RESTRICTEDWORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONG/MA/M/18
11 June 1999
(99-2353)
Committee on Market Access
MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF 31 MAY 1999
Chairman:  Mr. Ole Lundby (Norway)
Agenda of the meeting
1. Adoption of the agenda....................................................................................................... ..1
2. Modalities and Operation of the Integrated Data Base (IDB) ..........................................1
- Dissemination of the IDB (G/MA/IDB/W/4) ....................................................................1
3. Periodic report of the Committee to the Council for Trade in Goods
(G/MA/SPEC/11) ................................................................................................................. .3
4. Other business............................................................................................................... ........4
(a) Consolidated Tariff Schedules Databases...............................................................................4
5. Election of Chairperson...................................................................................................... ..5
1. Adoption of the agenda
1.1 The above agenda as reproduced in docum ent WTO/AIR/1099 of 21 May 1999, was adopted
with the addition of item 4(a).
2. Modalities and Operation of the Integrated Data Base (IDB)
- Dissemination of the IDB (G/MA/IDB/W/4)
2.1 The Chairman recalled that at the meeting of the Committee of 27 November 1998, he had
agreed to hold open-ended consultations in order to discuss the subject of the modalities and operation
of the Integrated Data Base, in particular the ques tion of submission to and dissemination of the IDB
where some issues needed further clarification.
2.2 Four informal meetings were held for this purpose, on 23 February, 11 March, 5 May and
21 May 1999.   During these consultations, the Committee had reviewed the submissions made and
requests for technical assistance.  Members were encouraged by the increase in IDB submissions as
well as by the requests for technical assistance, both formal and informal.  During the course of theseconsultations, discussions were also held on the dissemination practices of the IDB and these
discussions had led to the text presently before Members in document G/MA/IDB/W/4.
2.3 The representative of the United States stated that, relating to paragraph 25 of the document,
which concerned other organizations' access to the IDB, the United States proposed to add a sentenceG/MA/M/18
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at the end of the paragraph that would read:  "If the IMF or World Bank intend to publish IDB data,
they must obtain advance approval like other international organizations as set out in paragraph 26".
2.4 The representative of India wondered whether the United States proposal would be in
accordance with the coherence agreement?  Additionally, she inquired from the Chairman whether the
guidelines on dissemination practices in document G/MA/IDB/W/4 would be attached to the periodic
report of the Committee to the Council for Trade in Goods.
2.5 The representative of the United States responded that it was his understanding that the
coherence agreement covered the ability of the IMF and the World Bank to obtain data without prior
approval.  This proposal was merely to make it clear that while they could obtain the data without
prior approval, if they intended to publish it they should have to obtain advance approval such as wasthe case with all other international organizations.
2.6 The Chairman stated that his understanding was the same as that expressed by the
United States.  As concerned India's question on th e periodic report, the idea was that the adopted
guidelines would be attached to the periodic report, as indicated in footnote 1 of the periodic report.
2.7 The Committee took note of the statements and adopted  document G/MA/IDB/W/41 entitled
"Dissemination of the Integrated Data Base".2.8 The Secretariat informed the Committee that th e IDB Internet File Transfer Facility was now
operational and was loaded with the files at present for 44 Members covering hundred country
periods.  The International Computing Centre (ICC)  would implement the link to the facility on the
Members homepage of the WTO Website that evening.  The user identifications (IDs) and passwords
would be distributed in the delegations' boxes the ne xt morning. The Secretariat had set up two user
IDs and passwords for each Member and for each acceding country that had provided its IDBsubmission.  One user ID and password provided access to all areas of the IDB Internet File Transfer
Facility and the other user ID and password did not give access to the Members' private directory.
The Secretariat had done this in order to provide Members with the possibility of controlling access to
the private directories within their own Governments.  She also wished to point out that the passwords
were composed of numbers and both upper-case and lower-case alphabetic characters.  The passwords
were case-sensitive so it was necessary to enter the pa ssword exactly as it was provided in the letter to
Heads of Delegations.  Otherwise, Members would not be able to access the Internet site, and wouldget a message that the password was invalid.  In terms of technical details, the IDB Internet site was a
secure site.  When one tried to access it, a security alert would be received indicating that the
certificate issuer, which was the IDB Internet Site, was unknown.  It was possible to view the
certificate from the browser and to see that this unknown site was the ICC in Geneva.  The ICC was
currently awaiting a security certificate from a certificate issuer and the message would disappearonce this security certificate had been installed at the ICC.  This would take a couple of weeks.
