PRESS RELEASE: PRESS/TPRB/265

7 and 9 June 2006

TRADE POLICY REVIEW: ICELAND

Openness and specialization have led to high living standards

Iceland's standard of living is among the world's highest, in part due to the overall openness of its economy, which has allowed Iceland to reap significant benefits from specialization and trade according to a report on the trade policies and practices of Iceland published by the WTO Secretariat.

Iceland has continued to diversify its economy and undertaken macroeconomic and liberalising reforms over the last six years. Many of these reforms have been driven by Iceland's participation in the European Economic Area (EEA). This has widened the gap between the treatment Iceland affords to its EEA partners and to other WTO Members in various areas. The report suggests that closing this gap by applying reforms on an MFN basis, and securing them in the WTO, would help reduce remaining distortions, enhance competition in the domestic market, and prevent over-reliance on the EEA market.

The report also calls for Iceland to take further steps to reduce agricultural support and protection, in particular in the dairy and lamb sectors, which could bring economic benefits and help align agricultural policy with the market-based solutions implemented in other sectors.

The following documents are available in MS Word format.

Secretariat report

> Contents and summary observations (12 pages, 100KB)
> Economic environment (10 pages, 379KB)
> Trade and investment policy framework (9 pages, 136KB)

> Trade policies and practices by measure (44 pages, 383KB)
> Trade policies by sector (37 pages, 396KB)
> Appendix tables (14 pages, 671KB)  

Questions and answers by WTO Members are available approximately 6 weeks after the meeting.

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 WTOs full membership in the Trade Policy Review Body (TPRB). These documents and the proceedings of the TPRBs 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 Geneve 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 

Chinese Taipei: 20 and 22 June 2006
Togo: 3 and 5 July 2006
Nicaragua: 24 and 26 July 2006