6. For greater certainty, no Party shall prohibit an importer from claiming for an originating good the rate of customs duty applied under the WTO Agreement.
7. For greater certainty, a Party may raise a customs duty to the level set out in its Schedule to Annex 2-D (Tariff Commitments) following a unilateral reduction for the respective year.
Article 2.5. Waiver of Customs Duties
1. No Party shall adopt any new waiver of a customs duty, or expand with respect to an existing recipient or extend to any new recipient the application of an existing waiver of a customs duty, that is conditioned, explicitly or implicitly, on the fulfilment of a performance requirement.
2. No Party shall, explicitly or implicitly, condition the continuation of any existing waiver of a customs duty on the fulfilment of a performance requirement.
Article 2.6. Goods Re-entered after Repair and Alteration
1. No Party shall apply a customs duty to a good, regardless of its origin, that re-enters the Party's territory after that good has been temporarily exported from the Party's territory to the territory of another Party for repair or alteration, regardless of whether that repair or alteration could have been performed in the territory of the Party from which the good was exported for repair or alteration or increased the value of the good. (1)
2. No Party shall apply a customs duty to a good, regardless of its origin, admitted temporarily from the territory of another Party for repair or alteration.
3. For the purposes of this Article, "repair or alteration"does not include an operation or process that:
(a) destroys a good's essential characteristics or creates a new or commercially different good; or
(b) transforms an unfinished good into a finished good.
Article 2.7. Duty-Free Entry of Commercial Samples of Negligible Value and Printed Advertising Material
Each Party shall grant duty-free entry to commercial samples of negligible value and printed advertising material imported from the territory of another Party, regardless of their origin, but may require that:
(a) commercial samples of negligible value be imported solely for the solicitation of orders for goods, or services provided from the territory, of another Party or a non-Party; or
(b) printed advertising material be imported in packets that each contain no more than one copy of the material and that neither that material nor those packets form part of a larger consignment.
Article 2.8. Temporary Admission of Goods
1. Each Party shall grant duty-free temporary admission for the following goods, regardless of their origin:
(a) professional equipment, including equipment for the press or television, software, and broadcasting and cinematographic equipment, that is necessary for carrying out the business activity, trade or profession of a person who qualifies for temporary entry pursuant to the laws of the importing Party;
(b) goods intended for display or demonstration;
(c) commercial samples and advertising films and recordings; and
(d) goods admitted for sports purposes.
2. Each Party shall, at the request of the person concerned and for reasons its customs authority considers valid, extend the time limit for duty-free temporary admission beyond the period initially fixed.
3. No Party shall condition the duty-free temporary admission of the goods referred to in paragraph 1, other than to require that those goods:
(a) be used solely by or under the personal supervision of a national of another Party in the exercise of the business activity, trade, profession or sport of that national of another Party;
(b) not be sold or leased while in its territory;
(c) be accompanied by a security in an amount no greater than the charges that would otherwise be owed on entry or final importation, releasable on exportation of the goods;
(d) be capable of identification when imported and exported;
(e) be exported on the departure of the national referred to in subparagraph (a), or within any other period reasonably related to the purpose of the temporary admission that the Party may establish, or within one year, unless extended;
(f) be admitted in no greater quantity than is reasonable for their intended use; and
(g) be otherwise admissible into the Party's territory under its laws.
4. Each Party shall grant duty-free temporary admission for containers and pallets regardless of their origin, that are in use or to be used in the shipment of goods in international traffic.
(a) For the purposes of this paragraph, container means an article of transport equipment that is: fully or partially enclosed to constitute a compartment intended for containing goods; substantial and has an internal volume of one cubic metre or more; of a permanent character and accordingly strong enough to be suitable for repeated use; used in significant numbers in international traffic; specially designed to facilitate the carriage of goods by more than one mode of transport without intermediate reloading; and designed both for ready handling, particularly when being transferred from one mode of transport to another, and to be easy to fill and to empty, but does not include vehicles, accessories or spare parts of vehicles or packaging. (2)
(b) For the purposes of this paragraph, pallet means a small, portable platform, which consists of two decks separated by bearers or a single deck supported by feet, on which goods can be moved, stacked and stored, and which is designed essentially for handling by means of fork lift trucks, pallet trucks or other jacking devices.