However, when this security alert was seen, the pe rson accessing this site needed to indicate that
he/she wished to proceed and then the person would be prompted to enter the user ID and password.
On the Internet site, the IDB files were available in Microsoft Access 97 format or in text format.  The
text format was an archive file.  These text archives could contain up to ten files per country,depending on what the Member had provided in its submission.  The largest compressed access file
was around five megabytes and the largest text archive was approximately 3.5 megabytes.  To
facilitate the downloading operation for these larger files, the Secretariat had decided to create
additional compressed text files, one for tariffs, one for imports, one for the product descriptions etc.,
and most of these files were less than one megabyte.  Limiting the size of the files would help to avoidproblems in the downloading such as "time-out" prob lems or not having the file properly downloaded.
If problems were encountered during the downloading of the Access format files, the text format files
                                                     
1 The final adopted document was issued as G/MA/IDB/3 dated 1 June 1999.G/MA/M/18
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could be downloaded instead. The Secretariat had also provided a template of the database structure in
a directory on the site.  This could be used as a basis to download the text format files into an Access
database.  It would take some time to download all the files on the site, particularly if the user did not
have a powerful Internet connection.  If such problems were encountered or if there was no internet
connection, the Secretariat should be contacted for a solution.  The Secretariat, for example, mightneed to put the files on a CD-Rom for some Members.  Regarding the bulletin board, the Secretariat
had included a prototype on the Internet site.  The Secretariat had noticed a few problems that needed
to be corrected and there were a few cosmetic changes that needed to be applied.  However, the
bulletin board could be used to post messages.  Lastly, the performance of the site could be affected
when there were a lot of users concurrently accessing the site. However, the ICC had assured the
Secretariat that the server would not go down but might require some tuning.  A better idea of the
situation would be obtained once the site was used.
2.9 The Chairman requested the Secretariat to circulate the statement on the technical details
concerning the start up of the IDB. The Secretariat stated that this information would be provided in a
note on the Internet site.
2.10 The Committee took note of the statements.
3. Periodic report of the Committee to the Council for Trade in Goods (G/MA/SPEC/11)
3.1 The Chairman drew the Committee's attention to document G/MA/Spec/11 which contained
the Committee's draft periodic report.  This report, which would be finalized in the light of the
discussion that would take place at this meeting, w ould be before the Council for Trade in Goods at its
meeting of 2 July 1999.
3.2 The representative of the United States stated that this document had reached his delegation
only immediately prior to the meeting.  While he had not noted anything objectionable, his authorities
had not had a chance to look at it.  He requested that this document be approved on an ad referendum
basis so that he could have the opportunity to confer with his capital.
3.3 The representative of India stated that the draft report (G/MA/Spec/11) contained the same
language as that used by the Chairman when introducing agenda item 2.  Therefore if the delegation
of the United States could agree with the Chairman's introduction, she found it surprising that it was
not in a position to agree with the periodic report today.  She would be able to agree with thesuggestion to adopt the report ad referendum  only on the understanding that document
G/MA/IDB/W/4 and the operationalization of the ID B would take place after the approval of the
periodic report.  She also proposed that in the third paragraph, before the sentence beginning "The
Chairman has held four open-ended informal consultations" the words "Pursuant to the agreement
reached by the Committee at its meeting of 27 November 1998" be inserted.  This suggestion was alsoin line with the Chairman's introduction under the previous agenda item.
3.4 The Chairman did not see a problem with the text proposed by India.  However, he said that
he would regret a delay in the start-up of the IDB because of the periodic report. He proposed that the
IDB should start operating as planned as of 1 June 1999. He proposed giving the United States untilend of business the next day, i.e. 1 June, for comments, and if there were none, the IDB would start
functioning as of that date.
3.5 The representative of Australia wondered whether the periodic report would be updated and
completed also by tomorrow.3.6 The representative of the European Communitie s stated that as regarded the issue of the
periodic report and the launching of the IDB,  his delegation had encountered the same problem as theG/MA/M/18
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United States.  He had received a copy of the draft periodic report only this morning.  However, since
the draft periodic report fully reflected the discussion which was held, his delegation could agree to
the proposal for adopting the periodic report on an ad referendum  basis subject to approval by the
United States.  However, he wished to draw attention to the fact that under the previous agenda item,
the Committee had adopted the decision  on the "Dissemination of the Integrated Data Base".  Theonly outstanding matter was the periodic report.  The question he wished to put was: "did the
Committee really need to suspend the operation of the IDB because of the periodic report?" The
problem of lack of consultations with capitals on the periodic report was not linked to the decision to
disseminate the data.
