RESTRICTED  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  G/MA/M/41 
15 May 2006 
 
 (06-2370) 
Committee on Market Access  
  
MINUTES OF THE MEETING HELD ON 4 APRIL 2006 
 
Chairman: Mr. Martin Pospíšil (Czech Republic)
 
Subject discussed                                                                                                                                      Page  
 
1. Periodic report of the Committee to th e Council for Trade in Goods including 
factual  information on waivers expiring on 30 April 2006 (G/MA/SPEC/32)....................1  
2. Submission of HS96 documentation........................................................................................2  
3. Changes in the Harmonized System to be introduced on 1 January 2007 – 
Correlation tables (G/MA/W/76).............................................................................................2  
4. Modalities and operation of th e Integrated Data Base..........................................................3  
5. Consolidated Tariff Schedules Database ................................................................................4  
6. Dissemination of the IDB and the CTS database...................................................................6  
7. Notifications of quant itative restri ctions.................................................................................7  
8. Notifications under the Decision on rev erse Notification of Non-tariff measures 
(G/MA/NTM/W/3/Rev.1)..........................................................................................................7  
9. Tariff information available in the Tariff Library ................................................................7  
10. Report on certification status of commitments described in JOB(05)/167 and Corr.1......................................................................................................................... ................7
 
11. Date of the ne xt meeting ....................................................................................................... ....7 
12. Election of th e Chairman ....................................................................................................... ..7 
 ANNEX 1 ....................................................................................................................... ............8 
 ANNEX 2 ....................................................................................................................... ..........10 
 
 The Committee adopted  the agenda as reproduced in WTO/AIR/2788.  An annotated agenda 
was circulated in document JOB(06)/71.  
1. Periodic report of the Committee to the Council for Trade in Goods including factual 
 information on waivers expiring on 30 April 2006 (G/MA/SPEC/32) 
 
1.1 The Chairman
 drew attention to document G/MA/SPEC /32 which contained the draft periodic 
report of the Committee.  He noted that this repor t, which would be finalized in the light of the 
discussion that would take place at this meeting,  would be submitted to the Council for Trade in 
Goods (CTG) for examination.  The report cont ained in its Annex a table summarizing factual 
information on the waivers under process submitted by the Members concerned.    1.2 Argentina and Panama had forwarded requests for waiver extensions in connection with the 
introduction of HS96 changes to their schedules of concessions. Factual information had been 
provided by these Members concerning their request and  draft decisions had also been circulated.    G/MA/M/41 
Page 2  
 
  1.3 The Committee took note
 of the requests, approved  the draft waiver decisions and agreed  to 
forward them to the CTG for appropriate action.  
2. Submission of HS96 documentation 
2.1 The Chairman
 drew attention to document G/MA/TAR/2/Rev.37  which reflected the present 
situation concerning the submission of required docum entation.  From the document, it could be noted 
that the submissions of Argentina, Israel, and Panama  remained pending because of reservations by 
other Members.   In addition some information n eeded to be provided by Venezuela, Paraguay and 
Thailand in order for certification of th eir HS96 documentation to take place.   
 
2.2 The representative of Thailand  indicated that she would relay this information to her capital 
and contact the Secretariat soon.   2.3 The Committee took note
 of the document and the statements.  
 3. Changes in the Harmonized System to be introduced on 1 January 2007 – Correlation 
tables (G/MA/W/76)  
3.1 The Chairman
 noted that the HS2007 changes would enter into force on 1 January 2007.  The 
changes which were communicated by the WCO to the WTO were circulated in document 
G/MA/W/67 and were presented this time last y ear by representatives from the WCO.   The WCO had 
now transmitted the correlation tables which had been circulated in document G/MA/W/76.  
 