5. If any condition that a Party imposes under paragraph 3 has not been fulfilled, the Party may apply the customs duty and any other charge that would normally be owed on the good in addition to any other charges or penalties provided for under its law.
6. Each Party shall adopt and maintain procedures providing for the expeditious release of goods admitted under this Article. To the extent possible, those procedures shall provide that when a good admitted under this Article accompanies a national of another Party who is seeking temporary entry, the good shall be released simultaneously with the entry of that national.
7. Each Party shall permit a good temporarily admitted under this Article to be exported through a customs port other than the port through which it was admitted.
8. Each Party shall, in accordance with its law, provide that the importer or other person responsible for a good admitted under this Article shall not be liable for failure to export the good on presentation of satisfactory proof to the importing Party that the good was destroyed within the period fixed for temporary admission, including any lawful extension.
9. Subject to Chapter 9 (Investment) and Chapter 10 (Cross-Border Trade in Services):
(a) each Party shall allow a vehicle or container used in international traffic that enters its territory from the territory of another Party to exit its territory on any route that is reasonably related to the economical and prompt departure of that vehicle or container; (3)
(b) no Party shall require any security or impose any penalty or charge solely by reason of any difference between the customs port of entry and the customs port of departure of a vehicle or container;
(c) no Party shall condition the release of any obligation, including any security, that it imposes in respect of the entry of a vehicle or container into its territory on the exit of that vehicle or container through any particular customs port of departure; and
(d) no Party shall require that the vehicle or carrier bringing a container from the _ territory of another Party into its territory be the same vehicle or carrier that takes that container to the territory of that other Party, or to the territory of any other Party.
10. For the purposes of paragraph 9, vehicle means a truck, a truck tractor, a tractor, a trailer unit or trailer, a locomotive, or a railway car or other railroad equipment.
Article 2.9. Ad Hoc Discussions
1. Each Party shall designate and notify a contact point in accordance with Article 27.5 (Contact Points), to facilitate communications between the Parties on any matter covered by this Chapter, including any request or information conveyed under Article 26.5 (Provision of Information) relating to a measure of a Party that may affect the operation of this Chapter.
2. A Party (the requesting Party) may request ad hoc discussions on any matter arising under this Chapter (including a specific non-tariff measure) that the requesting Party believes may adversely affect its interests in trade in goods, except a matter that could be addressed under a Chapter-specific consultation mechanism established under another Chapter, by delivering a written request to another Party (the requested Party) through its contact point for this Chapter. The request shall be in writing and identify the reasons for the request, including a description of the requesting Party's concerns and an indication of the provisions of this Chapter to which the concerns relate. The requesting Party may provide all the other Parties with a copy of the request.
3. If the requested Party considers that the matter that is the subject of the request should be addressed under a Chapter-specific consultation mechanism established under another Chapter, it shall promptly notify the contact point for this Chapter of the requesting Party and include in its notice the reasons it considers that the request should be addressed under the other mechanism. The requested Party shall promptly forward the request and its notice to the overall contact points of the requesting and requested Parties designated under Article 27.5 (Contact Points) for appropriate action.
4. Within 30 days of receipt of a request under paragraph 2, the requested Party shall provide a written reply to the requesting Party. Within 30 days of the requesting Party's receipt of the reply, the requesting and requested Parties (the discussing Parties) shall meet in person or via electronic means to discuss the matter identified in the request. If the discussing Parties choose to meet in person, the meeting shall take place in the territory of the requested Party, unless the discussing Parties decide otherwise.
5. Any Party may submit a written request to the discussing Parties to participate in the ad hoc discussions. If the matter has not been resolved prior to the receipt of a Party's request to participate and the discussing Parties agree, the Party may participate in these ad hoc discussions subject to any conditions that the discussing Parties may decide.
