home > trade topics > trade policy reviews > list of reviews >

PRESS RELEASE: PRESS/TPRB/315

TRADE POLICY REVIEW:

Balanced growth requires more policy coherence

Since the end of civil strife in 2003, Solomon Islands has made efforts to reform its trade and economic policies by reducing the level and dispersion of tariffs, easing customs procedures, rationalizing fiscal incentives, and adopting new legislation on investment, state-owned enterprises and civil aviation, according to a WTO Secretariat report on the trade policies and practices of Solomon Islands.

See also:
  

The WTO report, along with a policy statement by the Government, will be the basis for the Trade Policy Review (TPR) by the Trade Policy Review Body of the WTO.

The report notes that recent economic growth has been robust, but is on an unsustainable path. Hence, it is imperative to continue supporting the development of long-term sources of balanced economic growth by strengthening institutional capacity for trade and economic policy formulation and implementation. Economic growth would also be supported by the greater transparency, predictability and coherence that would result from Solomon Islands aligning its trade and investment regime more closely with the multilateral trading system in areas such as taxation, customs valuation, sanitary and other regulations, and the protection of intellectual property.

The report, along with a policy statement by the Government of Solomon Islands, will be the basis for the second Trade Policy Review (TPR) of the Solomon Islands by the Trade Policy Review Body of the WTO on 6 and 8 May 2009.

The following documents are available in MS Word format.

• Secretariat report
  > Contents and summary observations
  > Economic environment
  > Trade and investment regimes
  > Trade policies and practices by measure
  > Trade policies by sector
  > Appendix tables
    
• Government report
    

Note  back to top

Trade Policy Reviews are an exercise, mandated in the WTO agreements, in which member countries’ trade and related policies are examined and evaluated at regular intervals. Significant developments that may have an impact on the global trading system are also monitored. For each review, two documents are prepared: a policy statement by the government of the member under review, and a detailed report written independently by the WTO Secretariat. These two documents are then discussed by the WTO’s full membership in the Trade Policy Review Body (TPRB). These documents and the proceedings of the TPRB’s meetings are published shortly afterwards.

Print copies of previous TPR publications are available for sale from the WTO Secretariat, Centre William Rappard, 154 rue de Lausanne, 1211 Genève 21 and through the on-line bookshop.

The TPR publications are also available from our co-publisher Bernan Press, 4611-F Assembly Drive, Lanham, MD 20706-4391, United States.

Schedule of forthcoming reviews  back to top

New Zealand: 10 and 12 June 2009
Morocco: 24 and 26 June 2009
Guyana: 8 and 10 July 2009

SEE ALSO    > Full list of previous TPRs

> Problems viewing this page?
Please contact webmaster@wto.org giving details of the operating system and web browser you are using.