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Issue 32 – 4 February 2011

Editorial

With this first Market Access Newsletter of the year, I would like to convey my best wishes for 2011, hoping that this year again, the close cooperation between the European Commission, Member States and Business will yield many good results on market ac-cess issues. This is also a good opportunity for me to introduce

Jean-Luc Demarty, who has just taken over from David O'Sullivan as Director General for Trade. Mr. Demarty has been at the head of the Directorate General for Agriculture for several years and has extensive experience, not least in the field of difficult negotiations. I am sure that he will follow closely the very busy market access agenda At the end of 2010, we had important meetings with China and the US, two of our major strategic partners, both of them with positive developments on market access. Late December in China, I chaired the EU-China High Level Economic and Trade Dialogue (HED) together with Vice-President Almunia and Commissioner Rehn. We addressed, inter alia, the Chinese “indigenous innovation” policy, which is a key concern for our companies with regard to public procurement, as well as intellectual property. I welcome the Chinese reassurances given in the meeting that EU products will not be treated differently from Chinese products. We will closely monitor the implementation of the measures. We also made good progress in the Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC) with the US regarding the "100% scanning" provisions, whose objective is to increase security, but which could have a significant economic and practical impact on EU exports to the US. In the TEC meeting in December, the US recognised the con-cept of “authorised economic operator”, which we consider is a step in the right direction. These are just two examples of how thorough discussions with our strategic partners can contribute to solving or alleviating practical market access prob-lems. As we set out in the Commission's Communication "Trade, Growth and World Affairs", we are committed to continuing on this track in 2011 under our strengthened enforcement agenda. I hope you will enjoy reading this newsletter which as usual provides information about different market access related topics, this time, inter alia, the view of the European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC) on the Market Access Strategy and an article about a market access seminar in Minsk.

Karel De Gucht

European Commissioner for External Trade

In this issue…

Editorial ........................................................1

The Market Access team wishes you a Happy

2011! ............................................................2

The European Business and Technology

Centre (EBTC) .............................................4

Market Access Team-building in Belarus.....6

The Voice of Business .................................6

Market Access Working Groups… ..............8

Looking back… ............................................8

Looking ahead…..........................................9

Do you know that…?....................................9

Issue 32 – 4 February 2011

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Issue 32 – 4 February 2011

The Market Access team wishes you a Happy 2011!

From left to right: Marco Düerkop, Eniko Blaszauer, Léa Ben Haiem, Dominique Van de Moortele, François Nègre, Joanna Miksa, Graham Taylor, Chiara Miglioli, Petros Sourmelis, Noélie Genevey, José Chantre, Stéphanie Leupold, Pierre Léger, Laurence Delfosse. Missing on the picture: Iglika Yakova, Martin Pilser

With the start of a new year, the Market Access Unit would like to convey its best wishes for 2011 to all readers of the Market Access Newsletter. We would also like to take this opportunity to introduce the current team, as some changes have recently taken place. The Market Access team comprises 16 colleagues, led by Petros Sourmelis and Marco Düerkop, Head of Unit and Deputy Head of Unit, respectively. Each team member deals with a number of issues, based on a geographical, sectoral and horizontal distribution of competences. This necessitates good coordination with other units, both within the Directorate General for Trade and across the entire Commission, not least for the preparation, chairing and follow up to the meetings of the various Working Groups and the monthly Mar-ket Access Advisory Committee. This also means that this rather small team has to be adaptable to deal with a wide range of different issues. The Market Access Unit is used as a contact point for Member States and Business when a trade barrier arises in a third coun-try. In this context it is crucial to have a reactive and dedicated team to address and reply to the numerous daily and often urgent re-quests. The team includes nationals from 12 different Member States, from Portugal to Bulgaria, with various educational backgrounds (econ-omy, law, political science, even biology!); some are officials, others are Seconded National Experts and contract agents on a 3 year-contract, which makes for a dynamic team, and means that everyday work benefits from cooperation between individuals with different viewpoints and perspectives. You will find below the main responsibilities for each member of the team. The Market Access Newsletter provides an opportunity to keep our stakeholders updated on the daily market access work and devel-opments and to highlight some of the actions which could be of interest to the wider public. The team is always looking for ways to make the newsletter even more interesting for readers and feedback, or even offers to contribute an article, will always be appreciated. All the best for 2011 from the Market Access Team!

