WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONWT/GC/69
23 January 2003
(03-0379)
General Council
15 October 2002Original:  Spanish
STATEMENT BY ARGENTINA
Accession of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (Agenda Item No. 1)
The following statement by the delegation of Argentina under Item 1 at the General Council
meeting of 15 October 2002 is being circulated at the request of that delegation.
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Argentina joined in the consensus which has just approved the accession of the Former
Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and we wish to congratulate the country and its authorities upon its
entry into this Organization.
We welcome the commitments made by the new Member, particularly those to the effect that
it will not grant new export subsidies and will remove any that it may currently be granting.
However, Argentina sees a need to place on record its position with regard to the breakdown
of the tariff lines for cheeses and certain alcoholic beverages included in the Schedule of goods for the
Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, No. CLIV, document WT/ACC/807/27/Add.1, Part I-A (I
refer to the lines whose first six digits are:  04 06 40;  04 06 90;  22 04 10;  22 04 21; 22 04 29 and
22 08 20) and which are then differentiated according to origin or the name of a region.
I must state the following in this connection:- Argentina considers that this novel form of tariff classification is not provided for in
the current Harmonized System Nomenclature, which takes into account exclusivelythe nature and objective characteristics specific to the set of goods classified, without
establishing any differentiation based on origin.
- For Argentina, the goods included in these tariff lines in the Schedule of the Former
Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia are in each case like products within the meaningof the GATT 1994 and other relevant WTO instruments, in particular the Agreement
on Technical Barriers to Trade.
- Any tariff differentiation that the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia wishes to
apply in future to Argentine products under this classification will be considered aviolation of Article I:1 of the GATT 1994.
- Argentina's consent to the accession of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
cannot be construed as a precedent for accepting any similar breakdown of tariff lines
in other ongoing accession negotiations.
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