3.7 The representative of India stated that she wi shed to mention two things. Firstly, it was her
understanding that the text in the periodic report seemed to contain virtually the same language as that
used by the Chairman in his introduction to agenda item 2.  If the United States could accept that
introduction by the Chairman, she wondered why it could not accept that same statement of the
Chairman in the form of a periodic report.  Secondly, it was her understanding that the guidelines
would be attached to the periodic report.  This was also the informal understanding that Members had
reached in the consultations.  So the mere sequencing of the two agenda items should not prejudicethe balance that Members had reached during the informal consultations.
3.8 The Chairman, in response to Australia's question, stated that the Secretariat would be in a
position to update the periodic report by the following day.  He proposed that the Committee adopt
the periodic report ad referendum , and that the Committee give the United States until end of business
next day, i.e. 1 June, for a reaction.
3.9 The representative of the United States wondered whether any ruling had been made on the
question raised by the representative of the European Communities.  If, in fact, document
G/MA/IDB/W/4 had been adopted and the IDB could be operationalized on its own merit, he did not
see why his delegation was being limited to one day to review the periodic report. He requested the
Chairman to rule on that question.
3.10 The representative of Canada agreed with the statement made by the representative of India in
terms of the understanding reached at the last info rmal meeting with regard to the documents and the
turning on of the IDB on 1 June 1999.  These were three elements of an overall package.  Therefore,
on that understanding, Members needed to proceed on all three elements simultaneously.
3.11 The representative of the United States stated that he had not followed all the discussions on
this subject and had not had the benefit of this knowledge.  If that was the case as indicated, his
delegation could agree with the one-day ad referendum  proposal.
3.12 The Chairman proposed that the Committee adopt the report on an ad referendum  basis
pending possible comments by the United States by the end of business on the next day, i.e.
1 June 1999.
3.13 The Committee so agreed.
4. Other business
(a) Consolidated Tariff Schedules Database
4.1 The Chairman recalled that at its last meeting, the Committee was informed that the loose-leaf
pilot project which was undertaken to analyse the feasibility of developing a Consolidated Tariff
Schedules Database (CTS) had been finalized.  At that time, this project which would cover theG/MA/M/18
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formatting and consolidation of the tariff schedules of about 100 developing country Members was on
hold for lack of funding.
4.2 The Secretariat informed the Committee that since the last meeting, the delegation of the
United Kingdom had generously made available the necessary funds to make this project operational.
The Committee had agreed that the Secretariat would prepare the draft files of consolidated tariff
concessions for developing countries and that developed countries would prepare their submissions
for this database using the electronic format developed by the Secretariat.  The Secretariat had
recently sent a letter to developed country delegations recalling this agreement, and had also informed
them of the fact that the database was now operational.  At the same time, it should be recalled that at
the meeting of the Market Access Committee on 27 November 1998, the Chairman had emphasized
that work on the schedules of developing countries by the Secretariat, and on the schedules ofdeveloped countries by the countries concerned should proceed in parallel, and that the information
contained in the consolidated tariff schedules database should become available to all Members at the
same time. The Secretariat would do its best to do that work as fast as possible.  Originally, it was
planned to do this work within one year, which was on the basis of being able to start in
December 1998.  While the work had finally only started in April 1999, the Secretariat would still tryto complete this task by the end of this year or as soon as possible thereafter.
4.3 The Committee took note of the statements.
5. Election of Chairperson
5.1 The Chairman stated that the Rules of Procedure for meetings of the Committee on Market
Access Committee provided that the Committee elect a Ch airperson at the end of the first meeting of the
new year.  He recalled that at the Committee's first meeting this year, on 11 March 1999, the Chairmanof the Council for Trade in Goods had not yet finalized consultations on the slate of Chairpersons for
the subsidiary bodies of the Council for Trade in  Goods and that the Committee had agreed to post pone
consideration of this item to its next meeting.
5.2 The Chairman of the Council for Trade in Goods  had now completed consultations on a slate of
names for appointment as chairpers ons of standing bodies in accordance with the established Guidelines
for appointment of officers.  On the basis of the understanding reached, the Chairman of the Goods
Council had proposed that the Committee elect Mr. Pedr o da Costa e Silva (Brazil) as Chairperson of
this Committee.
5.3 The Committee took note of the nomination of Mr. Pedro da Costa e Silva of Brazil as
Chairman of the Committee for the current year and elected him by acclamation.
5.4 The new Chairman informed the Committee that he intended to consult on a candidate for
Vice-Chairperson, and that the next meeting of the Committee was scheduled for 22 June 1999,
subject to confirmation.
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