  
  
G/L/ 1491  
G/TRIMS/16  
13 October  2023 
(23-6922) Page: 1/2 
Council for Trade in Goods  
Committee on Trade -Related Investment Measures   
 
  
REPORT TO THE COUNCIL FOR TRADE IN GOODS ON IMPROVEMENTS  
IN THE FUNCTIONING OF THE COMMITTEE ON  
TRADE -RELATED INVESTMENT MEASURES  
1  INTRODUCTION  
1.1.  This report was prepared at the request1 of the Chair of the Council for Trade in Goods (CTG). 
All CTG subsidiary bodies were asked to produce written reports summarizing their discussions and 
describing the improvements  they had agreed  on. On 30 June 2023, the CTG Chair held a meeting 
with the Chairs of the subsidiary bodies  at which all Chairs were requested to submit their reports 
no later than in the first week of November  2023, and to ensure that all improvements made since 
the conclusion of MC12 were appropriately reflected in those reports . The process that led to the 
adoption of this report is described below.  
1.2.  Discussions on the reform of the TRIMs Committee started2 in the regular Fall meeting of the 
Committee in October 2022. At that meeting, the Chair , Ms Debora Ponce,  delivered remark s on the 
then-ongoing consultations at the level of the General Council and the CTG regarding WTO reform  
and indicated that all  subsidiary bod ies had been tasked to explore ways to improve their daily 
functioning and better deliver on their respective mand ates. She informed Members that, at the 
request of the CTG Chair, all Chairs would submit – under their own responsibility – a report on the 
current functioning of their respective Committees. After sharing her draft report with the 
Membership in a draft f orm, the Chair submitted her report to the CTG on 28 November 2022.3 
1.3.  The report reflected the concrete actions adopted by the Committee over the years to improve 
its work  and provided a comprehensive overview of the current status of the Committee's practices.  
Based on what was contained in this report and in all other subsidiary bodies ' Chairs reports, the 
CTG Secretariat circulated on 11  January  2023 a "Comparison Matrix " contained in document 
G/C/W/824 , providing a general overview of the main elements that seem ed to be comparable 
across the reports . A revised version of the Matrix was circulated in document G/C/W/824/Rev.1 . 
1.4.  At the February 2023 meeting of the Committ ee, several Members raised preliminary ideas 
concerning potential improvements to the functioning of the Committee .4 Proposals for improvement 
were also received in writing.5 Following his election as Chair of the Committee, Mr Po -Feng Huang 
invited Memb ers to an informal meeting on 19 July 2023, in order to discuss these preliminary ideas.  
2  PROCESS AND PROPOSALS  
2.1.  The following summarizes the process followed by the Committee and the key proposals 
considered by the Committee:  
a. The discussions were conducted in an informal meeting of the Committee on 19 July 2023. 
The Chair invited Members to discuss ideas expressed at the meeting of 23 February 2023 
and to raise any additional topic they wished. Discussions focused on increasing assistance 
 
1 JOB/CTG/29 and JOB/CTG/33.  
2 G/TRIMS/M/52.  
3 G/L/1454 - G/TRIMS/14 . 
4 G/TRIMS/M/53  
5 JOB/CTG/26/Rev.1 . G/L/1491 • G/TRIMS/16  
- 2 - 
  to delegates, chang ing the style of the minutes and producing factual summaries of 
Committee meetings.  
b. Following the informal meeting, the Chair sent a written communication to Members listing 
the three issues on which agreement seemed possible. The Chair requested Members  to 
express their views on those proposals in writing.   
c. No comments or objections were received. Thus, the discussions held on 19 July 2023 and 
the subsequent written procedure led the Committee to agree on three changes to its 
functioning. A docume nt describing these agreed reforms was circulated in G/TRIMS/15 .  
3  IMPROVEMENTS TO THE FUNCTIONING OF THE TRIMS COMMITTEE  
3.1.  The improvements approved by the Committee are as follows:  
General area  Improvements in the functioning of the Committee on TRIMs  
A. Assistance to delegates  • The WTO Secretariat will organize introductory sessions on 
the TRIMs Agreement and the functioning of the 
Committee for Geneva -based and capital -based delegates. 
The first training session will be held in the second 
semester of 2023 . 
B. Minutes of Committee Meetings  • Members decided that, starting with the Fall 2023 regular 
meeting of the Committee, the minutes will be prepared in 
verbatim  style, on a trial basis.  
C. Factual summary of Committee 
meetings  • The Chair will circulate a factual summary of Committee 
meetings , on a trial basis, starting with the Fall 2023 regular 
meeting of the Committee.  
 
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