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PRESS RELEASE: PRESS/TPRB/310

TRADE POLICY REVIEW:

Gains from liberalization could be enlarged by further strengthening competition and the regulatory framework

Since its last review in 2002, Guatemala has continued to place trade liberalization at the core of its development strategy, taking measures such as the streamlining of customs procedures, lowering tariffs, and adopting new government procurement and intellectual property rights legislation; these measures have helped expand trade and investment, according to a WTO Secretariat report on the trade policies and practices of Guatemala.

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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 report states that economic expansion needs to be sustained and increased in order to achieve improvements in living standards, which in turn requires keeping up the ongoing efforts designed to strengthen competition and the regulatory framework in sectors such as telecommunications, financial services and maritime transport.

The WTO report also notes that Guatemala offers fiscal concessions which include export subsidies, and observes that it would be useful to define a concrete strategy to minimize the transition costs to a subsidy-free regime.

The WTO report, along with a policy statement by the Government of Guatemala, will be the basis for the second TPR of Guatemala by the Trade Policy Review Body of the WTO on 4 and 6 February 2009.

The following documents are available in MS Word format.

• Secretariat report
  > Contents and summary observations
  > Economic environment
  > Trade and investment regimes
  > Trade policies and practices by measure
  > Trade policies by sector
  > Appendix tables
    
• Government report
    

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

Japan: 18 and 20 February 2009
Brazil: 9 and 11 March 2009
Fiji: 25 and 27 March 2009

SEE ALSO    > Full list of previous TPRs

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