3.2 The representative of the WCO  (Mr. J. Hindsdal) stated that the correlation tables did not 
have any legal status. However, they did provide an  explanation of the amendments that were to be 
introduced by all the contracting parties on 1 January  2007.  With regard to the implementation of 
HS2002, he noted that there were 121 contracting par ties to the HS convention, but were aware that 
about 200 countries were using the HS as the basis fo r their national tariff. So far, most of these 121 
countries which had an obligation to implement th e amendments on 1 January 2002 had done so but 
there were still 13 countries missing, or at least who had not informed the WCO about the status of implementation. On the 2007 edition, at the HS Committee session which had ended last Friday, the 
WCO Secretariat had made a request to  members to  make an effort to implement on time.  Good 
feed-back was received from most members.  Work  seemed to be in good progress, but at the same 
time, he could foresee that some of the cont racting parties would not be ready on time. 
 3.3 The Chairman
 stated that as was mentioned by his pr edecessor last year, there was a need for 
the Committee to think about th e exercise of incorporating th e HS2007 changes to schedules of 
concessions.   These changes might in fact need to  be incorporated to the Doha Schedules which 
would hopefully be finalized  during the course of this year.  But in any case, in terms of process, he 
wished to ask Members whether they  believed that the current process as laid out in WT/L/605 for the 
introduction of HS2002 changes, in their view, wa s working and whether Members could use those 
same procedures for the HS2007 exercise.  If Member s could accept this idea in principle, then the 
Secretariat  would need to look into how to include this item as part of the regular budget.  
3.4 The representative of the United States
 stated that in principle the idea was a good one.  
Members were finally on track with the HS2002 exerci se.  However, he had one question and that was 
whether a group of Members, mostly develope d countries, would prepare their initial HS2007 
submission and the remaining countries would rely on the Secretariat.  And whether the procedures 
that were used for verification for the HS02 f iles would then apply also to the HS07 files. 
 
3.5 The Chairman  responded that this would be the idea.   G/MA/M/41 
 Page 3 
 
 
  3.6 The representative of the Philippines   stated that her delegation was agreeing in principle to 
using those procedures that Members had followe d to convert schedules from the HS96 nomenclature 
to the HS2002 nomenclature which consisted of the Secretariat providing technical assistance to 
developing countries.  The problem now was where to get the funding for the HS2007 exercise.  She believed that the  experience gained by the Secret ariat with the HS2002 exercise would be useful for 
the 2007 exercise.   
 3.7 The representative of Canada
 agreed with the  US and Philippi nes. Canada believed that the 
proposal the Chairman had made was a reasonable one, in principle.  From a practical point of view and given the experience Members had with the first HS2002 procedures (WT/L407), which had not 
enabled Members to carry out the exercise in the allotted time,  he thought that the adoption of a 
method which would consist of the Secretariat doing the transposition work on developing country 
schedules was a pragmatic and reasonable solution.  3.8 The representative of Brazil
 also agreed in principle to what the Chairman had suggested. 
But, before giving a definitive agreement,  he felt that it would be useful to receive from the 
Secretariat an assessment of the difficulties that th e Secretariat had in doing the HS2002 exercise.  In 
fact, it might be precipitous to take a decision on the HS2007 exercise, before having concluded the 
HS2002 process.   
 
3.9 The Chairman  stated that he would take the first part of Brazil's intervention under this 
agenda item, and the second part under the next age nda item.  It appeared that Members could accept 
the idea of using WT/L/605 procedures for the pur pose of introducing HS2007 changes to schedules, 
subject to funding being available.    3.10 In this was the case, then the Secretariat would also prepare a draft decision for this purpose 
using document WT/L/605.  In essence, it may simply  mean replacing the words HS2002 by HS2007.   
But there may be other changes that Members may wish to incorporate which could be discussed at 
the time the draft decision was examined.     3.11 The Committee so agreed
.  
 
3.12 The Chairman  also noted that Members needed to start thinking about a waiver for the 
purpose of introducing these changes.  He was of th e view that it might be preferable to use the 
current HS2002 waiver decision as a basis and requested  the Secretariat to do a first draft in time for 
the autumn meeting.  
3.13 The Committee so agreed
.  
 
4. Modalities and operation of the Integrated Data Base 
- Status of submission of the required documen tation (G/MA/IDB/2/Rev.23) and Report by the 
Secretariat  
 
4.1 The Chairman  referred to document G/MA/IDB/2/Rev. 23 which had been circulated to all 
Members.  This document presented the situa tion of IDB submissions as of 23 March 2006. 
 