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Petros Sourmelis Head of Unit Marco Düerkop Deputy Head of Unit Dominique Van de Moortele Secretary to the Head of Unit Laurence Delfosse Secretary to the Deputy Head of Unit Lea Ben Haiem Assistant to the Market Access Team – preparation of the MAAC Enikö Blaszauer MAAC - EEA and Switzerland, ASEAN - Working Group Postal Courier José Chantre Central Asia, South Caucasus, Eastern Neighbourhood, Mediterranean countries, GCC - Working

Group Tyres Noélie Genevey Turkey and SME Policy Pierre Léger Market Access Database Stephanie Leupold India, Pakistan and Bangladesh - Working Group Chemicals Chiara Miglioli China and Indonesia - Helpdesk for Analysis of trade barriers for IPR - Working Group Electronics

and ICT Joanna Miksa Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus - Working Group Textiles/Leather François Nègre Mediterranean countries, Korea and Taiwan - Working Group Medical Devices Martin Pilser SME policy - Latin America Graham Taylor USA and Canada - Working Group Alcoholic Beverages Iglika Yakova Balkans, Australia, New Zealand and Japan, Working Groups SPS and Automotives Recruitment in progress Turkey, South Africa – Working Group Distribution Services

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The European Business and Technology Centre (EBTC) A single-window facilitator for EU-India trade and research coopera-tion in the field of clean technologies By India is an increasingly important trade partner for the European Union, due to its large population of more than one billion people and a growth rate between 8 and 10%. Notwithstanding a positive trend in EU-India trade and investment flows, significant obstacles remain for European companies to be able to conduct business in India, from access to basic market information to issues such as technical regulations and stan-dards, managing technology transfer and protecting their intellec-tual property rights, as well as non-tariff barriers. As far as India is concerned, this country continues to face an increasing pressure on its natural resources due to the uncon-trolled growth of industrialisation and urbanisation. Against this background, the European Business Technology Centre (EBTC) was set up in 2008 with two main objectives:

- to foster EU-Indian economic and research cooperation and to tackle barriers to trade and investment; - to address climate change challenges in India and deepen co-operation in relevant fields of energy and clean development. The Centre’s initial emphasis is to promote mutually beneficial EU-India economic and technological cooperation in four sectors: Environment, Energy, Biotech and Transport. It is also thanks to such well-defined focus areas that the EBTC can provide a true ‘European added value’ and count on such strong support from the European partners in India, the bilateral Chambers of Commerce of the EU Member States and their commercial and science & technology departments. To date, more than 100 EU companies and researchers have benefited from the services of EBTC.

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EBTC IN A NUTSHELL: The European Business and Technology Centre (EBTC) in India provides support to European companies and science and technology entities.

Its Mission

• To help European companies and researchers access the Indian market • To promote and support European clean technologies in India • To increase the understanding among EU SMEs and scientific entities of all opportunities offered by India • To create synergies and links with other European stakeholders based in the country and help enhance EU-Indian policy dia-

logue and business cooperation Services

• Market intelligence: legal & regulatory requirements assistance, advice on IPR issues / standards & norms, identification of funding sources, information on market opportunities / barriers, market overview reports & feasibility studies, etc.

• EU-India business & research cooperation: organisation of sector-specific business & research delegations to India, partners search, trade fairs participation, identification of relevant projects, etc.

• Supporting services: business incubators, market access advice, etc • E-learning: ‘Doing business in India’ online self-learning tool

Organisation

• EUROCHAMBRES – programme leader • EBTC office in New Delhi + regional offices in Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata • Consortium of business and research organisations in Europe + representative organisations of European business / re-

search interests in India

Programme details • Co-financed by the European Union and managed from its Delegation in India • Duration: 2008 - 2017 • Target groups: EU companies and research entities interested in entering the Indian market / Science &Technology coopera-

tion Contacts

• In Europe: EUROCHAMBRES EBTC Team: ebtc@eurochambres.eu, +32 (0) 2 282 08 63 • In India: EBTC Delhi Office: delhi@ebtc.eu, +91 (0)11 95 17 22 00

More information on www.ebtc.eu

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Market Access Team-building in Belarus

Creation of the Customs Union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan brings a need for more coordination and coopera-tion between EU stakeholders, to ensure there is as little disruption to trade flows as possible. Given the challenge of dealing with market access barriers in all three countries, Lithuania took a very useful initiative by organising a seminar to dis-cuss access to the Belarusian market, key barriers to trade and investment with Bela-rus and the possibility of creating a Market Access Team in Minsk. The seminar, organised on 25 November 2010 by the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Lithuania's embassy in Minsk, in cooperation with the EU Delegation in Minsk, brought together representatives of EU Member States, Business and the Commission, whose representative elabo-rated on the main aspects of work on market access and the existing partner-ship structures and principles.

