Companies involved in the manufacture/trade of goods with an environmental benefit need to be aware that the window is closing on a meaningful opportunity to have tariffs reduced or eliminated on a multijurisdictional basis. The United States and 13 other willing WTO Members, including the EU, China and Japan, have agreed to negotiate an environmental goods agreement (“EGA”) that will reduce or eliminate tariffs on such goods, much like the WTO Information Technology Agreement (“ITA”)…
On 7 April 2014, the WTO announced that the revised WTO Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA) entered into force on 6 April 2014, some two years after the Protocol amending the Agreement was originally adopted. The parties to the revised GPA will see gains in market access of an estimated US$ 80 billion to US$ 100 billion annually for their businesses. The announcement said: The gains in market access result from numerous government entities (ministries…
Member countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO) are required under the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement) to report to the WTO all proposed technical regulations that could affect trade with other Member countries. The WTO Secretariat distributes this information in the form of “notifications” to all Member countries. This chart summarizes notifications in English posted by the WTO since April 1, 2013. If you are interested in obtaining copies of any…