4.2 A member of the Secretariat  (Mr. J. Richtering) introduced the report which is contained in 
Annex 1. 
 
4.3 The Committee took note  of the document and of the report.  G/MA/M/41 
Page 4  
 
  5. Consolidated Tariff Schedules Database  
(i) Introduction of Harmonized System 2002 chang es to Schedules of Concessions using the CTS 
database (WT/L/605) – Report by the Secretariat on the status of work  
5.1 The Chairman
 recalled that the first multilateral re view under the WT/L/605 procedures had 
been held on 25 January 2006. The Secretariat had circulated a periodic report for that meeting in 
JOB(06)/8.  Twenty-two schedules were put forward fo r review at this meeting.   One Member had 
indicated that because of the run-up to the Hong Kong Ministerial they had not had sufficient time to review the files.  It was agreed to give them an additional thirty-days to complete their examination of 
the schedules.  Another Member had indicated that it might be useful in respect of future  HS2002 files and the current ones, where relevant, to incl ude agricultural commitments.  The Secretariat had 
agreed to do this.  Another Member had requested that the review of one schedule be postponed until 
such a time that schedules of its partners in a cust oms union were also ready and could be reviewed 
together.  Finally, there was a request made on behalf  of two Members to delay the  review of their 
schedules as they needed more tim e to examine their schedules.  
 
5.2 The Member who was given an additional thir ty-days to examine the files submitted remarks 
in respect of two schedules.  Responses were se nt by the Secretariat to this Member, who 
subsequently indicated that the responses were sat isfactory. Regarding the question of agricultural 
commitments, he believed that there were  only two schedules in the first batch which were  affected 
insofar as the agricultural commitments had to be  transposed.  These agricultural commitments had 
now been sent to the Members concerned who had o ffered no comments. As a result, the transposed 
agricultural commitments of these two Members wo uld soon be posted on the Members' website for 
review by all Members.   5.3 Given all of the above, sixteen schedules could be considered reviewed and verified at this 
meeting.  The only factor preventing their certificat ion was the approval by the Members concerned.  
The Secretariat would be sending a letter to the rele vant Members informing them of the situation.  
 5.4 The Committee took note
 of the statement. 
 
(ii) Report by the Secretariat 
5.5 A member of the Secretariat  (Mr. J. Richtering) introduced the report which is contained in 
Annex 2. 
 
5.6 He further stated that in response to th e earlier question from Brazil on the Secretariat's 
assessment of the HS2002 exercise, his answer woul d be that it had been more work than initially 
anticipated. Some of it had to do with the status of the CTS database where not all the commitments 
were certified.  Some inconsistencies in the fil es had also surfaced which had meant extra work to 
clean up the CTS database before the Secretariat could do the transposition. What proved also very 
difficult was the obligation to keep track of all the elements of the commitment, for example INRs.   
This was going to become more of an issue again wh en the Secretariat had to transpose schedules into 
the HS2007 nomenclature.  There was a risk that fu ture schedules would carry product definitions that 
were decided in the 1980s. So, Members had to give some thought as to how this could be simplified 
in the future.  On the procedure itself, his view was that it was workable. The suggestion to have a 
group of "Do-It-Yourself" Members was a good one, and it would alleviate some of the work of the 
Secretariat. In this regard, developing Members wh o felt in a position to do it themselves should also 
be encouraged to do this work.  He had the impressi on that the interaction he  had had with developed 
country Members who had prepared their schedules and to whom the Secretariat had sent comments 
had been very positive.  So far the Secretariat had not faced any major problems with any of the files  G/MA/M/41 
 Page 5 
 
