Egyptian businessmen need to familiarise themselves with the World Trade Organisation's Technical Barriers to Trade agreement. Mona El-Fiqi attended a seminar designed for that purpose The Federation of Egyptian Industries (FEI) recently held a one-day seminar on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), a World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreement designed to ensure that technical regulations and standards would not hamper international trade. The seminar aimed at making Egyptian businessmen aware of the details of the TBT agreement. During the seminar, experts and government officials discussed the extent to which Egypt is compliant with the TBT agreement. According to a study conducted by the Ministry of Foreign Trade (MOFT) and the Egyptian Organisation for Standardisation and Quality (EOS), Egypt meets its commitments in some items of the TBT agreement but it has only partially fulfilled other requirements. The TBT agreement includes two main components: the first is the technical regulations which is an obligatory commitment for all WTO members. The second is the industrial, health and agricultural specifications which are optional since each country can set its own specifications using guidelines decided by international organisations and approved by the WTO. As a WTO member, Egypt has four commitments relating to the specification item of the TBT agreement. Sahar El-Tohami, senior researcher at the Assistance for Trade Reform (ATR) department at MOFT explained that one of the main commitments is that imports receive the same treatment as local products. "Egypt succeeded in meeting this commitment since importers are sometimes given even more privileges than the local producers," El-Tohami noted. For example, a few years ago the government decided to ease the procedures taken by the Egyptian Authority for Imports and Exports Control on shipments of importers who had a track record of good quality shipments. Those importers who follow the specification and quality regulations are registered on a roster called "the white list". The second commitment for Egypt is that its technical regulations and specifications should be in accordance with the international guidelines. Accordingly, Decree 180/1996 issued by the Ministry of Industry states that local as well as imported products should follow the Egyptian specifications or international guidelines. However, Mahmoud Essa, chairman of the Egyptian Organisation for Standardisation and Quality Control (EOS) said that the TBT agreement gives any member country the right not to follow the international specifications for certain reasons such as national security, health concerns and environmental protection. "The reasons presented by the country should be clearly justified in order to be accepted by the TBT committee," Essa said. The third commitment is transparency. El-Tohami explained that all information relating to each country's specifications system should be available in the WTO committee on Technical Barriers, the responsible department for receiving and sending any notifications among member countries. The fourth point is that every country has the right to present a notification against any specification of another country through the WTO's Committee of Technical Barriers. Essa said the agreement should not be used to hinder international trade. "Egyptian exporters should be well informed about the procedures applied by other countries against the Egyptian products, which may be considered a violation to their commitment towards the TBT. According to the TBT regulations, Egypt has the right to complain to the WTO in 60 days," Essa added. The ESO is responsible for modernising the outdated laws among Egypt's 4,000 specifications, and it conducts an annual plan to add specifications to update the current regulations in cooperation with 100 technical committees.
