RESTRICTED  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  TN/TF/M/20 
22 October 2007 
 (07-4554) 
Negotiating Group on Trade Facilitation  
  
 
SUMMARY MINUTES OF THE MEETING 
 
Held in the Centre William Rappard
 
from 1-3 October 2007  
 
 
Chairman:  H.E. Mr. Eduardo Ernesto Sperisen-Yurt (Guatemala) 
  
1. The Chairman
 recalled that the proposed agenda fo r the meeting had been circulated in 
WTO/AIR/3067. As stated in this airgram, the meet ing sought to further the negotiating efforts by 
providing for another forum to advance the discussi ons on the various proposals – both in terms of 
newly-made contributions and s uggestions previously received. 
2. The agenda was adopted .  
3. The Chairman  explained that the first item on the agenda aimed at furthering the negotiating 
business by addressing new contributions and allowi ng for additional feedback on those that had 
already been presented.  It was – and continued to be – a primary task of the Negotiating Group on 
Trade Facilitation (NGTF) meetings that Members sought to achieve. 
4. While being a standing topic of discussion since the early days of the Negotiating Group 
(NG), Members' deliberations had undergone some r ecent changes in that they tested a new meeting 
format. Extended in duration and combining differe nt forms of exchanges such as plenary sessions, 
Chair consultations and activities organized by the Membership, the arrangement had produced very 
positive results by allowing for particularly inte ractive discussions and enhanced participation from 
the capitals – further facilitated by the gener ous funding from the Norwegian government.   
5. It enabled Members to look into each of the ma ndate's main pillars – technical assistance, 
S&D treatment and the three GATT Articles – in a mu ch more detailed way. Furthermore, it ensured 
that the Member-driven activities were more clos ely brought under a common umbrella and were 
firmly embedded into the NG's work. And all of th is without dispensing with the inclusive, bottom-up 
working method that had proven crucial to the Group's success.       
6. A concrete result of the new dynamic were the revised proposals that had emerged from the 
last session. They evidenced the constructive spir it prevailing at the discussions, enabling Members to 
improve their proposals and to build additional elements of common ground.  They further underlined 
the Group's continued ability to make headway despite a demanding situation at the broader 
negotiating front. This capacity to produce tangible progress would be more crucial than ever, and he 
counted on delegations' continued efforts to make it all work.  
7. The immediate task was to address the new c ontributions received for the present session. 
They would now be taken up in the plenary discussi ons with their sponsors being invited to introduce 
the main elements.  In procedural terms, Memb ers' deliberations would be conducted in the same TN/TF/M/20 
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  mode that had successfully been a pplied in the past, limiting formal elements to the presentation of 
new submissions while allowing for reactions  to be made in informal mode.   
A. P
ROPOSALS AND REACTIONS TO THE CONTRIBUTIONS PREVIOUSLY RECEIVED  
8. This part of the meeting was conducted in info rmal mode with the exception of the following 
interventions: 
9. The representative of India  introduced proposal TN/TF/W/123/Rev.1, explaining that it was a 
revision of the draft textual proposal (TN/TF/W/123) India had submitted in July 2006 to operationalize the third pillar of the Trade Facilitatio n mandate contained in paragraph 1 of Annex D 
to provide for effective cooperation between cust oms or other appropriate authorities on customs 
compliance issues.  The proposal had been discussed with Members who had sought clarifications or 
expressed their concerns regarding burdensomeness and confidentiality issues that might result. India 
was now in a position to introduce a revised draft text that sought to address those issues.   
10. The major changes that had been made based  on the discussions with Members were the 
following:  A new paragraph 2 had been introduced to address the concerns of several Members that 
had requested for information not to be made in a routine manner and for the requesting Member to 
conduct a detailed internal verification before maki ng a request.  The elements of such internal 
verification that had been suggested were compre hensive and sought to ensure that a request for 
information to another Member was only made afte r internal verification had been exhausted.   
11. Paragraph 5(a) provided that any exchange of  information or documents should not require 
Members to modify any of their procedures.  This was an addition to the earlier provisions.  The objective was that any such commitment should no t place an undue burden on Members to introduce 
any new processes only to comply with such a provision.   
12. Many Members had expressed concern regardi ng confidentiality in treatment of the 
information exchanged.  India had already earlier e xpressed its view that identical information should 
in any case be available with the customs administrati ons at both ends of a transaction.  Nevertheless, 
India had now gone further by explicitly stating th at any information or documents should be treated 
as confidential.  They should not be disclosed to any third party.  The only exception was in case of 
civil judicial proceedings.  The proposal specifically  stated that in case any such information was to 
be used in a criminal proceeding,  it should only be done with th e specific approval of the requested 
Member.   
