Mauritius is a Member of the WTO since its foundation in 1995. The WTO is the successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).
Monitoring of national trade policies for all Members is an important activity of the WTO. This exercise is carried out through the Trade Policy Review Mechanism (TPRM). The frequency of each country is reviewed varies according to its share of world trade. As a developing country, Mauritius is reviewed every 6 years.
Latest Trade Policy Review (TPR) reports:
For more information about Mauritius and the WTO (goods schedule, tariff data and trade in services schedules), click here.
The WTO’s main objective is to help trade flow smoothly, freely, fairly and predictably. It does this by:
Most-favored-nations (MFN) treatment – Lays down the principle of non-discrimination. Requires that tariffs and other negotiations should be applied to imported or exported goods without discrimination among countries.
National Treatment Rule – Prohibits countries from discriminating between imported products and domestically produced like goods, both in the matter of the levy of internal taxes and in the application of internal regulations.
As emerged from the Uruguay Round, the WTO consists of the following main substantive agreements:
The Doha Development Round or Doha Development Agenda (DDA) is the current trade-negotiation round of the WTO which commenced in November 2001. Its objective is to lower trade barriers around the world, which allows countries to increase trade globally.
The negotiations are organized into different Trade Negotiations Committees on the following main issues:
The status on the negotiations of the different committees can be obtained from the WTO website on Trade Negotiations Committee
Useful Websites: World Trade Organisation
