Transposition of Members' CTS Files to the HS 2022 nomenclature:
notes on methodology

Approved on 26 April 2023

Introduction.. 2

1   dESCRIPTION OF HS 2022 changes. 2

1.1   One-to-one relationships. 3

1.2   Split 4

1.3   Merger 4

1.4   Complex cases. 5

2   Introducing HS 2022 changes in WTO Schedules. 5

3   methodology for Processing HS 2022 changes. 9

4   The need for simplification.. 11

5   proposed steps to simplify the HS 2022 transposition.. 11

5.1   INRs and legal instruments. 11

5.2   Take into consideration Members' transpositions in their applied tariffs. 12

5.3   Simplified correlations. 13

5.4   Correlations without clear codes. 14

5.5   Coding conventions. 16

5.6   Agriculture vs. non-agriculture breakdown. 16

6   FORMAT AND CONTENTS OF THE hs 2022 TRANSPOSITION FILES. 17

7   verification of members' submissions. 19

7.1   Processing and formatting. 19

7.2   Consistency of submissions. 19

ANNEX HS 2022 to HS 2017 correlations. 21

Introduction

1.  This document describes the methodological guidelines that the Secretariat intends to follow for the implementation of the HS 2022 transposition. The procedural and the general technical aspects of this project were adopted by the General Council Decision of 23 November 2021 (hereafter the "HS 2022 Decision"^[1]). Under this project, the Secretariat will assist Members in preparing their submissions for the HS 2022 transposition exercise and verify the submissions provided by Members that have prepared their own submissions.

2.  The proposed methodology for the HS 2022 transposition exercise is similar to the one used for the HS 2017 transposition. It builds on the experience gained from previous transpositions and includes measures proposed to improve the efficiency and quality of the work, including several simplifications of the transposition process and a standard procedure for verifying Members' submissions.

3.  This document is organized in seven sections. Section 1 provides an overview of the HS 2022 amendments and a categorization of those changes. The manner in which these changes will be introduced into the WTO Schedules of concessions is further elaborated in Section 2, which also includes detailed examples. Section 3 describes the general methodology that the Secretariat will follow in the transposition. Section 4 discusses some methodological issues identified in the context of the HS 2002 and HS 2007 transpositions, and concludes that certain simplifications that are in line with the general mandate might be required in order to avoid unnecessary complexity in the resulting HS 2022 Schedules. Section 5 describes the proposed simplifications. Section 6 presents the format to be followed in the preparation of the transposition file, and Section 7 describes the general procedure that will be followed by the Secretariat for verifying Members' submissions. Lastly, the Annex presents the complete HS 2022 to 2017 correlation table.