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Although we have tried to use plain English content on the site, you may come across specialist terms and acronyms. Find out what they mean in our glossary of terms.
If you come across a term that isn't included in the Glossary please send us an email.
Regulations and standards have an important role in protecting human health and the environment, and in preventing deceptive trade practices. However, when they are more onerous than necessary, lack transparency, or arbitrarily discriminate against products from particular countries, they can act as de facto trading obstacles, or technical barriers to trade.
The term ‘technical barrier to trade’ (TBT) is used to describe a government regulation or a voluntary standard which implicitly restricts or disadvantages the import of goods from another country, despite having a seemingly legitimate purpose to, for instance, regulate the health and safety implications of a particular product.
Such regulations may have the effect of protecting domestic industries in the importing country, and add additional burden to exporters wishing to sell on an equal footing with those domestic companies.
One of the key goals of trade negotiations under both the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has been to place stricter disciplines on technical regulations and standards.
The Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade, concluded when the WTO was established in 1995, places even more rigorous disciplines on technical regulations and provides a framework for reducing trade barriers. This agreement ensures that domestic measures relating to how a product is designed, manufactured or used do not become de facto barriers to trade and it also covers procedures for verifying compliance with regulations and standards.
Main functions of the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade:
As a small exporting country, New Zealand stands to benefit significantly from improved disciplines on technical barriers to trade. These disciplines help both by making international trade easier and by providing a framework for raising concerns with trading partners when our own exports face arbitrary or overly restrictive requirements and regulations.
Stricter disciplines also help the New Zealand government ensure that New Zealand’s domestic regulations are in line with international practice, and that New Zealand consumers are not deprived of their right to choose from a broad range of domestic and international products.
To keep up to date with developments visit Technical Barriers to Trade.
