Basic information on the activities of the WTO/TBT Information Centre
WTO/TBT Information Centre was established pursuant to Article 10 of the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), which is an integral part of the Agreement establishing the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Act No. 22/1997 Coll., on Technical Requirements for Products, as amended.
Text of the Czech version of the Agreement
In order to zoom in to all stakeholders, in particular SMEs, in a simple and illustrative way the purpose of the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade, the European Commission has produced a video which is available at the link below: http://youtu.be/czClLU3pdqk
The role of the WTO/TBT Information Centre (hereinafter referred to as IS) is to answer reasonable questions from other Members and interested parties of other Members, and to provide relevant documentation regarding adopted or proposed technical regulations in the Czech Republic (10.1.1) and any conformity assessment procedures or proposed conformity assessment procedures that are applied in our territory (10.1.3).
IS provides documentation to Czech stakeholders from the public and private spheres upon request and answers their questions.
The contact e-mail address of IS is wto.tbt@unmz.cz.
To inform the professional public prepares IS weekly reports on the draft technical regulations, standards and conformity assessment procedures notified by the Members of the Agreement and published by the WTO Secretariat in English and Czech, which are published on the website of the Office of the Ministry of Industry and Trade - Notification of Members of the Agreement. It also prepares monthly reports these notifications, which are published in the Authority's Bulletin under Section B - Information and are also available on the internet - Bulletin of the Ministry of Industry and Trade. Individual notifications to selected central administrative authorities and private sector entities are sent automatically to members of the Agreement according to their content.
IS provides the fulfilment of the notification obligations of the Czech Republic under the provisions of Articles 2.9 and 5.6 of the Agreement and on the basis of Act No. 22/1997 Coll., on Technical Requirements for Products, as amended.
IS announces the WTO Secretariat with drafts of any Czech technical regulations or conformity assessment procedures that may have a significant effect on the trade of other Members.
IS provides addressing comments from other members of the Agreement on these proposals.
Since 1 May 2004, the Czech Republic notifies to the WTO Secretariat only draft technical regulations falling within the non-harmonised sphere that may create technical barriers to trade. Draft EU regulations with technical content that will be implemented in the legislation of EU Member States are notified to the WTO Secretariat by the Commission. The Commission also responds to questions and comments from Members on draft technical regulations notified by the Czech Republic.
The WTO/TBT Clearinghouse provides a link for businesses, manufacturers, importers to European Commission database: http://madb.europa.eu/mkaccdb2/indexPubli.htm to facilitate access to third country (non-EU) markets. The database allows you to find out, before the intended transaction, the applicable customs duties, import formalities and administrative requirements of a given country, based on information searched by a combination of the following search terms: country, industry or service sector, measure.
The database includes a register where complaints can be made to the European Commission about barriers to international trade with these countries.
The contact point in the Czech Republic is:
Czech Office for Standards, Metrology and Testing
Biskupský dvůr 1148/5
110 00 Prague 1
Mgr. Irena Karasová
tel: 221 802 212
e-mail: wto.tbt@unmz.cz
Information from regular meetings of the Contact Points under the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade
2012 (DOCX; 14 kB), 2013 (DOCX; 18 kB), 2014 (DOC; 41 kB), 2015 (DOC; 5 253 kB) 2016 (DOCX; 18,2 kB) 2019 (DOCX; 16.7 kB)