14^th Transportation Working Group Meeting

Seoul, October 19-23, 1998

 ROAD TRANSPORT HARMONISATION PROJECT GROUP AND STEERING COMMITTEE MEETING

SEOUL 19 OCTOBER 1998

1. The meeting was attended by representatives of the delegations of Australia, Brunei Darussalam, the Peoples Republic of China, Japan, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Chinese Taipei, Thailand and the United States of America.

The meeting was chaired by Australia.

2. The Steering Committee accepted the 2nd progress report for TPT 02/98 on the analysis of APEC wide Certification Systems Including Recall Systems provided by the consultant, Japan Automobile Standards Internationalisation Center (JASIC).

3. Fifteen member economies responded to the request for information and JASIC has utilised its own database to complete the inclusion of relevant material for all APEC economies. JASIC advised that it expected to complete the work by the end of October 1998.

4. Although arrangements with the APEC SOM had been made to allow attendance of international industry bodies OICA, and IMMA and the international automotive consumer body, FIA, these organisation were not able to attend the meeting.

5. Members were informed by the United States of America that the parallel agreement on global regulations had been completed at UN/ECE WP.29 in June 1998 and that the United States had signed the Agreement at that meeting. Other countries have indicated their intention to sign the Global Agreement in the near future. APEC member economies were encouraged to consider becoming Parties to the Agreement.

6. Members noted the International Vehicle Standards Harmonisation Seminar held in Mexico City in April played a large part in strengthening linkages between APEC members and UN/ECE in line with the commitment outlined in the Transportation Action Program. Members agreed on the success of the event.

7. The Peoples Republic of China presented a paper proposing that the terminology used by RTHP be consistent with the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade with respect to technical requirements. It was agreed by RTHP Group that the term Technical Regulations would be used to describe mandatory requirements and the term Standards for voluntary requirements.

8. Members discussed the future RTHP work of Phase V Stage 1. APEC funding for US$50,000 has been approved by the BAC for this work in 1999.

The project purpose is to:

Provide guidelines for APEC economies to actively participate in the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN/ECE) Inland Transport Committee Working Party 29 (WP.29); and

Working with two volunteer APEC economies, provide advice and develop steps to achieve effective certification systems and harmonised vehicle regulations to enable free trade for automotive product in the region.

Thailand and Australia indicated their willingness to be the volunteer economies for Phase V Stage 1, however, and other economies eg. the Peoples Republic of China indicated they may wish to be considered candidates after consultation with their governments. It was agreed that the Steering Committee would consider all candidates before making a final decision.

9. Members discussed the Request For Proposal (RFP) to be used for calling tenders for the Phase V consultancy. A copy of the final version of the RFP is submitted to SCMCTI for information.

10. A draft proposal for Phase V Stage 2 was tabled for consideration by members. It was agreed that comment would be provided to allow development of the proposal for consideration at TPT-WG15. Japan proposed that a multilateral workshop be convened to allow all interested parties to contribute to Stage 2 and agreed to circulate a paper for consideration by member economies by mid-December 1998 for response by the end of January 1999. Japan further agreed to circulate a paper taking account of members comments for consideration at TPT-WG15.

11. JASIC are preparing the TPT 01/96 and TPT 01/97 reports on CD-ROM for installation on the Internet. It was proposed by the RTHP Group that this important information is placed on the TPT-WG home page to allow access by interested parties.

To ensure the information remains relevant, the RTHP Group had proposed that should be included in 1998 consultancy, however, it was considered that a separate consultancy may be necessary to address the issue.

12. The US provided information on the progress being made on functional equivalence concept in its own economy and requested that members provide comment to allow further discussion at the next TPT-WG meeting in Chile.

13. Consideration was given to the US proposal for Early Voluntary Sectoral Liberalisation for the automotive sector to be discussed at the Trade Ministers meeting in November. An event is being arranged for Sunday 15 November 1998 to coincide with the meeting in Malaysia to discuss expectations of interested parties of the Automotive Dialogue. The US also advised that it was to be proposed that a representative of the RTHP would serve on the Steering Committee for the Automotive Dialogue to ensure that effective cooperation between the groups was developed.

14. The RTHP group recommend that the Steering Committee on More Competitive Transportation Industry:

Note the report of the RTHP group

Note the 2nd progress report of the consultant for TPT 02/98

Note the Request For Proposal for RTHP Phase V Stage 1 (TPT 02/99)

14TH TRANSPORTATION WORKING GROUP MEETING, SEOUL

19 – 23 OCTOBER 1998

ROAD TRANSPORT HARMONISATION PROJECT GROUP MEETING

Date: Monday 19 October 1998
Time: 9.00am-12.30
Venue:

AGENDA

1 Opening remarks

2 Acceptance of agenda

3 1997 Consultancy

discussion of consultant’s final report

note plenary information paper

4 1998 Consultancy

discussion of consultant’s progress

- 2nd Progress report

- Steering Committee comments

note plenary information paper

5 RTHP funding issues

regulations update

Phase 5 funding Request for Proposal (Australia)

6 EVSL in the Automotive Sector

US proposal

Recommendation to CTI

7 International vehicle standards harmonisation seminar review of Seminar

8 International standardising forum

Draft Global Agreement on global regulations (U.S.)

developments with the UN/ECE 58 Agreement

report by members on their economies views towards UN/ECE

9 Developments in Functional Equivalence (U.S.)

10 ‘Model’ Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA) on Automotive Product

utilisation (planning by member economies)

11 Reporting to TPT-WG14 and preparation of Plenary Report

12 Any other business

ROAD TRANSPORT HARMONISATION PROJECT
PROGRESS REPORT DISCUSSION PAPER

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