WTO Committee Considers 5 Regional Trade Agreements

The Sept. 22 meeting of World Trade Organization's Committee on Regional Trade Agreements focused on five RTAs, the WTO said. South Korea's Taeho Lee, the committee's chair, called on members to ramp up efforts to provide outstanding data and comments for presentations of RTAs and to look into how the committee's work could be improved as part of efforts to reform the WTO.

The committee considered agreements between the Gulf Cooperation Council states and Singapore, Switzerland and the U.K., the U.K. and Tunisia, the U.K. and South Korea, and South Korea and the Republics of Central America.

Lee said 62 RTAs in force have not been notified to the WTO. Further, "there are 51 RTAs involving WTO members and 37 involving non-members for which a factual presentation has to be prepared, counting goods and services separately," the WTO said.