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News article24 July 2020Directorate-General for Trade

Coronavirus: The European Union calls for more transparency on trade-related measures by WTO members

Today the European Union, backed by ten other members of the World Trade Organization, made a call for more transparency in respect of trade-related measures introduced by partners around the world in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

A joint communication prepared to that purpose at the initiative of the European Union and co-signed by Australia, Canada, Chile, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, Republic of Korea and Switzerland is being discussed today in Geneva at the meeting of the WTO Trade Policy Review Body.

The signatories are committed to lead by example. They will notify all measures as early as practicable, reduce to the extent possible the number and duration of new trade measures and actively contribute to the monitoring of trade measures carried by the WTO Secretariat. They also invite other WTO members to implement the same level of transparency.

The signatories have also encouraged the WTO Secretariat to intensify the monitoring and increase the frequency of reporting, including on economic support measures. They have also called on the WTO Secretariat to provide technical assistance to Members that may require support to comply with their transparency obligations during the pandemic.

This communication delivers on one of the six policy actions identified in the June 2020 statement ‘Focusing Action on Covid-19’ by the Ottawa Group of 13 like-minded WTO partners.

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Publication date
24 July 2020
Author
Directorate-General for Trade
Trade topics
Policy analysis