WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  RESTRICTED 
WT/REG/M/65 
5 July 2012  
 
(12-3580) 
Committee on Regional Trade Agreements 
Sixty-fifth Session  
 
 
NOTE ON THE MEETING OF 19 JUNE 2012 
 
Chairman:  Mr. F. Riegert (France) 
  
A. A
DOPTION OF THE AGENDA  
1. The 65th Session of the Committee on Regional Trade Agreements (hereinafter 'CRTA' or the 
'Committee') was convened in Airgram WTO/AIR/3940 dated 8 May 2012. 
2. The Chairman said he would raise two issues under "Other Business".  The first referred to 
measures being taken by the CRTA to reduce doc umentation costs;  the second concerned the 
declaration made at the 8th Ministerial Conference regarding Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs).   
3. The following Agenda was adopted: 
A. Adoption of the Agenda 
B. Consideration of Regional Trade Agreements 
I. Status Report on the Committee's Work - Non-notified RTAs  II. Implementation Reports under Pa ragraph 15 of the Transparency 
Mechanism for RTAs (TM) 
III.  Free Trade Agreement between  the European Union and the 
Republic of Korea, goods and services  
C. Other Business  
4. The Chairman recalled that the Latin American Integration Association (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.I STATUS REPORT ON THE COMMITTEE'S WORK - NON-NOTIFIED RTAS 
5. Under this Agenda Item, the Chairman provided Members with an update on the 
implementation of the TM.  He informed the Comm ittee that 36 early announcements had been posted 
on the WTO website (excluding those that had been  subsequently notified).  He thanked those 
Members who had submitted information in line with  the requirements of the TM and encouraged 
others to do the same.  He also reminded Members to inform the Secretariat of any changes in the 
status of early announcements. 
6. With regard to the preparation of factual abst racts covering agreements in trade in goods for 
which an examination had already been complete d, he said that all were now complete, though 
comments from EFTA-FYROM and EFTA-Morocco were still outstanding and he urged the Parties 
to submit them as soon as possible. WT/REG/M/65 
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  7. With regard to the preparation of the factua l presentations under the remit of the CRTA, he 
said that in the case of RTAs involving only WTO Members, there were 49 RT As for which a factual 
presentation had to be prepared, counting goods an d services separately.  He recalled that at the 
Committee's 52nd Session held on 4 March 2009, Memb ers had agreed to begin considering RTAs 
involving non-Members under the TM.  Thus, factua l presentations on a further 40 RTAs involving 
non-Members were to be prepared, with priority fo r those RTAs notified since the adoption of the TM 
on 14 December 2006.  Data requests for RTAs notifie d since the adoption of the TM had been sent to 
the relevant parties. 
8. The Chairman then turned to the issue of non-notif ied RTAs.  He recalled that in an effort to 
promote the transparency of such RTAs, Members ha d agreed during the meeting held in June 2011 to 
circulate a list of non-notified RTAs, which had been ve rified by their parties as being in force.  The 
document had been recently circulated as WT/REG /W/69 and contained 51 RTAs issued in factual 
presentations up to June 2012.  The main change from th e last report was that all bilateral agreements 
between individual members of the Andean Pact had been removed as the Secretariat had been 
informed that they had been supe rseded by the Andean Pact and Jordan's bilateral RTAs had been 
removed as they had been superseded by PAFTA.  
9. A representative of the Secretariat took the fl oor to provide further details on the preparation 
of factual presentations.  She said that in th e case of Agreements between WTO Members, the 
situation was as follows:  in the case of four RT As – US-Bahrain;  CAFTA-DR;  US-Oman;  and 
China-Singapore, all goods and services;  the factua l presentations had been sent to the parties in 
2009, but no comments had been received.  For EU-South Africa, goods, preliminary comments had 
been received, but final joint co mments from the parties were still awaited.  For Peru-Korea, and 
Canada-Colombia, both goods and services, and EFTA-Albania, goods and EU-Egypt, goods, 
comments had been received from the parties and the factual presentations would shortly be issued.  
For Turkey-Jordan, goods, the factual presentation ha d been sent to the parties with comments due on 
4 July.  For Chile-Peru, Japan-Peru, and New Zeal and-Malaysia goods and se rvices, data had been 
received and the factual presentations were currently  being drafted.  For Panama-Honduras, goods and 
services data had been received from Panama and some data from Honduras. For El Salvador-Honduras-Chinese Taipei, goods and services, data from Chinese Taipei and El Salvador 
had been received; and some data from Honduras.  For Korea-India, services, data had been received 
from Korea and some data from I ndia.  For Japan-India, goods and services, data had been received 
from Japan and some services data as well as incomplete data on goods from India.  For 
Guatemala-Chinese Taipei, goods and services, data ha d been received from Chinese Taipei only.  For 
India-Malaysia, services, data had been received from Malaysia only.  For, Chile-Honduras goods and 
services, data had been received from Chile only.  For Dominican Republic-Central America, goods 
and services, data had been received from Costa Rica and some data from the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala.  For Korea- ASEAN, services, data had been received from 
