7. The Secretariat introduced the document and underlined some important aspects of WTO’s Agreements on SPS and on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) with particular emphasis to their implications to the work of the Codex Alimentarius Commission. The Representative of FAO informed the Committee that a FAO Briefing Meeting on the Implications of the Agreements Adopted during the GATT Uruguay Round had been held on 4 March, Tokyo, with participants from several Asian countries. He stressed the increasing importance of the Codex standards and related texts as the international benchmarks under the SPS Agreement. The Codex Secretariat had participated in a series of WTO seminars, including one held in Thailand, and was contributing to familiarizing countries with the meaning of the SPS and TBT Agreements.
8. The Representative of WHO informed the Committee that in addition to the CAC, FAO and WHO had been granted an observer status in the SPS and TBT Committees of WTO. Referring to Article 9 of the SPS Agreement, he pointed out that developing countries should strongly be invited to submit requests for technical assistance both from international organizations and other governmental cooperation agencies in order to comply with the food safety provisions of the Codex texts.
