Technical Barriers to Trade
The TBT Agreement
Lao PDR seeks to comply with the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement) which is designed to ensure that technical regulations, standards, and conformity assessment procedures do not create unnecessary obstacles to trade.
Technical regulations, standards, and conformity assessment procedures often vary from country to country. When these requirements are more stringent than necessary, when they are imposed arbitrarily, or when they discriminate between domestic suppliers and importers, they can be trade barriers.
The TBT Agreement does not prevent WTO members from using regulatory measures that they consider appropriate to achieve legitimate objectives such as national security, the prevention of deceptive practices, protection of human health or safety, protection of animal or plant life or health, and protection of the environment. However, regulatory measures must not be more trade restrictive than necessary to fulfill these objectives.
Under the TBT Agreement, procedures used to determine whether a product meets the requirements of relevant standards must be fair and equitable. The Agreement discourages any methods that would give domestically-produced goods an unfair advantage.
The TBT Agreement also sets out a code of good practice for both governments and non-governmental or industry bodies to prepare, adopt, and apply voluntary standards. Nearly 200 standards-setting bodies worldwide apply the code.
Manufacturers and exporters need to know what the latest technical requirements are in their prospective markets. To help ensure that this information is readily and available all WTO members are required to establish national Enquiry Points. Information about the Lao PDR TBT Enquiry Point can be found here.
All technical regulations relevant to importers and exporters in Lao PDR are published on this website. Click here to view.
Any new regulations or changes to existing regulations or procedures will be published well ahead of their effective date in the Announcements section of this website
The WTO website provides access to the TBT Information Management System, a database of notifications, specific trade concerns, other documents, enquiry points, etc. relating to technical barriers to trade.
Further information and the full text of the TBT Agreement can be found on the WTO website (click here to view). Click here if you want to view or download a Lao translation of the TBT Agreement.
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