Overcoming Trade Barriers: The OECD Project

1. Overcoming Trade Barriers: The OECD Project • WTO ITA program on NTMs • OECD Trade Committee… regulatory reform and Study JT00122129 Standards-related barriers and trade liberalisation: telecommunications sector • UN/ECE WP6 and ITU • ICSCA • GTW Associates

2. WTO ITA program on NTMs The Committee of Participants on the Expansion of Trade in Information Technology Products (ITA Committee) approved, on 13 November 2000, a work programme on non-tariff measures on ITA products http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/pres00_e/pr198_e.htm

3. WTO ITA program on NTMs • According to briefing notes for the Doha Ministerial November 2001 meeting the NTMs for ITA products identified so far include: • divergent national standards and regulatory procedures for“type approval”; regulatory environment and the level of regulation, disparity of national standards, conformity assessment and testing requirements, customs procedures; stringent rules of origin requirements; cumbersome conformity assessment procedures and excessive technical standards, China; origin requirements; different national conformity assessment requirements and import licensing requirements

4. What is OECD? OECD = Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development OECD groups 29 Member Countries in an organisation that provides governments a setting in which to discuss, develop and perfect economic and social policy Core of original European and North American members expanded to include Japan; Australia; New Zealand; Mexico US Participates in Trade Committee through Office of USTR

5. OECD Trade Committee…regulatory reform and Study JT00122129 Activity of the Trade Committee continuing work on regulatory harmonization described at http://www.oecd.org//ech/16-17%20march%202000/documentation-eng.htm OECD Project to address standards-related barriers in telecommunication equipment described at http://www.gtwassociates.com/alerts/OECD.html

6. OECD Trade Committee…regulatory reform and Study JT00122129 GTW Associates contributed a report in February, 2001 Potential for International Co-operation and Reduction of Trade Barriers arising from Technical Requirements and Conformity Assessment procedures in the Telecommunications Sector (included separately and available at) http://www.gtwassociates.com/alerts/Feb6OECD.pdf

7. OECD Trade Committee…regulatory reform and Study JT00122129 • The Telecommunications ITA definitional scope of the effort could be expanded to include Information and Communications Technology products • Costs of meeting technical regulations and related standards in the global telecommunications market are hard to quantify but are significant. • many strong "best practice" examples ( RTTE/FCC Part 68; Declarenet; South Africa test acceptance; IECEE scheme; role of market surveillance ) • major distinction   between the Technical Regulations  and standards applicable to products and the conformity assessment requirements (Mature vs Immature)

8. OECD Trade Committee…regulatory reform and Study JT00122129 Standards-related barriers and trade liberalisation: telecommunications sector TD/TC/WP(2001)11/Final Available at http://www.olis.oecd.org/olis/2001doc.nsf/LinkTo/td-tc-wp(2001)11-final

9. OECD Trade Committee…regulatory reform and Study JT00122129 • I. Introduction • II. Regulatory Objectives • III. Role of Standardisation IN Technical regulation • IV. INTERNATIONAL HARMONIZATION • V. INTEROPERABILITY AND RADIO INTERFERENCE • VI. EQUIVALENCY • VII. Conformity Assessment • V. CONCLUSION

10. OECD Trade Committee…regulatory reform and Study JT00122129 • this study has identified three particular areas that appear to be promising candidates for international harmonisation: “Electrical Safety”, “EMC” and “Radio Interference”. It has found that the OECD Members covered in this study tend to use international standards in their technical regulations on “Electrical Safety” and “EMC”. Regarding “Radio Interference,” the recent efforts to streamline technical specifications for radio interference without any interoperability requirements greatly enhance the possibility of international harmonisation.

11. UN/ECE WP6 and ITU The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe(UNECE)is one of five regional commissions of the United Nations. Its 55 member States include western, central and eastern Europe as well as Israel, the United States and Canada UN/ECE WP6 = Working Party 6 on Technical Harmonization and Standardization Policies See http://www.gtwassociates.com/alerts/ECE.html ITU = International Telecommunications Union

12. UN/ECE WP6 and ITU • The 11th Session of the UN/ECE Working Party on Technical Harmonization and Standardization Policies (Working Party 6) was October 29/31 in Geneva. In order to see how regulators could make a wider use of international standards an ad hoc Team of Specialists on STandardization And Regulatory Techniques was established in 1999. The “START Team” prepared a project which was tentatively called "International Model for implementing good regulatory practice in the preparation, adoption and application of technical regulations via the use of international standards“ • http://www.unece.org/trade/tips/stdpol/index.htm and http://www.unece.org/trade/tips/stdpol/docs/wp6-01-18e.doc

13. UN/ECE WP6 and ITU AN INTERNATIONAL MODEL FOR TECHNICAL HARMONISATION BASED ON GOOD REGULATORY PRACTICE FOR THE PREPARATION, ADOPTION AND APPLICATION OF TECHNICAL REGULATIONS VIA THE USE OF INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS http://www.unece.org/trade/tips/docs/wp6_01/model-17r4e.doc

14. UN/ECE WP6 and ITU • The WP6 work program is not without controversy in United States policy circles according to a letter to Commerce Secretary and Trade Representative Zoelick, “this work is redundant to existing work and current obligations in the WTO Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Committee and could ultimately undermine these obligations and future work. • http://www.gtwassociates.com/alerts/UNECELETTER.PDF

15. UN/ECE WP6 and ITU • On 12 July the Executive Secretary of UNECE wrote to the Secretary General of ITU informing ITU about the "International Model" and about an OECD study and suggesting to ITU to explore a possibility of identifying an area where governments may see the need for technical harmonization (as a pilot project) and if principles of the International Model might be used in such regulatory cooperation

16. ICSCA • ICSCA is an Industry Co-operation on Standardization and Conformity Assessment; an industry FORUM, no bylaws, no dues, driven by common interest, open • Members from various branches, some 50 globally acting companiesof all sizes; some 12 industry associations; members from America, Europe and Asia-Pacific • The shared vision is that standards should add value to business • Meetings are held every nine months, work is done electronically • Resolutions are promoted to the relevant organizations • www.icsca.org.au

18. ICSCA • ICSCA VIII-2 (Berlin February 27, 2002) welcomes the presentation given by Keiya IIDA from the OECD Trade Committee on its current achievements and future plans. ICSCA VIII-2 appreciates the opportunity to cooperate with and contribute to the ongoing projects of the OECD Trade Committee addressing non-tariff barriers on telecommunications equipment. ICSCA VIII-2 also welcomes the extension of the project to cover other information technology products and non-tariff barriers in non-OECD developing countries. • ICSCA welcomes further collaboration and offers ICSCA members as information resources and advisors to OECD, and to work in liaison withthe Business and Industry Advisory Committee (BIAC) as appropriate.

19. What is GTW Associates? International Standards and Trade Policy consultancy www.gtwassociates.com