6. If the requesting Party believes that the matter is urgent, it may request that ad hoc discussions take place within a shorter time frame than that provided for under paragraph 4. Any Party may request urgent ad hoc discussions if a measure:
(a) is applied without prior notice or without an opportunity for a Party to avail itself of ad hoc discussions under paragraphs 2, 3 and 4; and
(b) may threaten to impede the importation, sale or distribution of an originating good which is in the process of being transported from the exporting Party to the importing Party, or has not been released from customs control, or is in storage in a warehouse regulated by the customs administration of the importing Party.
7. Ad hoc discussions under this Article shall be confidential and without prejudice to the rights of any Party, including being without prejudice to rights pertaining to dispute settlement proceedings under Chapter 28 (Dispute Settlement).
Article 2.10. Import and Export Restrictions
1. Unless otherwise provided in this Agreement, no Party shall adopt or maintain any prohibition or restriction on the importation of any good of another Party or on the exportation or sale for export of any good destined for the territory of another Party, except in accordance with Article XI of GATT 1994 and its interpretative notes, and to this end Article XI of GATT 1994 and its interpretative notes are incorporated into and made part of this Agreement, mutatis mutandis.
2. The Parties understand that GATT 1994 rights and obligations incorporated by paragraph 1 prohibit, in any circumstances in which any other form of restriction is prohibited, a Party from adopting or maintaining:
(a) export and import price requirements, except as permitted in enforcement of countervailing and antidumping duty orders and undertakings;
(b) import licensing conditioned on the fulfilment of a performance requirement; or
(c) voluntary export restraints inconsistent with Article VI of GATT 1994, as implemented under Article 18 of the SCM Agreement and Article 8.1 of the AD Agreement.
3. For greater certainty, paragraph 1 applies to the importation of commercial cryptographic goods.
4. For the purposes of paragraph 3:
commercial cryptographic goods means any good implementing or incorporating cryptography, if the good is not designed or modified specifically for government use and is sold or otherwise made available to the public.
5. Paragraphs 1 and 2 shall not apply to the measures set out in Annex 2-A (National Treatment and Import and Export Restrictions).
6. In the event that a Party adopts or maintains a prohibition or restriction on the importation from or exportation to a non-Party of a good, no provision of this Agreement shall be construed to prevent that Party from:
(a) limiting or prohibiting the importation of the good of the non-Party from the territory of another Party; or
(b) requiring, as a condition for exporting the good of that Party to the territory of another Party, that the good not be re-exported to the non-Party, directly or indirectly, without being consumed in the territory of the other Party.
7. In the event that a Party adopts or maintains a prohibition or restriction on the importation of a good from a non-Party, the Parties, on the request of any Party, shall consult with a view to avoiding undue interference with or distortion of pricing, marketing, or distribution arrangements in another Party.
8. No Party shall, as a condition for engaging in importation or for the importation of a good, require a person of another Party to establish or maintain a contractual or other relationship with a distributor in its territory. (4)
9. For greater certainty, paragraph 8 does not prevent a Party from requiring a person referred to in that paragraph to designate a point of contact for the purpose of facilitating communications between its regulatory authorities and that person.
10. For the purposes of paragraph 8:
distributor means a person of a Party who is responsible for the commercial distribution, agency, concession or representation in the territory of that Party of goods of another Party.
Article 2.11. Remanufactured Goods
1. For greater certainty, Article 2.10.1 (Import and Export Restrictions) shall apply to prohibitions and restrictions on the importation of remanufactured goods.
2. If a Party adopts or maintains measures prohibiting or restricting the importation of used goods, it shall not apply those measures to remanufactured goods. (5) (6)
Article 2.12. Import Licensing
1. No Party shall adopt or maintain a measure that is inconsistent with the Import Licensing Agreement.
2. Promptly after this Agreement enters into force for a Party, that Party shall notify the other Parties of its existing import licensing procedures, if any. The notice shall include the information specified in Article 5.2 of the Import Licensing Agreement and any information required under paragraph 6.
