PRESS RELEASE: PRESS/TPRB/318

TRADE POLICY REVIEW:

Further regulatory reforms needed to promote development

Guyana’s improved economic performance since its last Review in 2003, came hand-in-hand with high prices for its main export products and significant reform efforts in various areas including the tax and investment regimes, competition policy and government procurement, according to WTO Secretariat report on the trade policies and practices of Guyana.

See also:
  

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.

Nevertheless, Guyana’s per capita income remains low by regional standards and additional reforms are needed to promote investment and thus development. Exports are still concentrated on a few primary products, notably gold, sugar, bauxite and rice. And there is large scope for improvement in areas such as customs procedures and SPS, says the report.

The report also notes that Guyana would participate more fully in the multilateral trading system if in addition to those reforms it also expanded its economic infrastructure, particularly in the transport and energy sectors, and further strengthened governance and the regulatory environment.

The report, along with a policy statement by the Government of Guyana, will be the basis for the second Trade Policy Review (TPR) of Guyana by the Trade Policy Review Body of the WTO on 8 and 10 of July 2009.

The following documents are available in MS Word format.

  

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

Zambia: 27 and 29 July 2009
Chile: 7 and 9 October 2009
Maldives: 26 and 28 October 2009

SEE ALSO 

> Full list of previous TPRs
  

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