Committee on Market Access - Status of HS transpositions - Report by the Secretariat - Revision

Status of HS transpositions

Report by the Secretariat[1]

Revision

This report by the Secretariat seeks to provide an overview of the overall state of play of the different exercises to transpose the WTO Schedules of concessions to take account of amendments of the Harmonized System (hereafter referred to as "HS Transpositions"). It complements the existing reports on different aspects of the changes to the Schedules of concessions.[2]

 

1  BACKGROUND

Each WTO Member has a Schedule of concessions[3], sometimes referred to as a "Goods Schedule", which is either annexed to the Marrakesh Protocol to the GATT 1994 or to a Protocol of Accession. Following the entry into force of the Harmonized System (HS) on 1 January 1988 (HS88), the pre‑WTO Schedules of those GATT Contracting Parties that were also contracting parties to the HS Convention were required to be transposed into the HS nomenclature.[4] The GATT Committee on Tariff Concessions developed procedures to this end.[5]

 

Since then, the World Customs Organization (WCO) has adopted partial amendments to the Harmonized System Convention which came into force on 1 January 1992 (HS92), 1 January 1996 (HS96), 1 January 2002 (HS2002), 1 January 2007 (HS2007), 1 January 2012 (HS2012), 1 January 2017 (HS2017), and on 1 January 2022 (HS2022).

 

With a view to keeping the authentic texts of the Schedules of concessions up to date and in conformity with the national customs tariff, GATT contracting parties and WTO Members have adopted a series of Decisions to transpose the Schedules of concessions in order to reflect the amendments to the HS. These transposition procedures require Members to update the nomenclature used to express their concessions, including the bound duties, in their Schedules of concessions, thereby allowing a comparison with their MFN applied duties.



[1] This document has been prepared under the Secretariat's own responsibility and is without prejudice to the positions of Members or to their rights and obligations under the WTO.

[2] For example, the "Situation of Schedules of WTO Members" that periodically circulate under the _G/MA/W/23/Rev document series and the "Factual Report on the Status of Renegotiations under Article XXVIII of the GATT 1994" that periodically circulate under the _G/MA/123/Rev document series.

[3] See Article XI of the WTO Agreement.

[4] Article 3 of the HS Convention obliges HS contracting parties to ensure that their customs tariff and statistical nomenclatures are in conformity with the Harmonized System. It is to be noted that those GATT Contracting Parties that were not contracting parties to the HS, but nevertheless applied the HS in their national customs tariff, also undertook this exercise in order to keep the authentic texts of their Schedules up to date and in conformity with their national customs tariff.

[5] Decision of 12 July 1983, GATT BISD 30S/17.