WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONG/TBT/W/199
17 March 2003
(03-1557)
Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade Original:  English
KOREA’S EXPERIENCE WITH THE IMPLEMENTATION
OF THE WTO/TBT AGREEMENT   
Submission by Korea
1. The following is intended to contribute to the compilation of the relevant information by the
Committee and the Secretariat, by outlining Korea's experiences with the implementation and
operation of the WTO/TBT Agreement.
I. TRANSPARENCY, INFORMATION EXCHANGE, AND NOTIFICATION ISSUES
A. NOTIFICATION
2. When domestic technical regulations or conformity assessment procedures are newly
established or revised, the competent authority in Korea exerts its efforts to notify them to Members
through the WTO Secretariat at an early appropriate stage, in accordance with the requirements of the
TBT Agreement .
3. Korea does its best to allow reasonable time for interested parties of other Members to make
comments on those notifications.  Regarding the comm ents received after the final date for comments,
Korea makes every possible effort to handle and take them into account.
4. So far, Korea has submitted 138 notifications to the WTO Secretariat, since the submission of
its first notification G/TBT/Notif.95/44 on 20 February 1995.
Year 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 Total
Number 13 9 14 8 22 26 27 19 138
B. OPERATION OF ENQUIRY POINTS
5. In order to provide replies to enquiries from other Members, Korea is operating four enquiry
points with respect to industry fields.
Item Organization
Industrial products Korean Agency for Technology and Standards
Agricultural products Ministry of Agricultural and ForestryFishery products Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries
Food & Cosmetic products Korea Food and Drug AdministrationG/TBT/W/199
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6. Above enquiry points have been providing replies to enquiries from other Members and
interested parties in other Members on any existing or proposed standards, technical regulations or
conformity assessment procedures.
C. EFFICIENT INFORMATION EXCHANGE
7. The Korean government translates summaries of the texts of TBT notifications from all
Members into Korean language and notifies them publicly on the web page (http://www.ats.go.kr) ofKATS so as to enable local interested partie s to gain up-to-date information on TBT in other
countries.
II. TECHNICAL REGULATIONS AND STANDARDS
A. INTERNATIONAL STANDARDIZATION ACTIVITIES
8. Starting from the late 1990s, there have been outstanding accomplishments in Korea’s
participation to international standardisation activities.
9. In policy development areas, Korea is actively participating in ISO and IEC by serving as a
member of ISO Council, IEC Council Board and IE C Standardisation Management Board as well as
Chair of the ISO/DCTF(Task Force on Developing Countries).
10. And also, in the field of technical activities, Korea became P-members to 593 technical
committees (TCs) and subcommittees (SCs) of ISO and IEC.  The number of P-membership to TCs
and SCs of ISO and IEC ranked within the top 10 position in the worldwide.  By way of increasing itsholding of secretariats and chairs in TCs/SCs, Korea is trying to contribute more actively in
international standardization activities rather than remaining as a mere participant.
B. ADOPTION OF INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS
11. The National Standards Act was enacted in February 1999 and the National Standards Plan
was submitted to the Prime Minister in November 2000 as the implementation plan of the Act.According to these Act and plan, national standards, technical regulations and conformity assessment
systems will be established or revised not to be unnecessary technical obstacles to trade and also as
much as possible in harmonization with corresponding International Standards or Guides.
12. By enlarging the number of full time staff of national standardisation organisation (45 persons
→165 persons), Korea has prepared to actively meet the demanding standardisation issues including
the harmonisation work.  As of 2002, 93.8% of KS standards, which have relevant existing
international standards, have been harmonized with international ones.
C. CODE OF GOOD PRACTICE FOR THE PREPARATORY, ADOPTION, AND
APPLICATION OF STANDARDS
13. Having accepted the Code of Good Practice in December 1998 and 2001, respectively,
KATS (Korean Agency for Technology and Standards) and KEA (Korea Electric Association) are
continuing to make determined efforts to meet the requirements of the TBT Agreement, particularly in
the preparation, adoption and application of standards, e.g. harmonization of national standards withinternational ones, allowance of a period of at least 60 days for the submission of comments on the
draft standard by interested parties within the territory of Members, etc
.G/TBT/W/199
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III. CONFORMITY ASSESSMENT PROCEDURES
14. Based on the National Standards Act and National Standardization Plan, Korea has been
striving to maintain domestic conformity assessment systems to meet the requirements of relevant
international standards and guides.
15. Also, Korea is actively making effort to join mutual and multilateral recognition agreements
in the field of conformity assessment.  So far, Korea has joined MRAs covering various fields such asILAC-MRA for laboratory accreditation, PAC-ML A for ISO 9000 certification, and APMP-MRA for
measurement standards.
16. However, Korea’s accomplishment in bilateral MRA is not satisfactory.  Based on the
WTO/TBT Agreement, Korea would like to stress that Members should be encouraged, at the request
of other Members, to enter into negotiations for agreements for the mutual recognition of results of
each other’s conformity assessment procedures.
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