13. The fourth major change was to provide a cap on the requests that one Member could make to 
another in one calendar year.  This was intended to  reduce the burdensomeness of any commitment.   
14. There were also some other drafting changes, including a provision that Members could 
bilaterally agree to exchange information in no n-WTO languages.  India had sought to address most 
of the concerns and would welcome any suggestions  from Members to try and achieve a multilaterally 
satisfactory outcome.   
15. The representative of Sri Lanka
 informed the Negotiating Group about his delegation's 
intention to co-sponsor the proposal. 
16. The representative of South Africa  said that his delegation wished to co-sponsor document 
TN/TF/W/123/Rev.1 as well. 
17. The representative of the European Communities  introduced document TN/TF/W/149, 
explaining that it was an update of the informati on the EC had on previous occasions given to the  TN/TF/M/20 
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  Group.  It was another compilation document which set out the TA programmes in the area of trade 
facilitation that were currently under way, programm es provided by the EC within the framework of 
its development aid, its partnerships or  by individual EC Member states.   
18. The document listed all the programmes that we re being furnished.  Rather than going 
through the paper in detail, he wished to highlight a few elements that were relevant to the discussions 
in the NG, in particular the discussions on S&DT and TA.   
19. First of all, the document listed the programme s the EC were providing with its development 
partners, some of which were very general. Trad e Facilitation was part of a much broader programme 
of trade cooperation infrastructure development.  Other programmes, on the other hand, were very 
specific and some had been conscientiously negotia ted and tailored to correspond to the future Trade 
Facilitation Agreement commitments the EC hoped would emerge from the process in Geneva. 
20. The presented document, which set out a fairly extensive range of TA and development aid 
programmes on TF, hopefully demonstrated the EC's real commitment to providing assistance in this area.  In the discussions that Members had had on S&DT over the last few months, a number of developing countries had very rightly made the poin t that they would have to be supported by 
capacity building and technical assistance for them to assume new commitments in the WTO in this 
area.  He hoped that the programmes the EC were providing and which were set up in the presented 
note showed that the EC had suppor ted, and would continue  to support, its pledge of assistance with 
concrete action. 
21. The aid programme the EC was providing would hopefully also help developing countries 
move ahead with the EC in constructing a good S&DT part of the future Agreement so that one could 
have a good link between the progressive assumption of commitments and the provision of assistance 
to support that.   
22. As might be seen from this submission, the provision of assistance and development aid in the 
area of TF was often done as part of a more comprehensive development programme which was 
negotiated and concluded bilatera lly or at a regional level betw een the EC and its development 
partners.  This use of bilateral development aid programming was a tr ied and tested model and one to 
which development partners attached great importance. 
23. He made this point because there had been prop osals in the Group that , in the future, the 
provision of development aid could, or should, or might be done directly through the WTO.  
However, the EC had always maintained that, wh ile the WTO could be an important platform for 
transparency for the exchange of information a nd for improved coordination of programmes, it could 
not in itself be the legal vehicle or the framewo rk in which programmes were actually developed, 
negotiated and concluded between the EC and its development partners.  The EC's principle 
development partners, notably the ACP countries through European Development funds, attached 
great importance to maintaining the development aid,  including in this area, through the long-standing 
bilateral framework and channels. 
24. Most Members who provided aid and assistance  used the phrase "demand-driven".  The EC 
responded to requests from development partners fo r TA or development aid in this area.  The 
European Communities did not themselves unilaterally ask its partners to accept assistance in TF.  
This meant that it was essential that developing-co untry partners who wished to see support given, 
and who wished to see development aid programmes in  the area of TF, made requests to the EC so 
that trade facilitation could indeed be incorporated into the programming. It had to be prioritized by 
the EC's cooperation partners.  In pr actical terms, that meant that, in  the future, as and when one was 
implementing commitments in this area, the EC w ould be expecting and hopi ng that its development 
partners would indeed seek to include TF assistance and support within the often broader trade and TN/TF/M/20 
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  infrastructure programmes the EC were providing.  Th at was the linkage that the submission had with 
the discussions on S&DT in the NGTF.   
25. The representative of Japan
 introduced proposals TN/TF/W/114/Rev.1 and 
TN/TF/W/115/Rev.1, saying that they were submitt ed with a view to accelerating the discussion and 
consolidation of the texts before the NGTF and to keeping up with progress in the other negotiating 
areas of the Doha Round. Both submissions re presented revisions of earlier proposals.     
