The World Trade Organization (WTO) Committee on Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Measures oversees the implementation of the agreement on the Application of SPS and is a forum for discussion of members' specific trade concerts.
The SPS Agreement aims to ensure that WTO members' health protection measures in the areas of food safety and animal and plant health do not restrict international trade more than necessary.
The committee has released a brochure based on the 2020 Annual Overview of the Implementation of SPS Transparency Provisions and Specific Trade Concerns.
Top 10 takeaways from the brochure:
- Over 2,000 SPS notifications were submitted in 2020, an all-time high; they were submitted by 63 members, continuing an upward trend since 1995.
- Developing countries have submitted more SPS notifications than developed countries.
- Tanzania was among the top ten notifiers of SPS notifications in 2020.
- More than two-thirds (68 percent) of regular notifications submitted in 2020 related to food safety.
- The number of trade-facilitating SPS measures notified by members in 2020 was more than twice as high as in 2017.
- Almost half of the new specific trade concerns (STCs) discussed in the SPS Committee in 2020 referred to food safety.
- In 2020, 63 members submitted at least one SPS notification and 14 members raised at least one STC in the SPS Committee.
- More than half of the 505 STCs discussed in the SPS Committee up to 2020 have been either resolved or partially resolved.
- In 2020, the SPS Committee adopted the Fifth Review of the Operation and Implementation of the SPS Agreement.
- Over four-fifths of members—84 percent— used the online SPS Notification Submission System to submit their notifications in 2020.
Click here to view the full brochure.
