REPORT (2021) OF THE COMMITTEE ON RULES OF ORIGIN TO THE
General COUNCIL on Preferential Rules of Origin
for least developed countries

1.       This report is being submitted by the Committee on Rules of Origin (CRO) to the General Council as required by the 2013 (Bali) and the 2015 (Nairobi) Ministerial Decisions on preferential rules of origin for Least-developed Countries (WT/L/917 and WT/L/917/Add.1 respectively). According to the provisions of these Decisions, the Committee on Rules of Origin (CRO) "shall annually review the developments in preferential rules of origin applicable to imports from LDCs" and report to the General Council.

2.       The CRO discussed several matters related to preferential rules of origin for LDCs in its two meetings held in 2021 (on 20 May and on 14 October). The minutes of these meetings are contained in documents G/RO/M/76 and G/RO/M/77^[1] respectively. The following are some of the recent developments Members took note of:

Transparency (notifications)

-             Members have detailed information about preferential rules of origin and origin requirements for LDCs. Almost all preference-granting Members have submitted a notification using the agreed notification template (G/RO/84). The United Kingdom has submitted a notification describing its preferential rules of origin in February 2021. A notification about preferential rules of origin applied to LDCs is only missing for the schemes of Armenia, Iceland and Morocco.

-             These notifications and detailed information about these preferential origin requirements can be accessed, at the tariff-line level, through the WTO, ITC and WCO "Origin Facilitator" (www.findrulesoforigin.org)

-             While progress with respect to preferential tariff and import data has been slower, there have been significant improvements since last year's report, notably with the notification of preferential import statistics by Iceland (2010-2019), India (2017-2020), the Russian Federation (2013-2018) and by Turkey (2010‑2020). These notifications are currently being reviewed before their possible integration into WTO databases. No statistics or partial statistics only continue to be available for some preference‑granting Members: Armenia; China; Kazakhstan; Kyrgyz Republic; Montenegro; Morocco; New Zealand; and Tajikistan. Document G/RO/W/163/Rev.9 describes in detail the information available with the Secretariat to this date.

-             These notifications, including preferential import statistics, can be accessed through the WTO Preferential Trade Arrangements (PTA) database (http://ptadb.wto.org).