY JAPAN CONTAINED IN JOB(09)/25)  
1. India concurs with the proposal of Japan with suggestions for followi ng additional inclusions/ 
comments:  
(a) Members who choose not to use international standards should give elaborate 
explanation for deviation. The developi ng countries would be required to give 
explanation only when they choose to b ase their regulation on a risk level that 
requires compliance with more onerous requirements than the one on which the 
international standard is based. 
(b) Instead of abolishing the "International Sta ndards" which have no global relevance, 
they should be appropriately modified by  the concerned international organization 
within a fixed time frame, so that they become relevant; and 
(c) The WTO TBT Secretariat should assess reas ons about why the Members deviate 
from International Standards and brainsto rm appropriate framework to discourage 
such deviations. Further, the TBT Comm ittee may come up with detailed guidelines 
regarding procedure to be followed by th e Members when that requires compliance 
with more onerous requirements than the one  on which the international standard is 
based. 
II. TRANSPARENCY (COMMENTS ON SUBMISSION BY THE EUROPEAN 
COMMUNITIES CONTAINED IN G/TBT/W/309) 
2. India concurs with the proposal of Eur opean Communities with following additional 
suggestions: 
(a) The non-availability of the full text in E nglish and other WTO languages is a major 
hindrance in the examination of TBT notifications by the developing countries and G/TBT/W/314 
Page 2  
 
  furnishing effective comments. This affect s their ability to export once the measure is 
adopted. Even if English translations are la ter made available by Members such as the 
European Communities, it involves some delay and the effective period for furnishing comments gets reduced in the process. Th e WTO Secretariat, with the help of 
developed countries, should hence work out a formal mechanism to make translations 
of full text available in English and other WTO languages to Members. Also, to make 
up for lost time in the translation process, the comment period should be at least 90 days when the translations of full text are not immediately available in English. 
(b) While we agree that the description of the content of the notified draft should be 
comprehensive and give a more detaile d overview of the envisaged technical 
regulations and conformity assessment pro cedures, we would like to request the 
WTO Secretariat to work out an appropriate format for the same. 
III. SPECIFIC TRADE CONCERNS (COMMENTS ON SUBMISSION BY CANADA 
CONTAINED IN (JOB(09)/50) 
3. India concurs with the proposal of Canada. Howe ver, we would like to suggest the following 
changes in para II: 
(a) In subpara (a), the time period should be at least 20 days instead of just 10 days. The 
developing countries, given their limited resources, would need some more time to respond appropriately to the STCs raised against them.  
(b) We support the suggestion that Members wishing to propose the inclusion of a 
specific trade concern on the annotated draft agenda should inform both the 
Secretariat and the Member(s)
 directly involved of their intention to do so, in writing, 
no less than twelve days  prior to the convening of the TBT Committee meeting. 
However, given the limited resources of developing countries, in case a STC is raised against a developing country, the intention should be communicated at least one month in advance.   
 
 
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