PRESS RELEASE: PRESS/TPRB/264
17 and 19 May 2006

TRADE POLICY REVIEW: URUGUAY

Further liberalization could help sustain a recent record of strong growth

After four years of economic contraction since the last review in 1998, Uruguay is experiencing strong growth, expected to be over 6% for 2005, thanks to a macroeconomic adjustment programme, the strengthening of the financial sector and a policy to keep markets open, according to a WTO Secretariat report on the Trade Policies and Practices of Uruguay by the Trade Policy Review Body (TPR).

See also:
> More on Uruguay

The report notes that during the period of economic contraction, Uruguay did not make use of trade restrictive measures to address the crisis, it made scant use of contingency measures, applied limited non-tariff barriers and made improvements in areas such as import procedures, customs valuation and intellectual property protection, while additional reforms are under consideration.

The report also says that to promote greater economic efficiency and diversification it would be particularly important for Uruguay to further liberalize its economy on an MFN basis and anchor these efforts through multilateral commitments.

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 following documents are available in MS Word format.

  

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

Iceland: 7 and 9 June 2006
Chinese Taipei: 20 and 22 June 2006
Togo: 3 and 5 July 2006