The TBT National Enquiry Point
What is the TBT Agreement?
The WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade, otherwise called the TBT Agreement, is one of the multilateral agreements negotiated during the Uruguay Round (1986-1994) of world trade negotiations. The main objectives of the TBT Agreement are:
To establish international rules and procedures to avoid the creation of unnecessary barriers to trade caused by the imposition of technical regulations, voluntary standards or conformity assessment procedures.
To encourage the use of international standards, guidelines and recommendations for the preparation and application of technical regulations and conformity assessment procedures.
The TBT Agreement tries to ensure that standards, technical regulations and conformity assessment procedures do not create unnecessary obstacles to international trade, while leaving Members adequate regulatory discretion to protect human, animal and plant life and health, national security, the environment, consumers and other policy interests.
