Timetable Set for WTO Market Access Committee's 2024 Thematic Sessions
The World Trade Organization's Committee on Market Access laid out a "timetable" for its thematic sessions in 2024 at a March 25-26 meeting, the WTO announced. The sessions will center on "supply chain resilience" and boosting a greener Harmonized System in collaboration with the World Customs Organization.
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The U.K. will moderate the session on supply chain resilience, and Ecuador will moderate the session on a greener HS. The meeting also saw adoption, subject to a final decision, of a procedure geared toward "facilitating multiple transpositions of WTO schedules of concessions into the latest HS version."
The procedure looks to "streamline the process of updating members' schedules," laid out in older HS versions, to "align with the most recent version." If there are no objections by June 18, the decision will be deemed approved by the committee and sent to the General Council for adoption.
Gael Grooby, WCO acting director of tariff and trade affairs, updated members on the March Harmonized System Committee session, in which amendments to the HS 2028 edition were discussed. The committee "provisionally adopted a proposal" on certain face masks and respirators. The changes are set for adoption in June 2025, with implementation in January 2028, the WTO said.