3. A Party shall be deemed to be in compliance with the obligations in paragraph 2 with respect to an existing import licensing procedure if:
(a) it has notified that procedure to the WTO Committee on Import Licensing provided for in Article 4 of the Import Licensing Agreement together with the information specified in Article 5.2 of that agreement;
(b) in the most recent annual submission due before the date of entry into force of this Agreement for that Party to the WTO Committee on Import Licensing in response to the annual questionnaire on import licensing procedures described in Article 7.3 of the Import Licensing Agreement, it has provided, with respect to that procedure, the information requested in that questionnaire; and
(c) it has included in either the notice described in subparagraph (a) or the annual submission described in subparagraph (b) any information required to be notified to the other Parties under paragraph 6.
4. Each Party shall comply with Article 1.4(a) of the Import Licensing Agreement with respect to any new or modified import licensing procedure. Each Party shall also publish on an official government website any information that it is required to publish under Article 1.4(a) of the Import Licensing Agreement.
5. Each Party shall notify the other Parties of any new import licensing procedures it adopts and any modifications it makes to its existing import licensing procedures, if possible, no later than 60 days before the new procedure or modification takes effect. In no case shall a Party provide the notification later than 60 days after the date of its publication. The notification shall include any information required under paragraph 6. A Party shall be deemed to be in compliance with this obligation if it notifies a new import licensing procedure or a modification to an existing import licensing procedure to the WTO Committee on Import Licensing in accordance with Article 5.1, 5.2 or 5.3 of the Import Licensing Agreement, and includes in its notification any information required to be notified to the other Parties under paragraph 6.
6. (a) A notice under paragraph 2, 3 or 5 shall state if, under any import licensing procedure that is a subject of the notice:
(i) the terms of an import licence for any product limit the permissible end users of the product; or
(ii) the Party imposes any of the following conditions on eligibility for obtaining a licence to import any product:
(A) membership in an industry association;
(B) approval by an industry association of the request for an import licence;
(C) a history of importing the product or similar products;
(D) minimum importer or end user production capacity;
(E) minimum importer or end user registered capital; or
(F) a contractual or other relationship between the importer and a distributor in the Party's territory.
(b) A notice that states, under subparagraph (a), that there is a limitation on permissible end users or a licence-eligibility condition shall:
(i) list all products for which the end-user limitation or licence- eligibility condition applies; and
(ii) describe the end-user limitation or licence-eligibility condition.
7. Each Party shall respond within 60 days to a reasonable enquiry from another Party concerning its licensing rules and its procedures for the submission of an application for an import licence, including the eligibility of persons, firms and institutions to make an application, the administrative body or bodies to be approached and the list of products subject to the licensing requirement.
8. If a Party denies an import licence application with respect to a good of another Party, it shall, on request of the applicant and within a reasonable period after receiving the request, provide the applicant with a written explanation of the reason for the denial.
9. No Party shall apply an import licensing procedure to a good of another Party unless it has, with respect to that procedure, met the requirements of paragraph 2 or 4, as applicable.
Article 2.13. Transparency In Export Licensing Procedures (7)
1. For the purposes of this Article:
export licensing procedure means a requirement that a Party adopts or maintains under which an exporter must, as a condition for exporting a good from the Party's territory, submit an application or other documentation to an administrative body or bodies, but does not include customs documentation required in the normal course of trade or any requirement that must be fulfilled prior to introduction of the good into commerce within the Party's territory.
2. Within 30 days of the date of entry into force of this Agreement for a Party, that Party shall notify the other Parties in writing of the publications in which its export licensing procedures, if any, are set out, including addresses of relevant government websites. Thereafter, each Party shall publish in the notified publications and websites any new export licensing procedure, or any modification of an export licensing procedure, that it adopts as soon as practicable but no later than 30 days after the new procedure or modification takes effect.
3. Each Party shall ensure that it includes in the publications it notifies under paragraph 2:
(a) the texts of its export licensing procedures, including any modifications it makes to those procedures;
(b) the goods subject to each licensing procedure;
(c) for each procedure, a description of:
(i) the process for applying for a licence; and
(ii) any criteria an applicant must meet to be eligible to apply for a licence, such as possessing an activity licence, establishing or maintaining an investment, or operating through a particular form of establishment in a Party's territory;
(d) a contact point or points from which interested persons can obtain further information on the conditions for obtaining an export licence;
(e) the administrative body or bodies to which an application for a licence or other relevant documentation must be submitted;
(f) a description of or a citation to a publication reproducing in full any measure or measures that the export licensing procedure is designed to implement;
(g) the period during which each export licensing procedure will be in effect, unless the procedure will remain in effect until withdrawn or revised in a new publication;
(h) if the Party intends to use a licensing procedure to administer an export quota, the overall quantity and, if practicable, value of the quota and the opening and closing dates of the quota; and
(i) any exemptions or exceptions available to the public that replace the requirement to obtain an export licence, how to request or use these exemptions or exceptions and the criteria for them.
