RESTRICTED  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  WT/REG/M/45 
30 April 2007 
 
 (07-1766) 
Committee on Regional Trade Agreements 
Forty Fifth Session  
 
 
 
NOTE ON THE MEETING OF 14 MARCH 2007 
 
Chairman: Mr. R. Yerxa (Secretariat ) 
Mr.  J.  Metcalfe (United Kingdom ) 
 
 
A. ADOPTION OF THE AGENDA  
1. The 45th Session of the Committee on Regional Trad e Agreements (hereinafter CRTA or the 
Committee) was convened in Airgram WTO/AIR/2973, dated 1 March 2007.   
2. In the absence of an acting officer of the CRTA,  a representative of the Secretariat opened the 
45th Session of the Committee. 
3. The Chairman  announced that under "Other Business",  the Chairman of the Committee would 
inform delegations of the manner in which he intended to proceed under the new Transparency 
Mechanism for Regional Trade Agreements (TM), af ter the informal consultations with Members 
which he would hold that morning.  He would al so provide details of the remaining programme of 
meetings for the year.   
4. The following Agenda was adopted: 
A. Adoption of the Agenda 
B. Election of Officers 
C. Other Business 
 
5. 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. ELECTION OF OFFICERS  
6. The Chairman  proposed that the Committee elected by acclamation, Mr. Julian Metcalfe from 
the United Kingdom, as the new Chairman of the CRTA. It was so agreed .   
7. The newly elected Chairman  thanked the Secretariat and Members for having elected him as 
the new Chair of the CRTA at this particularly challenging moment, when Members needed to work 
together to implement the new Tr ansparency Mechanism.  To assist  him in his function as Chairman, 
he said he would propose in due course the names of two vice-Chairs and would hold informal 
consultations before putting forward specific pr oposals for the endorsem ent of the Committee. WT/REG/M/45 
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  C. O
THER BUSINESS  
8. The Chairman  summarized in four points the discussions that had been held that morning in 
informal mode.  First, he thanked delegations for wi shing him well.  Second, he pointed out that there 
had been a high degree of convergence on how to conclude the considera tion of new RTAs and on 
transferring RTAs directly to the CRTA following notification;  on this issue, he would consult the 
Chairs of the relevant bodies.  Third, he noted the request by delegations for a discussion on the 
structure of the factual abstract or summary fact sheet, which Members could address in this Session.  
Fourth, he took note of the concern about resource a nd time constraints that had been raised by a 
number of delegations.  
9. Before addressing the work programme set out in the fax of 1 March 2007, the Chairman 
considered it would be useful to see how the time scale of the factual presentation process evolved in 
practice.  In this respect there were two issues:  first, the desired timeline for new agreements notified 
under the Transparency Mechanism;  and second, how to tackle the backlog it self.  On the desired 
timeline, the Secretariat had made a proposal for the preparation of a factual presentation, on which he 
welcomed comments.  This timeline ran for 32 weeks (or 42 weeks in the case of developing 
countries), which gave some flexibility to comply w ith the 52 weeks provided for in the TM.  On the 
second issue, the Chairman said that the work pr ogramme that had been outlined for subsequent 
meetings of the Committee sought to tackle the back log of RTAs.  He underlined the need to follow a 
tight time-scale and encouraged delegations to ma ke an effort on an interim basis to meet the 
Secretariat's fairly tight deadlines for the backlog of  agreements that had to be addressed this year, 
particularly those to be discussed in the May meeting.   
10. The representative of the United States  appreciated the development of the timeline.  
Although the schedule for the backlog was ambitious , she expressed a willingness to work hard.  She 
found it helpful to know that there was some margin  in the 32 week schedule, with somewhat longer 
for developing countries, and considered that it w ould be useful to put the timeline on the website and 
to circulate it to Members.  She also wondered wh at the deadline for the s ubmission of replies was, 
since it was not specified in the timeline or the TM.  This category would fall between points seven 
and eight of the proposed timeline. 
11. The representative of Japan  thanked the Chairman for the proposed timeline, which she 
understood referred to new notifications.  Since Me mbers had 52 weeks from the notification of the 
RTA till the review was complete, she suggested a pe riod of three or four weeks for comments by the 
parties to the factual presentation.  In that case,  the total time lapsed since notification would be 
33 weeks, which would still give some flexibility.  The Chairman  accepted the proposal to allow three 
to four weeks for comments by parties. 
12. The representative of China  sought clarification with respect to the meaning of "jointly 
agreed" in the context of the sente nce "jointly agreed comments recei ved from the parties", in point 4 
of the timeline.  He wondered whether Members need ed to consult each other to reach an agreement 
