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WTO members, meeting as the Import Licensing Committee on 22 April 2013, questioned Indonesia, Viet Nam, Thailand and Brazil about a range of import licensing procedures and asked Russia to submit overdue information on its licensing laws.

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Background: Import licences are permits granted before a product is imported. The administrative procedures for obtaining the licences should be simple, neutral, equitable and transparent. Where possible they should be given automatically and quickly, and even if they are non-automatic they should not obstruct trade unnecessarily.

Transparency is largely achieved through information supplied in three types of notifications, and questions and answers circulated in writing, some of these discussed in the committee’s meetings. The committee also discusses any other issues arising from the Import Licensing Agreement’s implementation.

Altogether 22 notifications were received since the last meeting in October 2012, including 10 as responses to the annual questionnaire.

In the questions and answers in the meeting, members commented that the measures or procedures that are causing concern for them might not comply with the agreement, that no information has been supplied, or that the procedures are difficult to understand — “multi-layered and opaque” as one member put it — so that traders do not know how to access the markets.

These are some of the issues raised:

Russia was asked a number of questions by Canada, the EU, Japan and the US (document G/LIC/Q/RUS/1) about its various laws and regulations, and specifically why Russia failed to meet the 22 November 2013 deadline — 90 days after it joined the WTO — for replying to the questionnaire on licensing procedures. Sharing the concerns were Norway, Switzerland and Australia.

Although members sympathised with the large amount of work required in compiling the information for the questionnaire and to reply to their more specific questions, they urged Russia to respond as soon as possible.

Russia clarified some points — it explained that the regime applied to alcoholic beverages, drugs and drug precursors, toxics, medicines and radio-electronics — and said delays were caused by an internal reorganization.

wto.org 25 April 2013