4. Except where doing so would reveal business proprietary or other confidential information of a particular person, on request of another Party that has a substantial trade interest in the matter, a Party shall provide, to the extent possible, the following information regarding a particular export licensing procedure that it adopts or maintains:
(a) the aggregate number of licences that the Party has granted over a recent period that the requesting Party has specified; and
(b) measures, if any, that the Party has taken in conjunction with the licensing procedure to restrict domestic production or consumption or to stabilise production, supply or prices for the relevant good.
5. Nothing in this Article shall be construed in a manner that would require a Party to grant an export licence, or that would prevent a Party from implementing its obligations or commitments under United Nations Security Council Resolutions, as well as multilateral non-proliferation regimes, including: the Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies; the Nuclear Suppliers Group; the Australia Group; the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction, done at Paris, January 13, 1993; the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction, done at Washington, London, and Moscow, April 10, 1972; the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, done at London, Moscow and Washington, July 1, 1968; and the Missile Technology Control Regime.
Article 2.14. Administrative Fees and Formalities
1. Each Party shall ensure, in accordance with Article VIII:1 of GATT 1994 and its interpretative notes, that all fees and charges of whatever character (other than export taxes, customs duties, charges equivalent to an internal tax or other internal charge applied consistently with Article I:2 of GATT 1994, and antidumping and countervailing duties) imposed on or in connection with importation or exportation are limited in amount to the approximate cost of services rendered and do not represent an indirect protection to domestic goods or a taxation of imports or exports for fiscal purposes.
2. No Party shall require consular transactions, including related fees and charges, in connection with the importation of a good of another Party.
3. Each Party shall make publicly available online a current list of the fees and charges it imposes in connection with importation or exportation.
4. No Party shall levy fees and charges on or in connection with importation or exportation on an ad valorem basis. (8)
5. Each Party shall periodically review its fees and charges, with a view to reducing their number and diversity if practicable.
Article 2.15. Export Duties, Taxes or other Charges
Except as provided for in Annex 2-C (Export Duties, Taxes or Other Charges), no Party shall adopt or maintain any duty, tax or other charge on the export of any good to the territory of another Party, unless such duty, tax or charge is adopted or maintained on that good when destined for domestic consumption.
Article 2.16. Publication
Each Party shall promptly publish the following information in a non- discriminatory and easily accessible manner, in order to enable interested parties to become acquainted with it:
(a) importation, exportation and transit procedures, including port, airport and other entry-point procedures, and required forms and documents;
(b) applied rates of duties, and taxes of any kind imposed on or in connection with importation or exportation;
(c) rules for the classification or the valuation of products for customs purposes;
(d) laws, regulations and administrative rulings of general application relating to rules of origin;
(e) import, export or transit restrictions or prohibitions;
(f) fees and charges imposed on or in connection with importation, exportation or transit;
(g) penalty provisions against breaches of import, export or transit formalities;
(h) appeal procedures;
(i) agreements or parts of agreements with any country relating to importation, exportation or transit;
(j) administrative procedures relating to the imposition of tariff quotas; and
(k) correlation tables showing correspondence between any new national nomenclature and the previous national nomenclature.
Article 2.17. Trade In Information Technology Products
Each Party shall be a participant in the WTO Ministerial Declaration on Trade in Information Technology Products (Information Technology Agreement), 13 December 1996, and have completed the procedures for modification and rectification of its Schedule of Tariff Concessions set out in the Decision of 26 March 1980, L/4962, in accordance with paragraph 2 of the Information Technology Agreement. (9) (10)