on the comments before circulating them or, as in ot her committees, to submit them individually.  The 
representative of the United States  said she preferred to delete the reference to "jointly agreed" since 
there had been some problems in the past related to bureaucratic processes for trying to get agreement 
on purely factual issues.  In addition, there was no  reference in the TM to "jointly agreed" so, 
although she would prefer the comments to be coor dinated between the parties, she considered it 
would help the overall efficiency of the process if the reference was to "comments received from the 
parties".  The Chairman  said that "jointly agreed" could be left out of the text, though he imagined 
that Members would be surprised if there were  differing comments from the two parties to an 
agreement.   WT/REG/M/45 
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  13. The representative of China , on point 5, which read "comments integrated into the factual 
presentation", wondered whether after receivi ng comments the Secretariat would take the 
responsibility to integrate them and circulate the fina l factual presentation or whether there would be a 
possibility for the parties to look at the factual presenta tion again before circulation.  On this point, the 
representative of the United States  noticed that the TM said "additional information submitted by the 
parties" and not "integrated".  Although she did not see a problem with "integrated", it could be the 
case that in some instances the co mments could not be integrated, because they would not fit, and 
would need to be added at the end.  This would be fine if "integrated" included this eventuality;  the 
Secretariat should be somewhat independent on whether to include the comments or not.  The Chairman
 saw no problem in the comments submitted by the parties being integrated in the factual 
presentation, as long as the comments were factually b ased and the Secretariat agreed that the facts 
needed to be amended.  However, he clarified that  the timeline was not a legal document;  it had just 
been circulated to illuminate the debate.   
14. The representative of Switzerland  thanked the Chairman for the proposed timeline, which he 
considered very useful.  Regarding point 1 of the document, he noted that it listed two columns, one 
for the CRTA and the other for the CTD, meaning that there were tw o processes.  He understood that 
RTA notifications were to be addressed first to  the Central Registry of the WTO and not to a 
committee so he suggested including the process th rough the CTG in the timeline, unless this process 
had already been excluded.  He was not clear as to what happened once the RTA was notified and 
before the submission of trade and tariff line data.  The Chairman  responded there was a central focal 
point in which notifications needed to be deposited.   On the issue of whether to include the CTG in 
the process, he recalled that Members had already discussed that before and Members had agreed not 
to channel the process through the CTS or the CT G.  He would talk to the relevant committee 
chairmen to seek their views.  He hoped that Memb ers would have the same view in the different 
committees, so that the process would st art and conclude within the CRTA. 
15. The representative of El Salvador  asked the Secretariat whether the timeline had taken into 
account the time allocated to translation, since in their case they needed to send all the information to 
capital to be processed.  
16. The Chairman  invited the Secretariat to revise the timeline document including the comments 
made by the U.S. and Japan and put it on the we bsite.  If any delegation had any comments, they 
should submit them quickly.    
17. On the issue of the structure of discussion of factual presentations in the CRTA, the Chairman  
said that it would closely follow the existing structure.   He was not of view that the Secretariat should 
introduce the factual presentation in the meetings sinc e it would have already been circulated and read 
by interested Members.  The Chairman could sh are some key points of the presentation and then 
invite the parties to make introductory comments that could help the full understanding of Members 
of that particular agreement.  He would then open the floor for comments by other Members which 
would be recorded in the minutes and would form the basis of the report.  He added that it could be 
helpful to look at factual presentations section by  section, although he was open to advice in this 
respect.   
18. The representative of the United States  was interested in conducti ng an efficient process in 
which the priority would be to ensure that an ag reement was dealt with within the predicted time, 
which meant it was not necessary to follow previ ous proceedings.  She reminded the Committee that 
the review would encompass not only the factual presenta tion, but also the questions and replies.  The 
meeting would be the moment to raise any loose ends  and thus would have to be structured in an 
efficient way.   WT/REG/M/45 
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  19. The Chairman
 assured the Committee that he woul d try to find a way to process the 
presentations as efficiently as possible.  He then turn ed to the proposed work programme set out in the 