The nature of market access barriers, as experienced by EU operators, pertains mostly to the rule of law and respect for con-tractual obligations, which is of particular importance for inves-tors. The seminar revealed a great potential for coordination between Business, EU Member States and the EU Delegation, whereas until now, operators have tended to address their problems on an individual basis, us-ing the limited channels available in the difficult political context. While the EU business present in Belarus is strengthen-ing its own cooperation mechanisms, there is scope for more coordinated action between stakeholders, all the more so, since the individual and ad hoc approach to solving obstacles to trade and invest-ment has not brought lasting solutions to a number of problems.

Although the EU-Belarus relationship re-mains fragile, due to the political situation in Belarus, especially following the Presi-

dential elections in December 2010, there are a significant number of EU companies already present in the country and inter-ested in wider access to the Belarusian and regional markets.

Against the background of strong regional integration efforts in the EU's immediate Eastern Neighbourhood, the seminar was a welcome initiative, laying the ground for the creation of a Market Access Team. It is expected that in the long run, it could help to strengthen the work on market access and the Market Access Partner-ship in all member countries of the Cus-toms Union to the benefit of EU operators.

The Voice of Business A proposed way forward to ensure better market access for the Euro-pean chemicals industry By Cefic, the European Chemical Industry Council, is the voice of 29,000 large, me-dium and small chemicals companies in Europe. With a total turnover of €449billion, a trade surplus of €42.6billion (2009) and a total of 1.2 million employ-ees, the European chemical industry is

today a world leader, accounting for about 24% of world chemicals production. This year, 2011, is the International Year of Chemistry, and the sector is committed to continue investing, innovating, creating wealth and providing substantial employ-ment in Europe, even in economically difficult times.

The chemical industry is a global industry and typically operates in long supply chains that often straddle many borders, with most customers being from the chemical industry itself. Therefore, ensur-ing free and fair trade is key to the suc-cess of the sector globally. However, this objective can be difficult to achieve as

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Issue 32 – 4 February 2011

many countries in the world continue to put in place protectionist measures and unfair market access barriers, despite the commitments made under the G20. In this context, the European chemical indus-try very much welcomes the Commis-sion’s strategic aims, recently highlighted in its Communication “Trade, Growth and World Affairs”, to improve market access,

remove regulatory barriers, enhance in-ternational regulatory co-operation, open up investment opportunities and improve access to raw materials. Different tools have been developed by the Commission to best safeguard Euro-pean firms or interests again major trading partners who maintain an asymmetric level of openness and put in place an in-creasing number of non-tariff barriers. One of these tools is the Market Access Working Group on Chemicals, launched last year, where different strategies are

jointly established by the Commission services, member states and the chemical industry with a view to removing particular barriers encountered by the EU chemical industry around the globe. The third meet-ing took place on 27 January, when a fruit-ful discussion led to an agreement on fur-ther actions to be taken jointly, with regard to some IPR and data protection issues in

Brazil and India, import restrictions on nitrocellulose in Brazil and Thai-land and customs problems in Rus-sia. A new issue concerning the disclosure of busi-ness confidential information re-quired by the Japanese Chemi-cal Substance Control Law - and which is due to enter into force in

April - was also raised and hopefully a solution will be found before the law en-ters into force. Finally, SPS issues in Ja-pan and the longstanding case of active pharmaceutical ingredients in China at-tracted the attention of all stakeholders. Cefic strongly supports this initiative from the Commission where enhanced and better coordination between all partners will, we hope, lead to successes and ulti-mately contribute to the objectives of smart, sustainable and inclusive growth as laid down in the Europe 2020 Strategy.

Thanks to this better coordination and sharing of information between industry, member states and Commission services both in Brussels through the Market Ac-cess Working Group dedicated to chemi-cals and on the ground locally in third countries, some success has already been achieved. This is the case for Indo-nesia, which revised its import rules to allow imports of both finished pharmaceu-tical products and raw materials (i.e. ac-tive pharmaceutical ingredients API-U and API-P) under the same import licence and legal entity as from 1 January 2011. Cefic will continue to actively feed the dynamic and interactive process launched through the creation of the Market Access Working Group on Chemicals. It will do so by identifying at an early stage potential new market access barriers encountered by EU industry in a given third country. The chemical industry will also continue to provide, where possible, additional evi-dence to member states and Commission services that will help them to convince third countries’ authorities that they are going in the wrong direction. Cefic be-lieves that these joint efforts are key to addressing unfair barriers to trade and improving market access in important markets. To this extent, Cefic welcomes the Commission's intention to present a first annual Trade and Investment barriers report to the Spring 2011 EU Council. For more information on Cefic please visit our website at: http://www.cefic.org/

