PRESS
RELEASE: PRESS/TPRB/265
7 and 9 June 2006
TRADE POLICY REVIEW: ICELAND
Openness and specialization have led to high living standards
Iceland's standard of living is among the world's highest, in part due to the overall openness of its economy, which has allowed Iceland to reap significant benefits from specialization and trade according to a report on the trade policies and practices of Iceland published by the WTO Secretariat.
See also:
> More
on Iceland
Iceland has continued to diversify its economy and undertaken
macroeconomic and liberalising reforms over the last six years. Many of
these reforms have been driven by Iceland's participation in the
European Economic Area (EEA). This has widened the gap between the
treatment Iceland affords to its EEA partners and to other WTO Members
in various areas. The report suggests that closing this gap by applying
reforms on an MFN basis, and securing them in the WTO, would help reduce
remaining distortions, enhance competition in the domestic market, and
prevent over-reliance on the EEA market.
The report also calls for Iceland to take further steps to reduce
agricultural support and protection, in particular in the dairy and lamb
sectors, which could bring economic benefits and help align agricultural
policy with the market-based solutions implemented in other sectors.
The WTO report, along with a policy statement by the Government, will be the basis for the Trade Policy Review (TPR) by the Trade Policy Review Body of the WTO.
The following documents are available in MS Word format.
- Secretariat report
> Contents and summary observations (12 pages, 100KB)
> Economic environment (10 pages, 379KB)
> Trade and investment policy framework (9 pages, 136KB)
> Trade policies and practices by measure (44 pages, 383KB)
> Trade policies by sector (37 pages, 396KB)
> Appendix tables (14 pages, 671KB)
- Government report (15 pages,
111KB)
- Revisions of the above documents may be issued approximately
2 weeks after the meeting.
- Chairperson's concluding remarkstp265_crc_e.htm
- Minutes
of the meeting are available approximately 6 weeks after the meeting.
- Questions and answers by WTO Members 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
Chinese Taipei: 20 and 22 June 2006
Togo: 3 and 5 July 2006
Nicaragua: 24 and 26 July 2006