fax of 1 March 2007.  With regard to the current b acklog of RTAs, as of that  day there was a backlog 
of 48 notified RTAs for which a factual presentation ha d to be prepared.  That number did not include 
RTAs concluded between WTO Members and non-memb ers, for which he would need to take up 
consultations at some point in the future, nor did it include the RTAs superseded by the 
EU (27) Enlargement.  It also did not include th e 15 or so RTAs signed between Balkan countries in 
the context of the Stability Pact as they were to  be superseded by the entry into force of the 
CEFTA+ Agreement, once it was notified. 
20. In the fax of 1 March, the Secretariat had prop osed a programme of factual presentations for 
2007, in accordance with paragraph 22(c) of the TM.  He understood that the Secretariat was already 
making progress on the preparation of factual presentations on a number of agreements so the Committee should be in a position to start the considera tion of some of these at its next meeting.  The 
Secretariat had informed him that for the May meet ing it had had some difficulty in complying with 
the deadline in the Transparency  Mechanism of publishing the factual presentation in all three 
languages eight weeks prior to the meeting.  Th is was for a variety of reasons including data 
discrepancies, late receipt of comments from the Parties, and resource constraints on the part of the Secretariat.  The Secretariat was doing its b est to resolve these issues, and he asked for 
Members' indulgence for the May meeting.  He noted that the factual presentations of 
Thailand-Australia goods and Thaila nd-New Zealand goods had already been distributed in all three 
languages and the factual presentations of Thaila nd-Australia services, SADC and Armenia-Moldova 
would be distributed in English eight weeks before  the May meeting, with translations to follow 
shortly thereafter.   
21. He informed the Committee that for the factua l presentations scheduled for the meeting on 
23-25 July, there had been delays in the receipt of da ta requested by the Secretariat.  Given that the 
Secretariat must also provide a period for comment s to the Members concerned by these presentations 
before the eight week deadline for publication, f actual presentations to be considered in the July 
meeting needed to be drafted and sent to the parti es for comment by 9 April.  He therefore urged all 
parties concerned to submit the data requested as soon as possible.  Failing this, it would be difficult 
to reduce and eliminate the backlog as envisaged and to implement the Transparency Mechanism as 
expected. 
22. The representative of the United States
 appreciated the work pr ogramme provided by the 
Secretariat.  She informed the Committee that the United States had already provided the data for the 
U.S.-Australia FTA, for both goods and services, and was preparing the data for the U.S.-Morocco FTA, which she hoped to provide shortl y to the Secretariat.  She noted the ambitious 
schedule for reviewing the agreements, especially fo r the July meeting, and expressed her disposition 
to work towards it.  She also ask ed whether the replies to questions  were due to the Secretariat the 
same day as their circulation or some days in advance.   
23. The representative of the United States
 was interested in knowing how the backlog would be 
addressed for those agreements falling under para graph 22(b) of the TM, for which the factual 
examination had been concluded, but which requir ed a factual abstract to be prepared by the 
Secretariat.  The Chairman  replied that that question had not been addressed as yet because there was 
a need to discuss the nature of the factual abstract.  He intended to hold informal consultations in this 
respect, which would need to balance the issues at st ake, like the fact that some of the agreements 
dated back many years.  There was also a questi on as to how much work was useful to do for the 
backlog falling under paragraph 22(b).  He would ask the Secretariat to put out a note to address that 
issue, on which he would take some informal soundings.   WT/REG/M/45 
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  24. The representative of the United States  said that it had been difficult to reach agreement to 
bring into the scope of the TM all those agreemen ts that were not subject to any transparency 
provision from the WTO.  The compromise had been not to subject them to any more procedures in the CRTA, but to have a brief abstract prepared by the Secretariat;  a model had been circulated 
among Members which had enabled this consensus.  She looked forward to more transparency on 
these agreements and to holding consultations in th is regard, because there were many agreements for 
which there was no transparency in the WTO, some of great importance such as NAFTA.  
25. The Chairman
 reminded Members that, as mentioned in the fax of 1 March, the Secretariat 
had organized three future meetings of th e CRTA scheduled for 14-16 May, 23-25 July and 
31 October-2 November.  Before the meeting in Ma y, he would convene an  informal meeting to 
address how to deal with the backlog under 22(b). 
26. The Committee took note  of the comments made.  
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