 
  it had prepared. He also hoped that the schedules th at would need to be transposed when the time 
came would be relatively clean as an outcome of the negotiations.     5.7 In response to a question from th e representative of the United States
 as to whether a 
multilateral review had been scheduled to examine the second set of HS02 files that had been issued, 
a member of the Secretariat  (Ms. Suja Rishikesh) indicated that  the intention was to hold a review 
meeting around the third week of May.   5.8 The representative of the United States
 stated that the Secretariat had mentioned that 
54 developing country schedules would be posted on the website. In this regard, what was the 
Secretariat's time-frame in terms of when it thought that this process would be completed. In addition 
the Secretariat had mentioned that there were 3 developed country schedules that were posted which 
left some ten others.  In this regard, had the Secr etariat encountered particul ar problems because it had 
not done the initial work itself.   
5.9 A member of the Secretariat
 (Mr. Jurgen Richtering) stated th at the Secretariat had decided to 
treat with priority the files of those Members that would have to apply the formula in the negotiations 
and leave aside for the time being LDCs and othe r Members. Among the former group of Members, 
there were some for whom the HS96 certification was not completed. Some of these files were fairly substantial in terms of the trans position work involved. The kind of analysis the Secretariat had done 
for developed Members was easier than the one it was doing for developing Members who had made 
submissions for their HS02 transposition. In the case of developing Members, the Secretariat 
processed the file and then compared it with their submission , which was more tedious than just doing 
an analysis of the submission itself. Among the developed country schedules, three more were ready and would be sent out in the near future. The remain ing files would probably go out in the next two or 
three months. Regarding developing Members, the timing also depended on the certification process. 
The question was whether to wait for the certification of the HS96 schedules of those Members or 
whether the Secretariat should take the schedules in their current form and transpose from there. The 
worst case scenario would be if the Secretariat had to go back to HS92, because then the Secretariat 
would have to work from scratch.  He admitted that in the past the Secretariat had underestimated the 
work involved so he was a bit hesitant to venture any time-frames. Of course, the Secretariat was also 
under pressure to deliver on other areas of work and there were problems of fixing priorities. But, if 
the Secretariat had the resources and the available tim e, it would be able to manage to send out all 
remaining files by the summer.  5.10 The representative of the United States
 stated that it was clear that as a result of the 
negotiations, there was going to be a tremendous burden put on the Secr etariat in terms of preparing 
files and doing simulations. His delegation understood  that not everything could be done at the same 
time. In terms of setting priorities, in the view of hi s delegation the negotiations came first.  In fact, it 
might not even be possible for the Secretariat to de ploy all the resources to deal with the negotiating 
issues and get them done within the time-period th at Members were going to ask. So if  on top of 
HS2002, there was the HS2007 and the IDB, then there clearly were not enough resources to do everything at the same time. So, for his delegation, the priority would be the negotiations and then the 
other issues as the Secretariat was able to deal with them. 
 5.11 A member of the Secretariat
 (Mr. Jurgen Richtering) stated that the Secretariat had given 
priority to negotiation-related work and therefore had probably accumulated a bit of a backlog in the 
processing of the IDB files.  The Secretariat would tr y its best to arrange these conflicting priorities, 
but its policy had been first to deal with negotiatio n-related work, then transposition and last but not 
least IDB processing.  5.12 The representative of Canada
 wished to make three points: 1) he wished to confirm that 
pursuant to the practices that had been establis hed under this agenda item the reports by the G/MA/M/41 
Page 6  
 
  Secretariat would be circulated to Members;  2) Th e agricultural commitments were of interest to his 
delegation and Canada was  looking forward to examining the tran sposed agricultural commitments of 
the two Members; and 3)  he shared the prelim inary view of the Secretariat that the ongoing 
transposition exercise was important. However, with re gard to setting priorities, if he had understood 
correctly it appeared that the HS2002 transposition ex ercise was being put in a different basket from 
the negotiation basket. He wished to remind th e Committee that this transposition exercise was 
directly linked to the negotiations and in that sense for his delegation this exercise was very important.  
Canada recognized it as a difficult exercise and also  knew that it was hard to reconcile different 
priorities but Canada felt that this transposition ex ercise was important and should be finished as soon 
as possible.  He further recalled that the NAMA fr amework clearly specified that the commitments 
would be finalized in the HS2002 no menclature.  So if Members did not finish that transposition 
exercise  over the next couple of months, he w ondered how  Members were going to be able to 
comply with that aspect of the negotiations.   5.13 The representative of the European Communities 
agreed with US that the priority was the 
Doha round and Canada's remark was a pertinent on e.  Indeed, schedules needed to be in place in 
order to be able to undertake formula reductions. He also wished to flag one point which was that in 
the transposition exercise his delegation had foun d an instance where an INR that the EC had 
inherited from a Member, who had acceded to the Co mmunities, had disappeared. He just wished to 
flag the point, but intended to raise it bilaterally with the Member.   
5.14 The Committee took note
 of the report and of the statements. 
 
