PRESS RELEASE: PRESS/TPRB/207
29 November 2002

TRADE POLICY REVIEW: VENEZUELA
More private investment needed to diversify the economy

A WTO report, along with the policy statement of the Government of Venezuela, will serve as a basis for the second Trade Policy Review (TPR) of Venezuela by the Trade Policy Review Body of the WTO on 27 and 29 November 2002.

A report on the trade policies and practices of Venezuela, published November 29 by the WTO Secretariat, says that steps have been taken to liberalize the economy but that more private investment is required to achieve greater diversification.

To do so, the report also says, Venezuela needs to address the perception of insufficient predictability in its institutional and legal framework, which could be done by following stricter practices in its trade policies and binding recent liberalization measures.

The following documents are available in MS Word format.

• Secretariat report
  > Contents and summary observations (14 pages, 229KB)
  > Economic environment (17 pages, 293KB)
  > Trade policy regime: framework and objectives (15 pages, 116KB)
  > Trade policies and practices by measure (21 pages, 451KB)
  > Trade policies by sector (45 pages, 300KB)
  > Appendix tables (31 pages, 438KB)
    

• Government report (13 pages, 67KB)
    

• Chairperson's concluding remarks
    

• Minutes of the meeting are available approximately 6 weeks after the meeting.

Note  back to top

Trade Policy Reviews are an exercise, mandated in the WTO agreements, in which member countries’ trade and related policies are examined and evaluated at regular intervals. Significant developments that may have an impact on the global trading system are also monitored. For each review, two documents are prepared: a policy statement by the government of the member under review, and a detailed report written independently by the WTO Secretariat. These two documents are then discussed by the WTO’s full membership in the Trade Policy Review Body (TPRB). These documents and the proceedings of the TPRB’s meetings are published shortly afterwards.

Print copies of previous TPR publications are available for sale from the WTO Secretariat, Centre William Rappard, 154 rue de Lausanne, 1211 Genève 21 and through the on-line bookshop.

The TPR publications are also available from our co-publisher Bernan Press, 4611-F Assembly Drive, Lanham, MD 20706-4391, United States.

Schedule of forthcoming reviews  back to top

Hong Kong, China: 16, 18 Dec 2002
Maldives: 15, 17 January 2003
El Salvador: 3, 5 February 2003
Canada: 12, 14 March 2003