26. Document TN/TF/W/114/Rev.1 had been modified  in several regards, reflecting comments 
made by Members in previous NGTF meetings an d including the elements requested by traders.  
Paragraph 3 of the preamble which related to S&DT and TA CB had been updated and made 
comprehensive in order to reflect the intense horiz ontal discussions that had been taken place on this 
item since the submission of the original proposal.  Consequently, paragraphs 5, 6, 10 and 11 of the 
earlier textual proposal had been deleted. A similar change had also been made to the preamble of 
TN/TF/W/115/Rev.1.   
27. With respect to section C of proposal TN/TF/W/114/Rev.1, entitled "Outline of Major Trade-
Related Procedures", many Members had requested cl arification of the term "major trade-related 
procedures".  In Japan's view, the term referred to those procedures without whose knowledge traders 
could not complete trade-related procedures or might be disadvantag ed. This paragraph proposed the 
publication of an outline of such trade-related procedures in one of the WTO official languages 
instead of publication of all laws and regulations in one of the WTO official languages.  This was 
meant to avoid a burden for Members regarding tran slation.  Since each Member would eventually 
decide the extent of what measure constituted a ma jor trade-related procedure, it seemed difficult to 
clearly define the concept of "major". Therefore, the adjective "major" had been deleted so that the 
text now merely read: "trade-related procedures" as opposed to the formulation "major trade-related 
procedures" used before.  
28. Paragraph 5 of the revised textual proposal contained an additional provision for uniform 
interpretation and administration of  laws and regulations in response to requests by traders.  The 
original paragraph 8 had been deleted as a result of many Members expressing their concerns about 
primary or initial enquiry points.  Japan hoped that  the revision would add more comfort to those 
Members who had expressed concerns regard to  the original version of  TN/TF/W/114. 
29. Turning to TN/TF/W/115/Rev.1, the Japanese repr esentative explained that the preamble had 
been changed to take into account the intense di scussions Members had had concerning S&DT. As a 
result, paragraph 5 of the original textual proposal had been deleted. 
30. With regard to paragraph 1, in past NGTF meetings, some Members had referred to the 
necessity of general exceptions, for instance for urge nt matters and for some constitutional reasons. In 
response to that request, the wo rds "except in urgent circumstances and other limited exceptions 
which are made public" had been inserted. This w ould hopefully enhance Members' comfort with this 
paragraph.  However, while exceptions might be needed, Japan believed that they should not be open-
ended.  Therefore, it was proposed for those limited exceptions to be made public.  Consequently, the 
original paragraph 4 dealing with  reservations had been deleted.   The term "except in urgent 
circumstances" was already used  in the SPS Agreement and "limited exceptions" was used in the 
TRIPs Agreement. 
31. On the issue of prior consultation, as many Me mbers had asked to limit the beneficiaries of 
this section to domestic traders and other interested bodies, the term "within their territories" had been 
added in paragraph 1. In paragr aph 3, the term "within their territories" had been added as well.    
32. The Chairman  asked whether any delegation wished to make a statement for the record.  TN/TF/M/20 
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  33. There were no requests. 
34. The Negotiating Group took note  of the statements made. 
B. AD HOC ATTENDANCE OF RELEVANT INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS , INCLUDING THE 
IMF,  OECD,  UNCTAD,  WCO  AND THE WORLD BANK, AT THE NEXT MEETING OF THE 
NEGOTIATING GROUP  
35. The Chairman  suggested inviting relevant internati onal organizations, including the IMF, 
OECD, UNCTAD, WCO and the World Bank to attend th e next formal meeting of the NG on an ad 
hoc basis, as provided for in the Work Plan. 
36. It was so agreed . 
C. OTHER BUSINESS  
37. The Chairman  addressed the issue of the NG's next meeting. The dynamics of the broader 
negotiating process and the completeness of the agenda made this a somewhat challenging 
undertaking, limiting the choices to a few slots available. One of them was in the second week of November, starting as of Monday 5 November. Prec ise sequencing and scheduling were yet to be 
defined – and would be communicated to Me mbers in good time – taking into account the 
developments on the larger negotiating front.      
38. It was so agreed
. 