6. Dissemination of the IDB and the CTS database 
(i) Communication from the European Free Trade Association  (G/MA/W/73) 
(ii) Communication from the West African Ec onomic and Monetary Union (G/MA/W/75) 
6.1 The Chairman  recalled that on 12 June 2002, it had adopted document G/MA/115 containing 
the dissemination policy of the IDB and CTS database.   Certain organizations (UNCTAD, IMF, World Bank, ITC) were given automatic access to these two databases.  However, the Committee 
agreed that other intergovernmental organizations  wishing to have access would need to obtain 
approval from the Committee on a case-by-case basis.  This is contained in paragraph 5 of document 
G/MA/115.  
 
6.2 In this connection, the Committee had before  it a request for access to  these two databases 
from the European Free trade association (G/M A/W/73), and from the West African Economic 
Monetary Union (G/MA/W/75).  Both organiza tions had undertaken to use and publish the 
information contained in these databases in accord ance with the terms and conditions laid out in 
document G/MA/115.  
 6.3 If the Committee agreed to grant access, he proposed writing to these organizations in similar 
terms as he had done to the or ganizations which had recently been granted access and asking them 
about what data they may have that they coul d share with the WTO on a reciprocal basis.  
Additionally, he would  be encouraging them to ur ge their members to submit to the IDB if they had 
not already done so.   
 6.4 The Committee took note
 of the statement and approved  the requests from the European Free 
Trade Association and from the West African Econ omic Monetary Union for access to the IDB and 
CTS database.   G/MA/M/41 
 Page 7 
 
 
  7. Notifications of quantitative restrictions 
7.1 The Chairman  noted that pursuant to the "Decision on Notification Procedures for 
Quantitative Restrictions" (G/L/59)" Members were re quired to make notifications of the quantitative 
restrictions they maintained every two years.  W ith respect to the 2003-2005 notifications, he referred 
to document G/MA/NTM/QR/1/Add.8 which pr ovided an update of the situation.   
 
7.2 The Committee took note  of the document.  
 
8. Notifications under the Decision on revers e Notification of Non-tariff measures 
(G/MA/NTM/W/3/Rev.1) 
8.1 The Chairman  drew the Committee's attention to the "Decision on Reverse Notification of 
Non-Tariff Measures" dated 1 December 1995 (G/L/60)  which envisaged that "the Committee shall, 
at two-yearly intervals on the occasion of the review  of the notifications of quantitative restrictions, 
review the reverse notifications of non-tariff measures received on the basis of Secretariat analyses".    
He noted that the Secretariat document which had been prepared for this purpose was dated 2001.  
But as no new notification had been received since that  time, an update of that document had not been 
prepared.  
 
8.2 The Committee took note  of the statement. 
 
9. Tariff information available in the Tariff Library 
9.1 The Chairman  noted that the Secretariat had circulated a document G/MA/TAR/3/Rev.10 the 
most recent information available in the Tariff Library.  The document also included the website addresses where more recent national tariffs might be found.  This information had been obtained 
from the WCO.    
9.2 The Committee took note
 of the document.  
 
10. Report on certification status of commi tments described in JOB(05)/167 and Corr.1 
10.1 The Chairman  reported on the follow-up work do ne to certify the approved tariff 
commitments described in JOB(05)/167 and Corr.1.  He recalled that the CTG had agreed at its 
meeting of 10 November 2005 that certain tariff commi tments that were approved at the end of the 
Uruguay Round but which did not enter into force due  to legal technicalities, should be brought into 
force by means of certifications.   In fact almost all the documents had now been certified as reflected in the paper circulated in the room for Member s' information.  This paper would go out as an 
addendum to the JOB document whic h he had just mentioned.  
 
10.2 The Committee took note
 of the report.  
 
11. Date of the next meeting 
11.1 The Committee took note  that the next meeting of the Committee would take place on 
4 October 2006, subject to confirmation. 
 