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Market Access Working Groups… …on Chemicals On 27 January 2011, the third meeting of the Market Access Working Group on Chemicals took place. Following past discussions, further actions were discussed regarding IPR and data protection issues in Brazil and India, as well as concerning import restrictions on nitrocellulose in Brazil and Thailand. Different customs issues with Russia continued to be high on the agenda. As regards China, industry confirmed its concerns regarding the longstanding issue

of obstacles to the import of active pharmaceutical ingredients. For Japan - in

addition to SPS problems regarding bovine gelatine and maximum residue levels deviating from international standards - a new trade barrier seems to be emerging from a recent amendment to the Chemical Substance Control Law, which would require the disclosure of confidential business information to Japanese importers. As the amendment is to enter into force in April 2011, swift action will be needed to analyse the issue and subsequently discuss with Japan. … on Alcoholic Beverages

The 4th meeting of the Working Group on alcoholic beverages, bringing together representatives from the brewing, spirits and wine industries, a number of Member Sates and Commission officials from sev-eral Directorates-General, took place on 9 December 2010 in Brussels.

A wide-ranging agenda covered priority market access issues in Russia, Turkey, China and Thailand, followed up on issues

previously discussed in Japan, Norway, Vietnam and Taiwan, brought new issues to the table on Brazil and USA and con-sidered recent, concerning developments in Ukraine.

This sector is particularly hit by certain types of trade barriers which hinder mar-ket access, such as raw material restric-tions (China, Japan, Norway, Vietnam and the USA), alleged excise tax discrimina-tion (Turkey, Thailand and Taiwan), label-ling requirements (China, Thailand and Brazil), import license problems (Russia, Turkey and Thailand) and customs valua-tion problems (Turkey and Ukraine).

The next meeting is scheduled to take place in April 2011.

Looking back… …On Success Stories The Commission's Market Access Strat-egy has recently led to successes in the area of sanitary and phytosanitary meas-ures in two different countries, through the Commission and Market Ac-cess Partners raising the issues regularly with the countries concerned at different levels. Firstly, the Philippines have finally lifted its BSE-related ban on imports of beef and

beef products from Por-tugal. This follows earlier decisions to lift the bans on imports from the other EU Member States and means that the Philip-pines beef market is now open to exporters from all EU Member States. Read more

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Secondly, Malaysia has finally lifted its BSE-related ban on imports of beef and beef products of EU origin, originally im-posed without scientific justification in 2001, so that the Malaysian beef market is

now also open for imports from all EU Member States. Read more Despite the bans being lifted, EU Member States still have to undergo lengthy coun-try by country procedures for accreditation

of their abattoirs and processing plants processing beef and beef products. The European Commission will continue to discuss with these two countries to seek trade friendly approval procedures in line with their international obligations.

Looking ahead…

3 February Market Access Working Group on Automotives 17 February Market Access Advisory Committee, Brussels 17 February EU-US third country market access co-operation videoconference 14 March Market Access Advisory Committee, Brussels March Working Group on ICT April Working group on Alcoholic Beverages (tbc)

Do you know that…?

"The Exporters' Guide to Import Formalities" of the Market Access Database facilitates your research as regards import for-malities in third countries. This database allows you to find out all you need to know about the import procedures and docu-

ments required for the imports of your specific products into more than 100 countries.

If you want to export a product to Russia for instance, the database will give you the list of docu-ments you will have to complete such as the "customs import declaration" or a "passport of deal". A specimen of each document is generally available on the database with a translation into English to help you fill it in. You will also find explanations with regard to the process and conditions to submit the document to the authorities. Once you have selected your country and product, this page also offers you useful links to other functions in the database such as the "Applied Tariffs" section and the "statistical database". The Exporter's Guide to Import Formalities is available on the Market Access Database (for a direct link: click here) and is updated on a regular basis. The date of the last update is also displayed, for your information.

An updated flyer promoting the Market Access Partnership and the Market Access Database is now available online. It provides basic information in English, French and German about the tools which are at the disposal of exporters wishing to ac-

cess third country markets. Readers of the newsletter are encouraged to distribute the flyer further to interested contacts. The flyer is available here or further hard copies may be requested from TRADE-G1-MARKET-ACCESS@ec.europa.eu.

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Disclaimer: The European Commission services issue this newsletter to enhance information about its initiatives and activities. Our goal is to keep this information timely and accurate. If errors are brought to our attention, we will try to correct them. However the Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to the information in this newsletter. The disclaimer, the copy-right notice and the statement on Personal Data Protection that you can find at http://ec.europa.eu/geninfo/legal_notices_en.htm apply accordingly to this newsletter and the data collected for its distribution. All pictures © www.fotolia.com.