OECS member countries on the World Trade Organisation are likely to meet in January 2007 to consider the draft report of an OECS Trade Policy Review as well as a coordinated approach regarding a World Trade Organisation (WTO) Trade Policy Review (TPR) meeting scheduled for November 2007 in Geneva.

 The January meeting is among the next steps identified at a recent seminar on the OECS WTO Trade Policy Review mechanism from December 6-7 2006 in St. Lucia. OECS The seminar is to ensure that all the relevant government officials and private sector representatives be present to start the process of preparing for the WTO TPR meeting in 2007. 

Also early in the new year the OECS Secretariat, OECS Countries and other key players in Trade Policy issues will consider ways of furthering the campaign for OECS issues to be continuously recognized in all Trade Rules negotiations.

One of the successes of the just ended OECS WTO Trade Policy Review mechanism seminar is the 100 percent participation of all the focal points for the OECS Trade Policy Review. These included key government officials in finance and members of the Private Sector. They discussed various issues with the Trade Policy review staff of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) as well as the Agency for International Trade Information and Cooperation (AITIC). With regards to the latter a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between the OECS and AITIC to formalize several years of fruitful collaboration.

Charge D’Affairs of the OECS Mission in Geneva Elliot Paige, says the OECS has learnt significantly from the process.

The Trade Policy review is also a Transparency requirement in the WTO.  Therefore OECS countries can lean about the economies of others as well as provide info to help inform how they are taking advantage of the multilateral trading system.

A TPR is an obligation for OECS member Countries on the WTO. Hence OECS Member countries must execute a Trade Policy Review every six years. The OECS Trade Policy Review which engages six of the 9 member countries first convened in 2001 where Ministers presented reports of the trade policies of the different island states as well as a collective report on the OECS as an integrated region.  The OECS is among the three regions that present their Trade Policy Review as a group rather than as individual countries.  The others are the East African Community and the Southern African Customs Union.