. /.   WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  G/SPS/N/EEC/332 
12 August 2008  
 (08-3834) 
Committee on Sanitary a nd Phytosanitary Measures Original:   English 
  
 
NOTIFICATION 
 
1. Member to Agreement notifying:  EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES
  
If applicable, name of local government involved:     
2. Agency responsible:  Commission of the European Co mmunities.  Health & Consumers 
Directorate-General, Directorate E – Safety of the food chain 
3. Products covered (provide tariff item numb er(s) as specified in national schedules 
deposited with the WTO; ICS numbers should be provided in addition, where applicable):  Guar gum, falling within CN code 1302 32 90, originating in or consigned from 
India, and intended for animal or human consumption; compound feedingstuffs and foodstuffs containing at least 10% guar gum  originating in or consigned from India 
4. Regions or countries likely to be affected, to the extent relevant or practicable :  
Member States of the Europ ean Communities (EC), India and other third countries exporting 
these products concerned, origin ating in India, to the EC 
5. Title, language and number of pages of the notified document:  Commission Decision of 
29 April 2008 imposing special conditions govern ing guar gum originating in or consigned 
from India due to contamination risks of thos e products by pentachl orophenol and dioxins 
(available in all Community languages, 3 pages) 
http://members.wto.org/crnatt achments/2008/sps/EEC/08_2386_00_e.pdf  
http://members.wto.org/crnatt achments/2008/sps/EEC/08_2386_00_f.pdf  
http://members.wto.org/crnatt achments/2008/sps/EEC/08_2386_00_s.pdf  
6. Description of content:   
It concerns a safeguard measure.  
The Decision imposes special conditions to the import of guar gum originating in or 
consigned from India due to contamination risk s of these products by pentachlorophenol and 
dioxins. 
Each consignment of guar gum intended for huma n or animal consumption or feedingstuff or 
foodstuff containing more than 10% of guar gum originating in or consigned from India has 
to be accompanied by an original analytical report demonstrating that the product does not 
contain more than 0.01 mg/kg pentachlorophenol.  The analytical report has to be issued by a 
laboratory accredited according to EN ISO/IEC 17025 for th e analysis of pentachlorophenol 
in food and feed or by a laboratory that is pur suing the necessary accreditation procedures and 
which has adequate control schemes in place.  The analytical report has to be endorsed by a 
representative of the competent authority from the country where the laboratory is located. G/SPS/N/EEC/332 
Page 2  
 
  7. Objective and rationale:  [ X ] food safety, [   ] animal health,  [   ] plant protection, [  
 ] protect humans from animal/plant pest or disease,  [   ] protect territory from other damage from pests    
8. International standard, guideline or recommendation:  
[   ] Codex Alimentarius Commission, [   ] World Organization for Animal Health 
(OIE), [   ] International Plant Protection Convention, [ X ] None  
If an international standard, guideline or recommendation exists, give the appropriate 
reference and briefly identify deviations:    
9. Relevant documents and langu age(s) in which these are available:    
Commission Decision of 29 April 2008 impo sing special conditions governing guar gum 
originating in or consigned from India due to  contamination risks of those products by 
pentachlorophenol and dioxins 
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/L exUriServ.do?uri=OJ :L:2008:117:0042:0044:EN:PDF  
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/L exUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2008:117:0042:0044:FR:PDF  
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/L exUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2008:117:0042:0044:ES:PDF  
Other languages are in addition available by replacing "EN" in the abovementioned URL by 
the two letter code for the following languages: 
BG (Bulgarian), CS (Czech), DA (Danish), DE  (German), ET (Estonian), EL (Greek), IT 
(Italian), LV (Latvian), LT (Lithuanian), HU (Hungarian), MT (Maltese), NL (Dutch), PL 
(Polish), PT (Portuguese), RO (R omanian), SK (Slovakian), SL (S lovenian), FI (Finnish), SV 
(Swedish) 
Based upon the information receiv ed from the competent authorit ies of EU Member States a 
list of laboratories has been compiled from which the analytical reports are considered as automatically/by default endorsed.  This list  is regularly updated and can be downloaded 
from: 
http://ec.europa.eu/food/food/ch emicalsafety/contam inants/new_measures_guar_gum_india.p
df 
10. Proposed date of adoption:  29 April 2008 
11. Proposed date of entry into force:  5 May 2008 
12. Final date for comments:  Not applicable 
Agency or authority designated to handle comments:  [ X ] National notification 
authority, [   ] National enquiry point, or address, fax number and E-mail address (if available) of other body: 
13. Texts available from:  [   ] National notifica tion authority, [ X ] National enquiry point, 
or address, fax number and E-mail address (if available) of other body: 
E-mail:  sps@ec.europa.eu