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PRESS RELEASE: PRESS/TPRB/268
24 and 26 July 2006

TRADE POLICY REVIEW: NICARAGUA

Recent economic progress could be sustained by more multilateral liberalization

Since its last review in 1999, Nicaragua has experienced a favourable economic development with moderate GDP growth, control of the fiscal deficit, and reduction of external debt to sustainable levels, thanks to a macroeconomic adjustment programme, and a policy to keep markets open, according to a WTO Secretariat report on the Trade Policies and Practices of Nicaragua by the Trade Policy Review Body (TPR).

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> More on  Nicaragua

The report notes that during the period under review, Nicaragua eliminated the import surcharge introduced in 1994, redrafted or amended its legislation in many areas, made scant use of contingency measures, applied limited non-tariff barriers and made improvements in areas such as import procedures, customs valuation, and intellectual property protection, while additional reforms are under consideration. Nevertheless, while the average MFN tariff is relatively low, it has increased over the past years due largely to the continuation of the process of harmonization under the Central American Common Market.

The report also says that to promote greater economic efficiency and diversification it would be particularly important for Nicaragua to further liberalize its economy on an MFN basis and anchor these efforts through multilateral commitments.

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, 94KB)
  > Economic environment (12 pages, 308KB)
  > Trade and investment regimes (12 pages, 149KB)
  > Trade policies and practices by measure (32 pages, 484KB)
  > Trade policies by sector (36 pages, 555KB)
  > Appendix tables (17 pages, 957KB)
    
• Government report (54 pages, 3155KB)
    
• Revisions of the above documents may be issued approximately 2 weeks after the meeting.
    
• Chairperson's concluding remarks
    
• 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

Bangladesh: 13 and 15 September 2006
Congo: 27 and 29 September 2006
Kyrgyz Republic: 9 and 11 October 2006