On October 8-10, Ministry of Commerce and Industry hosted a workshop dedicated to sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures in the context of Liberia’s accession to the World Trade Organization. SPS measures address plant health, animal health and food safety. As such, increased SPS capacity is key to food safety and Liberia’s exports of food products.

Officials from, inter alia, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Health, Law Reform Commission and the National Standards Laboratory were invited to attend the workshop.

About 20 officials participated actively in the 3-day workshop led by SPS experts from Stockholm, Ms. Kristina Olofsson and Ms. Sun Hydén Biney from the National Board of Trade.

The workshop started with a capacity building session on the WTO agreement on sanitary and phytosanitary measures (the SPS agreement) and SPS capacity. This was followed by work on the SPS-related questions that WTO Members have asked GoL. By asking questions, WTO Members inquire as to how GoL will live up to WTO requirements.  The SPS experts facilitated discussions among GoL stakeholders .The result is an agreed way forward for answering the questions.  Answering the questions is a necessary step for advancing Liberia’s WTO accession.

The workshop was organized jointly by the Ministry and the Swedish National Board of Trade (NBT). The workshop is part of Sweden’s long-term support of Liberia’s WTO accession.

Soft copies of the workshop material are available from the WTO Unit.