Monitoring national trade policies

Introduction

The purpose of monitoring domestic trade policies is to provide an understanding of the members’ domestic policies, assess their impact on the multilateral system and to improve transparency. The Trade Policy Review Body (“TPRB”) is in charge of administering the Trade Policy Review Mechanism. The WTO General Council carries out the functions of the TPRB.

 
The reviews are sought to have two main results: 
  • Enabling outsiders to understand a country’s policies and circumstances 
  • Providing feedback to the reviewed country on its performance in the system 
 
Trade policy reviews of developing countries also help to identify technical and other assistance needs of such countries. 
 

What is it?

It is a periodic review of members to check their adherence to disciplines and commitments made in the WTO. The mechanism is not designed to be an enforcement tool of members’ obligations or to impose new commitments on them. However, it does encourage WTO-consistent behavior by publicly exposing members’ inconsistent measures to other members and international trade community. This also gives the members an explanation to oppose potential protectionist, WTO-inconsistent policies that domestic industries might demand at home.       
 

Who are reviewed?

All Members are being reviewed periodically. The frequency of review of a Member is determined depending on each member’s share of world trade in goods and services in a recent representative period. The reviews of countries happen with the following frequency:
 

 

 

How is it done? 

Each review contains reports by the country concerned and the WTO Secretariat. Each Member shall report regularly to the TPRB.  Full reports shall describe the trade policies and practices of the Member concerned, based on an agreed format decided upon by the TPRB. The WTO Secretariat also prepares a report based on the information available to it. During the TPRB meeting, the reports are discussed by the Members and Members can ask questions and provide comments. The two reports, concluding remarks by the TPRB Chairperson and the minutes of the meeting of TPRB are published after the review.