Following the mandate set out in paragraph 3 of the MC12 Outcome Document, which mandated the General Council and its subsidiary bodies to direct the work, review progress and consider decisions to be submitted to the 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13) to be held in Abu Dhabi in February 2024, the Committee on Market Access was one of the first bodies to initiate discussions.
The Chair of the Committee, Renata Cristaldo of Paraguay, briefed members on the progress made over the past few months. As part of the improvements made, she highlighted the Committee’s adoption of three elements to enhance the conduct of formal meetings:
- the closing of the agenda 15 days before formal meetings to allow more time for delegates to prepare for the meeting;
- the ordering of trade concerns in the agenda, which separates new trade concerns and places them before previously raised trade concerns;
- and the new default option for statements in the Committee’s eAgenda, which makes them automatically available to all other members after the meeting.
The Chair noted that “the more information that is shared in the eAgenda, the more complete the picture of the discussions becomes. This can be very useful for delegates who have to report to their capitals on what happened at the meeting.”
With regard to the webpage of the Committee on Market Access, which brings together all the information relating to the Committee’s work, the Chair noted that it has been available online since 19 September. This page contains very useful information for delegates, such as the contacts of the Secretariat team, dates of the meetings, the Secretariat’s annual presentation to delegates on the functioning of the Committee and instructions on the work of the Committee, among other resources.
Members acknowledged that the Committee on Market Access was striving to enhance its working procedures and will continue to implement other improvements as identified by members.
Thematic sessions on supply chain resilience
Noting the successful results of the experience sharing sessions on trade in COVID-related products carried out since March 2022 in the Committee, members agreed to continue the practice of organizing thematic sessions based on members’ proposals. Delegates supported holding a first introductory session on supply chain resilience with the participation of other international organizations on 21 November 2023.
The objective of this introductory session would be to better understand what is meant by supply chain resilience in order to provide members with a conceptual framework from which they can take up some topics and develop them among themselves within the framework of the Committee.
Members considered that it would be important to have a variety of organizations, and also to include the perspectives of both developed and developing members, including least-developed countries.
With regard to the timing of these additional sessions, it was noted that the coming months will be very busy ahead of MC13 and, in order to ensure active participation of members, it was noted that it would be best to postpone any sharing of experiences by members until after the Ministerial Conference.
Quantitative restrictions
The Chair presented members’ document G/MA/QR/13, entitled “Status of notifications submitted under the Decision on the Procedure for Notification of Quantitative Restrictions”, in which the Secretariat summarizes the status of notifications of quantitative restrictions as of 29 September 2023.
The document shows that the situation has slightly improved compared to previous years, in particular for the last three biennial periods (2018-2020, 2020-2022, 2022-2024). The Chair noted that although the volume and quality of notifications have been increasing over the past few years, the overall level of compliance with the Decision on the notification of quantitative restrictions remains relatively low.
To date, 78 members have never submitted a notification of their quantitative restrictions. In addition, there are members that have notified measures introduced in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and have indicated that they would submit a full notification with all quantitative restrictions in place at a later date but have not yet done so.
The quantitative restrictions database can be accessed here.
Trade concerns
The Committee addressed 35 trade concerns, of which four were new, covering a wide range of trade policy measures:
- Angola’s import restricting practices, raised by the European Union
- Australia’s maturation requirements for imported alcohol, raised by Brazil
- Australia’s discriminatory market access prohibition on 5G equipment, raised by China
- Canada’s discriminatory market access prohibition on 5G equipment, raised by China
- China’s trade disruptive and restrictive measures, raised by Australia
- China’s draft revision of government procurement law, raised by Japan
- China’s draft of recommended national standard (GB/T) for office devices, raised by Japan
- China’s export control measure applicable to gallium and germanium, raised by the European Union and Japan
- China, Hong Kong, China and Macao, China restriction on import of aquatic products from Japan following discharge of ALPS-treated water into the sea, raised by Japan
- Dominican Republic’s discriminatory taxation on some food imported products, raised by the European Union
- European Union’s MRL reduction of certain substances to meet environmental objectives in third countries, raised by Argentina, Australia, Indonesia and Paraguay
- European Union’s proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and the Council on shipments of waste, raised by Indonesia
- European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, raised by China, Indonesia and the Russian Federation
- European Union’s deforestation-free commodities, raised by Indonesia and the Russian Federation
- India’s quality control order for chemical and petrochemical substances, raised by Indonesia and Thailand
- India’s basic customs duty on solar photovoltaic cells and modules, raised by China
- India’s approved list of models and manufacturers of solar photovoltaic modules, raised by China
- India’s import policies on tyres, raised by the European Union, Indonesia, Chinese Taipei and Thailand
- India’s quantitative restrictions on imports of certain pulses, raised by Australia and Canada
- India’s quality control of chemicals and petrochemicals order, raised by Indonesia and Thailand
- India’s import restriction on air conditioners, raised by Japan and Thailand
- India’s import restrictions on computers, tablets and other electronic products, raised by China
- Indonesia’s commodity balance mechanism, raised by the European Union
- Indonesia’s customs duties on certain telecommunication products, raised by the United States
- Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, State of Kuwait, Oman and Qatar’s selective tax on certain imported products, raised by the European Union, Switzerland and the United States
- Mexico’s import quota on glyphosate, raised by the United States
- Nepal’s import ban on energy drinks, raised by Thailand
- Peru’s tax treatment of pisco, raised by the United Kingdom
- Sri Lanka’s import ban on various products, raised by the European Union
- Türkiye’s discriminatory additional tariffs on electric vehicles, raised by China
- United States’ disruptive and restrictive measures in the name of national security, raised by China
- United States, Japan and Netherlands’ agreement on chip export restrictions, raised by China
- United States’ series of disruptive policy measures on the global semiconductor industry chain and supply chain, raised by China
- United States’ Section 301 tariffs on certain goods from China, raised by China
- United States’ quantitative restrictions on imports of sturgeon, raised by the European Union
Next meetings
The Chair informed that the 2024 formal meetings of the Committee are scheduled for 25-26 March and 19-20 November.
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