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This
was the main question facing participants in the Workshop
on Technical Assistance and Special and Differential
Treatment in the Context of the TBT Agreement, organized
by the WTO's Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade on
19-20 July 2000 at the WTO headquarters in Geneva.Developing
country participants underlined the importance of the TBT
Agreement and international product standards to their
trade development, and called for more technical
assistance from the WTO and international
standard-setting bodies.
The
TBT Committee Chairman, Mr. John Adank of New Zealand,
welcomed the workshop discussions as "practical and
solutions-oriented". He said a number of solutions
to problems identified at the workshop had been proposed,
including improved coordination at the national level,
participation of private industry, strengthened technical
cooperation focused at individual national needs, better
regional cooperation and coordination, as well as greater
use of information technology tools like the Internet.
Mr.
Adank thanked the European Communities, Japan, the
Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom for funding
the participation of speakers from developing countries
and participants from the least-developed countries.
The
workshop was divided into the following themes:
- Implementation
of the TBT Agreement, moderated by Ms. Dara
Williams of Australia;
- International
standards, moderated by Mr. Martin Loken of
Canada;
- Conformity
assessment procedures, moderated by Mr. Otto Th.
Gence of the Netherlands; and
- Capacity
building, moderated by Mr. Mohan Kumar of India.
The
results of the workshop are expected to be taken up in
future meetings of the TBT Committee.
For
more information:
The
Chairman's summary report
Session
reports of the moderators
Programme
of the workshop
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