Korea only.  For US-Korea, goods and services, no data  had been received as yet.  For Peru-Mexico, 
goods and services, data was due by 11 July.  For Ch ina, Costa-Rica, goods and services, data due by 
17 July had already been received from Costa Rica.   For US-Colombia, goods and services, data was 
due by 17 July.  For Chile-Guatemala, goods and services, data was due by 17 August.  For 
Peru-Panama, goods and services, data was due by 10 September.  For EFTA-Peru, goods and 
EFTA-Ukraine, goods and services, both recently notifie d, the data request would shortly be sent out. 
10. As for RTAs involving non Members, the situ ation was as follows:  for EFTA-Serbia, goods, 
comments had been received from the parties and th e factual presentation would shortly be issued.  
For ASEAN-China, services, the Factual Presentation had been sent to the parties in February 2010, 
but no comments had been received.  For Icela nd-Faeroe Islands, goods and services, comments had 
been received but some outstanding data from th e Faeroe Islands was needed.  For EU-Bosnia 
Herzegovina, EFTA-Lebanon, Turkey-Syria, C EFTA Enlargement, Ukraine-Azerbaijan, 
Ukraine-Belarus, Ukraine-Russian Federation,  Ukraine-Tajikistan, Ukraine-Kazakhstan,  WT/REG/M/65 
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  Ukraine-Turkmenistan, Ukraine-Uzbekistan, and the Common Economic Zone, all goods, and 
EU-CARIFORUM, goods and services, data was not complete.  For Australia-ASEAN-New Zealand, 
goods and services, data was due by 13 July.  With regards to RTAs for which not all parties had 
ratified the agreement yet, the Secretariat would wait  before the agreement had entered into force for 
all the parties before starting the preparation of factual presentations.  This was the case for 
six agreements:  ASEAN-Japan, EU-Cameroon, EU-Cote d'Ivoire, EFTA-Colombia, EU-Papua 
New Guinea, Fiji, and EU-ESA, all goods.  She urge d all Members to comply with the deadlines in 
order to adhere to the CRTA's work programme. 
11. The Chairman said that it was clear from the Secr etariat's statement that the Committee was at 
risk of significant slippage in its work programme  of consideration of RTAs under the TM and thus 
requested the cooperation of all Members in this regard.  
B.II IMPLEMENTATION REPORTS UNDER PARAGRAPH 15 OF THE TRANSPARENCY 
MECHANISM FOR RTAS 
12. Under Item B.II, the Chairman said that at th e end of the RTA's implementation period, the 
parties should submit to the WTO a short written re port on the realization of the liberalization 
commitments in the RTA as originally notified.  Thus far, no such reports had been received from 
Members.  A list prepared by the Secretariat had been circulated to Members by fax on 29 March and discrepancies identified by delegations had been  incorporated in document JOB/REG/1 dated 
6 June 2012, recently issued.  In addition, new RT As notified since the fax was circulated had also 
been added and the transparency status of RTAs had been updated.  Since the circulation of the 
document some changes from the EFTA Secretariat ha d been received which would be incorporated.  
Annex 1 of the document contained a list of all RTAs notified to the GATT/WTO and still in force, 
and indicated the year in which the implementation period had terminated, or was foreseen to terminate.  In Section C.6 of the document, a number of suggestions were put forward for 
consideration and discussion by Members.  He pr oposed to discuss these suggestions in informal 
mode before deciding upon the calendar for submis sion of implementation reports.  Back in formal 
mode, the Chairman said he had taken note of in itial reactions from severa l delegations on document 
JOB/REG/1 and he suggested that the Committee reve rt to the discussion at its next meeting in an 
attempt to reach a conclusion.  He asked Member s to reflect on the issue over the summer break.  
B.III. FREE TRADE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE EUROPEAN UNION AND KOREA, 
GOODS AND SERVICES 
13. B.III. (The minutes of the consideration of the Agreement listed under agenda item B.III is 
being distributed as a separate document). 
C.  OTHER BUSINESS 14. The Chairman raised two points for Members'  reflection over the summer break which would 
be addressed at the Committee's next meeting.  The first concerned the implementation of the 
RTA-related language in Part II of the 8
th Ministerial Declaration.  A number of Ministers had 
indicated that there was a need fo r the WTO to examine the systemic implications of RTAs for the 
multilateral trading system and study trends  on RTAs and to report back to the 9th Ministerial 
Conference which was approaching.  He said he  would welcome submissions from Members on the 
systemic implications of RTAs and the most appropriate ways for Members to deal with them in advance of the next meeting and following meetings , if necessary.  The second issue related to 
budgetary limitations being imposed on all WTO Co mmittees.  He said he would like to gather 
suggestions from Members on how to reduce the ru nning costs of the CRTA.  There were various 
suggestions, for example, cutting the number of meetings, or holding CRTA meetings on a single day 
only.  He hoped that Members could reach consensu s on ways to cut operational costs.  Lastly, he WT/REG/M/65 
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  indicated that the proposed dates for CRTA mee tings for the remainder of the year were 
18-19 September and 20-21 November.    
15. The Committee took note of the comments made. 
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