OREANDA-NEWS. May 23, 2014. A mission of the Secretariat of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is on assessment visit to the Economics Ministry, in the context of starting the process of revising Moldova’s trade policy.

According to the Economics Ministry’s information and media communication service, representatives of the government institutions, Customs Service, National Food Safety Agency, National Statistics Bureau and State Agency on Intellectual Property of the Republic of Moldova (AGEPI) attend the meetings.

The main purpose of the WTO-initiated process of revising the trade policy is to ensure compliance with the rules, principles and commitments under multilateral trade agreements. This transparency enhancing exercise also contributes to increasing the constant work of the international trading system and to a better understanding of the WTO member countries’ trade policies and practices.

Under the visit’s agenda, topic-related information meetings were organised. Moldova’s representatives will inform WTO experts on the latest developments in areas such as: customs administration, tariff policy, agricultural policy, energy, competition policy, financial services, monetary policy, intellectual property, environmental policies, privatisation, etc.

The final result of the evaluation will be included in WTO’s report on the trade policy of Moldova and mirror the country’s image within the international trading system.

Moldova has been a full-fledged member of the WTO since 6 June 2001. According to the WTO’s procedure rules, Moldova will be subject to a process of revising of the trade policy in 2014-2015. This exercise is used within the concerned organisation’s mechanism for supervising national trade policies and is periodically applied to all WTO members, in line with their share in the world trade.