39. The representative of th e European Communities  thanked the Chair for outlining the plans for 
the next round of negotiations.  The EC would en courage him to also consider the possibility of 
having some meetings prior to the next formal round b ecause there was still a lot of work to do.  Time 
was not unlimited and it was difficult to get into an effective and efficient drafting mode in a larger 
formal session.  One had to move with the Chair's help and find some supplem entary ways or methods 
to allow Members as a group to focus on the different  texts or proposals and try to clean them up and 
reach agreement on different components of the docu ments.  Obviously, Members would get together 
in the next few weeks to try to straighten out differences and find compromise proposals, but there 
was clearly a role for the Chair in helping Members to do that.  He urged the Chair to reflect on the 
best way in which that could be done.     
40. The representative of India  wished to make a few remarks along the lines of the comments 
made by the EC.  Perhaps there could be some cons ultations with Members ahead of the next meeting 
to get a sense of how Members wished to see furthe r progress or what next steps they suggested.  It 
would also allow Members to get a better sense of what the progress was in other areas of the 
negotiations and to that extent there was need fo r a change in the context of these negotiations.  
Perhaps there could be a fruitful dialog ue with Members in the interim.   
41. The representative of the United States  expressed support for the suggestion to consult with 
Members inter-sessionally.  The US would be happy to participate in consultations on the best way to 
move forward.  The United States also wished to  recall the fundamental concerns it had expressed 
with some of the proposals a few months ago.  W ashington was still open to engaging with others and 
hoped to receive new drafts from delegations on those i ssues. There was quite a bit of work ahead.    
42. The representative of Hong Kong, China  supported the idea expressed by EC and India.  
Additional informal consultations  would be useful to supplement the plenary session because time 
was running out.  Any additional way to have a be tter discussion and a better understanding of the 
status of the discussions would be very useful.     TN/TF/M/20 
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  43. The representative of Korea
 said that his delegation was happy to support the ideas expressed  
by the European Communities.    
44. The representative of Argentina  said that the point raised was very relevant. Beyond the 
matter of the pace of the negotiations or the positio ns that each and every delegation had on specific 
matters, it was necessary to reflect whether one could make some changes in the working mechanism.  
There was a contradiction.  Members had thir d generation proposals containing a legal text.  
However, the discussion on them was of a conceptual  nature.  There was a legal text on the one hand 
and a conceptual discussion on the other, with the ou tcome for the next meeting being the same legal 
text with some changes proposed by delegations th at had had the opportunity to incorporate some 
points.  But the NG continued to have the same co nceptual discussion.  From Argentina's point of 
view, and from an overall perspective, the themes had been identified.  Members had differences and 
specific points on the extension and scope and there was legal text, but one needed some kind of 
mechanism to enable Members to make the discussion more concrete.  Then Members would have some sort of result enabling them to see more cl early where one could find points of convergence and 
where differences remained. Argentina was not really  clear on the central negotiating issues in each of 
the proposals.  One had to find a mechanism that  would assist Members to focus the discussion on 
those issues that were of great interest to them a nd on specific points in the proposed texts.  It would 
be very time consuming if one ha d to negotiate legal texts.  One had to clearly note where the 
differences were and see whether there was a possib ility of resolving them.  That was something 
Members had to reflect upon as a group.   
45. The representative of Cuba
 supported the statement by Argentina. Cuba had already warned 
about the lack of a mechanism to take into account not just the ideas expressed by the proponents but 
also those by other delegations.  Members should, as a group, think about how to address this absence 
and see how they could make progress.  As a small dele gation, Cuba also had to deal with other very 
important issues within the negotiations.  This me ant that Members had to step up the pace of the 
work without losing the participation one had had during the informal sessions.   Cuba had repeatedly 
stated concerns.  Sometimes they were taken into account, other times not, but certainly they should 
be incorporated in the final outcome of the negotiations.   
46. The representative of Hong Kong, China  said that Argentina had raised some very useful 
suggestions regarding an area Members could focus on .  There might be merit in the two suggestions 
from India and Argentina for the Chair to consider holding some informal cons ultations on next steps 
before the next plenary meeting, including the id entification of some of the negotiating issues that 
Members were thinking of discussing at the next plenary.     
47. The Chairman  said that he had taken note of the sugg estions made and that he would reflect 
upon them. One of the characteristics of the NGTF ha d always been that of preserving transparency 
and a bottom-up approach. One should think about what had been said and endeavour to find the 
appropriate mechanisms to advance in the Group's work. He was completely open to meeting with 
delegations. One had to have the appropriate pro cedures in order to make progress. Precise time and 
structure of the next NGTF meeting would be communicated to Members later on.  
48. The Negotiating Group took note of the statements made.  
49. The meeting was adjourned.  
__________