. /.WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONG/SG/Q1/ARM/1
30 September 2003
(03-5146)
Committee on Safeguards Original:  English
NOTIFICATION OF LAWS AND REGULATIONS UNDER
ARTICLE 12.6 OF THE AGREEMENT
Questions Posed by the UNITED STATES Regarding
the Notification of ARMENIA1
The following communication, dated 29 September 2003, has been received from the
Permanent Mission of the United States.
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The United States thanks Armenia for its notification of the law on the Protection of Domestic
Market (Safeguard Measures) of the Republic of Armenia.
1. Article 3 and other articles of the Armenian law use the term “economic branch” apparently
in place of the term “industry” used in Article XIX of GATT 1994 and the WTO SafeguardsAgreement.  In normal English usage, the term “economic branch” suggests a sector of the economy
comprised of a group of related industries.  Please explain how the term “economic branch” is
consistent with the WTO term “domestic industry”.
2. Article 18:1 of the Armenian law provides for provisional measures when critical
circumstances are found to exist.  The article does not appear to require that the Armenian authority
find that delay in taking action would cause damage which would be difficult to repair.  Pleaseexplain how the Armenian law is consistent with  Article 6 of the WTO Agreement on Safeguards.
3. Article 19:1 of the Armenian law provides that  any import quota must allow entry of at least
the average quantity of goods that entered during the “last three years”.  Please explain how this
provision is consistent with the requirement in Article 5.1 of the WTO Safeguards Agreement that itbe the average in the “last three representative  years for which statistics are available” (emphasis
added).
4. Article 19:2 of the Armenian law provides that import quotas are to be allocated on per
country basis based on average shares during the last 3 years.  Please explain how this provision isconsistent with the requirement in Article 5.2(a) of the WTO Safeguards Agreement that it be based
on the proportions supplied by WTO members “during a previous representative period”.
                                                     
1 G/SG/N/1/ARM/1 (8 August 2003).G/SG/Q1/ARM/1
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5. Article 20:5 of the Armenian law states that an extended safeguard measure “shall cover the
same products on which the initial safeguard measure was applied”.  This suggests that the product
coverage would remain the same during the period of extension even if a product coverage of such
scope was no longer necessary to prevent or remedy serious injury.  Please explain how this provisionis consistent with Articles 7.2 and 7.4 of the WTO Safeguards Agreement.
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