15 November 2019, Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar
Since 2013, the technical assistance provided by the European Unions ARISE and ARISE Plus programmes has focused on assisting the ASEAN Secretariat and ASEAN Member States (AMS) to establish and progressively operationalise the ASEAN Trade Repository by engaging the respective AMSs Focal Points and National Trade Repositories (NTRs), building the skills on NTRs/ATR content development, reporting processes, and the templates and common classification language, especially in relation to Non-Tariff Measures (NTMs), so as to ensure that a standardised and harmonious notification process occurs regionally and in each AMS.
This National Workshop, held in cooperation with Myanmars Ministry of Commerce, aimed at revisiting the key concepts, guidelines and procedures for populating the ATR and Myanmars Trade Portal (available at https://www.myanmartradeportal.gov.mm/en) with the relevant trade-related information, stoke-taking on the current degree of NTR operationalization, particularly with respect to the process of identification, classification and upload of NTMs, in the all-important area of Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) regulation. The focus of the Workshop was on verifying and validating Myanmar’s TBT NTMs for subsequent upload onto the ATR, as well as providing practical training to the relevant line agencies. 21 government officials from 10 Ministries and competent authorities of the Government of Myanmar attended the workshop, which led to the validation of 81 TBT NTMs.
The event was opened by Mr. Ko Ko Lay, Deputy Director General of the Ministry of Commerce of Myanmar and was run by Ms. Pa Pa, Deputy Director of the Ministry of Commerce of Myanmar and Myanmars representative within the Coordinating Committee on the Implementation of the ATIGA (CCA). ARISE Plus was represented by Mr. Paolo R. Vergano, Key Expert on Trade Facilitation and Transparency and Prof. Michelle Limenta, International Trade Expert. Myanmar was again the first AMS to complete the collection, classification, validation and upload of its NTMs in the ATR category of Technical Barriers to Trade, as it did with respect to Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures. ARISE Plus will continue to support Myanmar and the other AMSs as they progressively operationalise the ATR and their NTRs.
For more information about ATR, please visit: https://atr.asean.org/
