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Study finds 92pc of US exporters face non-WTO tech snags

A US FEDERAL study show that 92 per cent - or $1.3 trillion worth of goods exported in 2015 faced foreign technical snags.

The US Commerce Department's International Trade Administration (ITA) report, Standards and Regulations, demonstrates the pervasiveness of technical regulations and their potential to affect exports.

"Regulations and testing and certification procedures that diverge from international standards - especially in ways that are unnecessarily trade-restrictive - can create challenges for US exporters," said US Commerce Department's Undersecretary for International Trade Ken Hyatt.

Technical snags include mandatory labelling, testing and procedures to certify compliance with requirements that must be met to get a product to market, said Mr Hyatt.

The ITA report looked at World Trade Organisation (WTO) members' notifications under the WTO Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement between January 2006 and mid-August 2015.

This was done to "focus on technical regulations that could significantly affect trade, but are either not in accordance with relevant international standards or for which no international standards exist".

According to the agreement, WTO members are obliged to "notify other members when they are considering adopting a regulation that "may have a significant effect on trade," said ITA report.

"Notifications do not necessarily represent discriminatory trade barriers, but they are designed to cover regulations that differ from international standards in ways that could impact trade," it said.

Industry sectors receiving the most notifications included machinery and electronics, vehicles, and mineral fuels, as well as chemicals, cosmetics and several food products.

In addition to the United States, leading WTO members by number of notifications included the European Union, China, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Uganda, South Korea, Brazil, Kenya, Qatar, Bahrain, Japan and Canada.