Answers to China’s questions on the Electronics Proposal

Communication from the United States

The following communication, dated 30 October 2009, is being circulated at the request of the delegation of the United States.
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QUESTION: Many Members have expressed their view that the two proposals on electronics should merge into one since these two are trying to address similar issues.
and EC efforts to merge the proposals – the question of whether to name particular standards or standards developing bodies in the proposal – the United States maintains its view that NAMA TBT-related negotiating texts should not recognize, endorse or otherwise refer to specific standards-setting bodies or standards.
 With respect to the development of the Annexes I-IV, please see our answer to Singapore’s questions 4 and 5 in TN/MA/W/115, namely that given that regulators do not regulate by HS code, we are considering the best way to characterize the products for listing in the relevant annexes of the proposal.
In terms of deciding which products to list in the Annexes II, III, and IV, each Member would self-select the products to include, but at the same time we envision Members engaging with each other about the products they have chosen to include and that such engagement may include requests from one Member to another Member to expand the number of products that Member has listed in a particular annex.