12. Election of the Chairman 
12.1 The Committee elected  Dr. Saeed (Pakistan) as Chairman for 2006.  G/MA/M/41 
Page 8  
 
  ANNEX 1 
 
 
IDB Submissions
 
  Since the circulation of the Status of S ubmissions document, G/MA/IDB/2/Rev.23, the 
Secretariat received the following submissions:  
• Armenia tariff data for 2006 
• Dominican Republic Imports for 2000-2005 
• Iceland tariff data for 2005 and 2006 
 IDB Dissemination and Uses
 
 
 As of 31 March 2006, files for 108 Members and five acceding countries are available on the IDB website.
1 
 
On the uses of IDB and CTS data I would like to mention: 
 
• IDB and CTS data were used in various simulation exercises prepared for Members on 
request and also in the NAMA and AG simulations ( JOB(06)/57  and JOB(06)/63 ); 
• IDB and CTS data were used for the calculation of AVEs for both NAMA and AG; 
• A paper on "Non-reciprocal Preference Erosion Arising from MFN Liberalization in 
Agriculture:  What are the Risk s?" was issued in March and complemented the earlier one on 
NAMA of October 2005; 
• As part of an inter-agency effort under the au spices of the United Nations the Secretariat has 
again used IDB data, complemented with data from ITC and UNCTAD, to calculate the 
statistical indicators for monitoring the impl ementation of the trade-related Millennium 
Declaration Goals in 2006;  and 
• A paper entitled "Tariffs in World Seafood Trad e" was written for the Food and Agricultural 
Organization (FAO) by the Norwegian Institute of  International Affairs.  The paper examines 
MFN applied and bound duties of seafood products a nd evaluates their level of protection in 
the basis of tariff averages and other statisti cal indicators.  The FAO has full access to the 
IDB. 
 Technical Assistance
 
 
Since the beginning of 2006 Secretariat staff has undertaken one national workshop in 
Botswana with participation by several other southe rn African countries demonstrating the use of IDB 
tariff analysis tools.  
The ITC made a presentation of its Market Access Map (MAcMap) to the WTO Technical 
Assistance Management Committee and indicated that this software can be made freely available to 
WTO Members under the same terms as the IDB.  In the context of our ongoing interagency 
cooperation and for the benefit of potential users, it is planned to include a presentation of this 
software tool in future IDB technical assistance missions.  At the same, time the ITC has indicated 
that it would be willing to also present IDB software tools in its technical assistance missions.  
                                                     
 
1 For three Members, Former Yugoslav Repub lic of Macedonia, Nepal and Saudi Arabia, no 
transposition is required because their schedules are already in HS2002 nomenclature.  G/MA/M/41 
 Page 9 
 
 
  IDB/CTS Software Development  
  The beta version of the Portable Analys is Facility (PAF), which operates from data 
distributed on CD-ROM and requires no Internet connection, was distributed to Members in December 2005.  Some users that have the Spanish version of the Windows operating system 
experienced problems in installing the application.  Th e Secretariat has prepared a fix to this problem.  
Users are requested to contact the Secretariat via e-mail at idb@wto.org  if they have problems in installing the PAF.   G/MA/M/41 
Page 10  
 
  ANNEX 2 
 Consolidated Tariff Schedules Database
 
 
Since the last meeting of the Committee, the Secret ariat is continuing the work in the following areas: 
• Updating Members' files with rectificat ions and modifications of schedules; 
• Preparing IDB linked files which include the final bound duties from the CTS following the 
procedures outlined in document (G/MA/156); 
• Incorporating recently issued HS96 certifica tion documents for Malaysia, Morocco, New 
Zealand and Pakistan;  and 
• Revising and updating recently certified documents mentioned in JOB(05)/167.  
 
HS 2002 transposition project : 
 
DEVELOPING MEMBERS  
 
The status of the HS02 transposition project fo r developing country Members is as follows: 
 
• 66 Draft HS02 files have been completed and sent to Members for review 
of these 
o 44 Draft HS02 files have been released for multilateral review 
of these 
 22 Draft HS02 files have already been reviewed at the first Multilateral 
Review Meeting in 25 January 2006 
 
• 54 Draft HS02 files remain to be to be prepared 
 A revision of JOB(06)/8 will be issued shortly in preparation for the next HS 2002 multilateral review 
meeting.  
DEVELOPED MEMBERS
 
 
 Documentation for HS 2002 changes submitted by  developed Members to the Secretariat has 
been analyzed, and comments have been sent to th ree Members (Canada, Iceland and Switzerland).  
Canada and Switzerland have sub sequently modified their submissions and/or explained their 
deviations from the standard concordance tables.   These three files will soon be posted on the WTO 
Members' website (IDB/CTS file transfer facility). 
__________