Thailand
APEC discuss WTO’s agreement on technical barriers to trade
HCM CITY — Around 90 delegates from 21 APEC member economies met at a workshop on Monday to discuss ways to enhance regulatory expertise as it relates to WTO’s agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT).
The workshop was held within the framework of the third Senior Officials Meeting (SOM 3) and related meeting being held in the city.
Speaking at the workshop, Nguyen Van Khoi, APEC Subcommittee on Standards and Conformance and chair of the meeting, said: “We hope that economies will be able to use the information provided by the workshop to produce higher quality regulations and reduce the chances that proposed measures could impede trade.”
The two-day workshop will discuss a range of issues, including standards in the WTO TBT agreement and the development of technical regulations.
Delegates from Malaysia will speak about their experience with regulatory impact assessment, while participants from Indonesia and Peru will discuss the development of technical regulations on standardisation.
“The workshop is expected to have benefits for all APEC economies and for the multilateral trading system as a whole,” Khoi told Vietnam News.
The project, “Enhancing Regulator Expertise on the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade” aims to identify the best practices to implement necessary and effective regulations and the best approaches for regulatory co-operation.
Recent WTO jurisprudence related to technical regulations and standards will also be discussed on Monday afternoon. — VNS
Source: http://vietnamnews.vn/economy/392401/apec-discuss-wtos-agreement-on-technical-barriers-to-trade.html#dhuAHagIVsXpRiYh.99