The WTO Secretariat strives to ensure that the Trade Monitoring Reports are factual and objective accounts of recent trends in trade policy making. Finally, the Reports clearly emphasize that the SPS and TBT Agreements specifically allow Members to take measures in the pursuit of a number of legitimate policy objectives. The Reports have consistently underlined the basic premise that an increased number of SPS and TBT notifications do not automatically imply greater use of protectionist or unnecessarily trade-restrictive measures, but rather enhanced transparency regarding these measures. With respect to sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) and technical barriers to trade (TBT) measures covered in the Report, it is important to emphasize that they are neither classified nor counted as trade-restrictive or trade-facilitating, and the increasing trend with respect to the number of notifications of such measures is carefully linked to the transparency provisions of the Agreements only. The main objective of monitoring these measures is to provide added transparency and to identify emerging trends. The WTO Monitoring Reports have never categorized the use of trade remedies as protectionist, WTO-inconsistent or criticised governments for utilizing them. The Monitoring Reports are not in a position to establish if, where or when such perceived distortive practices have taken place. In fact, the WTO Antidumping and Subsidies Agreements permit WTO Members to impose antidumping (AD) or countervailing (CVD) duties to offset what is perceived to be injurious dumping or subsidization of products exported from one Member to another. With respect to trade remedy actions it has been highlighted in discussions among WTO Members that several of these measures are taken to address what is perceived by some as a market distortion resulting from trade practices of entities in another trading partner. With respect to the tariff increases included in the reports, it is equally important to stress that the overwhelming majority of these measures are taken within bound ceilings and do not appear to break WTO rules. The Reports continue to evolve in terms of the coverage and analysis of trade-related issues and take into account discussions among WTO Members in the Trade Policy Review Body.Īlthough the restrictive trade measures as covered by the Monitoring Report have a restraining impact on the flow of trade, almost all such measures appear to have been taken within the flexibilities provided for in the multilateral trading system. The Monitoring Report neither seeks to pronounce itself on whether a trade measure is protectionist, nor does it question the explicit right of Members to take certain trade measures.
#JDOWNLOADS SYMBOL FILE MONITOR UPDATE#
The Monitoring Report aims to shed light on the latest trends in the implementation of a broad range of policy measures that facilitate as well as restrict the flow of trade and provide an update on the state of global trade. It is without prejudice to Members' negotiating positions and has no legal implication with respect to the conformity of any measure noted in the report with any WTO Agreement or any provision thereof. It is intended to be purely factual and has no legal effect on the rights and obligations of WTO Members. The Trade Monitoring Report is first and foremost a transparency exercise. This Report is issued under the sole responsibility of the Director-General of the WTO. The most recent mid-year Monitoring Report was circulated on 4 July 2016 and the last annual Trade Monitoring Report ( WT/TPR/OV/19 ) by the Director-General was issued on 21 November 2016. It is a mid-year preparatory contribution to the annual report by the Director-General under the TPRM (Trade Policy Review Mechanism) mandate in which he provides the WTO membership with an overview of developments in the international trading environment.
This WTO Monitoring Report reviews trade and trade-related measures implemented by WTO Members during the period from 16 October 2016 to. REPORT TO THE TPRB FROM THE DIRECTOR-GENERAL ONĢ RECENT ECONOMIC AND TRADE DEVELOPMENTS 10Ģ.5 Trade Forecast and Economic Outlook 17ģ TRADE AND TRADE-RELATED POLICY DEVELOPMENTS 23ģ.1 Overview of trends identified during the period under review 23ģ.3 Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) 42ģ.5 Policy Developments in Agriculture 55ģ.7 Other Selected Trade Policy Developments 65Ĥ POLICY DEVELOPMENTS IN TRADE IN SERVICES 73ĥ POLICY DEVELOPMENTS IN TRADE AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY 77ĪNNEX 3: OTHER TRADE AND TRADE-RELATED MEASURES 102ĪNNEX 4: MEASURES AFFECTING TRADE IN SERVICES 111 Converted file: Document symbol WT/TPR/OV/W/11
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