State-owned trade enterprises
Regulation in the frame of WTO.
In the frame of WTO, state-owned trade enterprises mean state-owned and non-state enterprises, including sales organizations to which exclusive or special rights or privileges are granted, through which exercising they can affect the volume or geographic destination of export or import. The WTO rules do not forbid the establishment of such enterprises. In this regard, however, each WTO member should inform the WTO Secretariat on the existence of such enterprises in the country. State-owned enterprises should carry out their activity on non-discriminatory basis. This provision is specified in the GATT/WTO normative-legal base, Article XVII GATT 1994. Generally, it concerns an obligation of notification and regulates the activity of trade enterprises in the independent conditions. Paragraph 1(а) specifies that members should act in such a way which meets key principles of non-discriminatory interpretation of GATT, when когда governmental measures affect import of export of private trading companies.
The fundamental document of the WTO Secretariat «A activity of state-owned trade enterprises in terms of their respect to the international trade» contains classification of trade enterprises by the following categories:
- Sales organizations
- Fiscal monopolies
- Guiding agencies
- Foreign trade enterprise
- Nationalized industries.