WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONG/SPS/GEN/154
15 December 1999
(99-5435)
Committee on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures Original:  Spanish
CASE STUDIES – ENQUIRY POINTS/NATIONAL
NOTIFICATION AUTHORITIES
Presentation Made by Chile at the Special Meeting
of the SPS Committee on Transparency Provisions
Held on 9 November 1999
I. GENERAL INFORMATION
1. In compliance with the Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures of the World
Trade Organization, in 1995 the Ministry of External Relations of Chile appointed the Agriculture and
Livestock Service of the Ministry of Agriculture as the notification authority and the enquiry point forsanitary and phytosanitary measures, one of the reasons being that this Service was Chile's official
authority for animal and plant health matters and its experts had taken part in the negotiations under
the Uruguay Round as well as in meetings of the Committee on the aforementioned Agreement.
2. Chile's normative framework was circulated to the Committee on 6 December 1995 in
document G/SPS/W/39, which identifies the bodies responsible for taking sanitary and phytosanitarymeasures in Chile.  It should be noted, however, that in addition to the Agriculture and Livestock
Service, which draws up plant and animal health measures, the Ministry of Health prepares measures
on food safety and the National Fisheries Service of the Ministry of the Economy prepares health
measures relating to hydrobiological products.
3. Within the Agriculture and Livestock Service, there is a Livestock Protection Department
responsible for animal health measures, and an Agricultural Protection Department responsible for
plant protection measures.  The former has acted as the contact point with the International Office of
Epizootics and the second has carried out the same role for the International Plant Protection
Convention of the FAO.  In order to implemen t the WTO Agreement properly, the Department of
International Affairs was created within the Agriculture and Livestock Service to act as the
notification authority and enquiry point.
4. Food safety measures are the responsibility of the Ministry of Health and there is a joint
coordinating committee of the Ministries of Health and Agriculture, the latter being represented by the
Agriculture and Livestock Service.
5. Other coordinating bodies have been set up through the National Commission and the
technical committees of the Codex Alimentarius, which coordinate the regulations on food safety
between public and private entities.  The Agriculture and Livestock Service is currently responsiblefor coordinating five technical committees and also participates in the National Commission.
II. RESOURCES
1. Human resources:
- A professional agronomist;G/SPS/GEN/154
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- An executive secretary.
Around 20 per cent of their time is taken up with this work.
2. Material resources:
- 2 Pentium computers with access to the Internet;- Computer programmes used:  - Word 97, Access,  Excel;
- Other (photocopiers, telephones, fax, etc.).
III. FUNCTIONING
As the enquiry point and the notification authority are in the same place and their activities
are carried out by the same persons, for greater clarity, the following are their different tasks:
1. Notification authority
1.1 Notifications by Chile;1.1.1 Filling in the forms as they are received from the technical bodies and transmitting
them to the Secretariat of the WTO's SPS Committee, keeping the register ofdocuments sent out filed by date and subject.
1.1.2 Replies to requests for documents from other countries, keeping a register of those
sent (country, address, entity) and the date.
1.1.3 Transmitting comments on measures notified by Chile.
1.2 Notifications by other countries;1.2.1 Receiving or downloading from the Internet notifications from other countries and
registering them.  Classifying them by subject and ensuring their circulation to the
competent bodies in the public and private sectors, keeping the corresponding register(of the recipient and the date).
1.2.3 Acting as a channel for requests by other bodies in Chile for information from abroad.1.2.4 Responsible for transmitting remarks or comments on measures by other countries.
2. Enquiry point
2.1 Responsible for replying to or transmitting all other questions relating to sanitary and
phytosanitary measures from other countries (regulations, risk analysis, agreements,etc.);
2.2 Responsible for transmitting questions relating to sanitary and phytosanitary
measures from Chilean entities to be addressed to enquiry points for sanitary and
phytosanitary measures in other countries.G/SPS/GEN/154
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IV. MAJOR CHANGES
Below there is a summary of the main changes in the operation of the notification authority
since it started to function in 1995 up to the present.
Even though Chile promptly notified its notification authority and enquiry point to the WTO's
SPS Committee, their activities have continued to increase as can be seen from the following
information:
Number of notifications
Year Number
1995 0
1996 1
1997 12
1998 18
*1999 16
Total 47
      *To date
In 1999, Chile issued 16 notifications and received requests for transmission of sanitary and
phytosanitary measures from 14 countries in relation to 58 measures.
The major changes have occurred as a result of computerization.  A rapid comparison of
activities from the beginning until now shows that human resources have remained the same in terms
of numbers but communication by fax has been replaced by e-mail.  The registers are no longercompiled manually but by computer.
Furthermore, the private sector of producers and exporters has recently been integrated and
receives the notifications corresponding to their particular field.
V. FUTURE
It is intended to implement the following activities within the near future:
1. More comprehensive integration of the private sector (exporters, producers,
importers, consumers);
2. establishment of a national sanitary and phytosanitary measures committee involving
the public and private sectors for the purposes of applying the WTO's
SPS Agreement, starting with notifications;
3. inclusion of sanitary and phytosanitary measures in the Web page of the Agriculture
and Livestock Service;
4. operational changes in order to channel requests for information on notifications and
observations to other countries through the notification authority, as well as
comments received regarding notifications by Chile, in order to ensure satisfactory
follow-up and registration;
5. ongoing participation in meetings of the WTO's SPS Committee.G/SPS/GEN/154
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Expected changes:
More rapid procedures and greater participation at the national level.
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