On March 22, 2018, the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) issued a final rule [Docket No. 180227219-8219-01] (the “Final Rule”) adding, in relevant part, 15 South Sudanese entities to the Export Administration Regulations’ (“EAR”) Entity List — a step that increases the pressure on that country following the US Government’s imposition of an arms embargo last month.
On 27 September 2017, the UK Department for International Trade announced that the UK Government was launching a new ‘trade dialogue’ with emerging markets in South America to strengthen bilateral trade and investment relationships and to seek continuity in UK trade relationships post Brexit. According to the announcement, the dialogue will focus on the UK’s strong trade links with 3 Andean countries: Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. In addition, the government’s export credit agency, UK Export…
The WTO reports that Ecuador told a meeting of the WTO’s Committee on Balance-of-Payments Restrictions on 21 July that the final phase-out of the surcharges was made effective on 1 June. The report stated that:
On July 14, 2017, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) published in the Federal Register a notice providing country-by-country allocations of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 (October 1, 2017 through Sept. 30, 2018) in-quota quantity of the tariff-rate quotas for imported raw cane sugar, certain sugars, syrups and molasses (also known as refined sugar), specialty sugar, and sugar-containing products.
On 24 December 2016, the Official Journal published Council Decision (EU) 2016/2369 of 11 November 2016 on the signing, on behalf of the Union, and provisional application of the Protocol of Accession to the Trade Agreement between the European Union and its Member States, of the one part, and Colombia and Peru, of the other part, to take account of the accession of Ecuador. The Council Decision authorises the EU to sign and provisionally apply…
On 29 November 2016, the WTO reported that most WTO members welcomed Ecuador’s efforts to lower its import surcharge rates and reduce the number of tariff lines affected by this measure at a meeting of the Committee on Balance-of-Payments Restrictions on 29 November but they remain divided on whether the measure is in conformity with WTO rules. Consultations with Ecuador will resume in April 2017. Ecuador reaffirmed its intention to phase out the import surcharge…
Member countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO) are required under the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement) to report to the WTO all proposed technical regulations that could affect trade with other Member countries. The WTO Secretariat distributes this information in the form of “notifications” to all Member countries. The chart below summarizes notifications from the WTO in English received and posted by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) during the past month.
On May 26, 2016, the Department of State published in the Federal Register a document [Public Notice: 9584] announcing that on May 3, 2016, it certified that 14 shrimp-harvesting nations (Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Gabon, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, and Suriname) have a regulatory program comparable to that of the United States governing the incidental taking of the relevant species of sea turtles in the course of commercial shrimp…
On April 6, 2016, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), published in the Federal Register a notice announcing that the NMFS Assistant Administrator has issued new five-year affirmative findings for the Governments of Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, and Spain (“The Nations”) under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). These new five-year affirmative findings will allow yellowfin tuna and yellowfin tuna products harvested in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean (ETP) in…
On 12 December, the European Commission announced that Ecuador and the EU had initialed the protocol that will allow Ecuador to join its neighbours, Colombia and Peru, in a preferential trade relationship with the EU. According to the Commission: The negotiations for a trade agreement between the EU and the Andean Community (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru) were launched in June 2007. After stalling in 2008, the talks continued in 2009 with Colombia, Ecuador and…