Technical Barriers to Trade

All products offered to the market, including imported products, must not pose a threat to human health, animal and plant health, environmental protection, life and property safety. There are some standards and technical regulations that must be complied with for the products to be qualified as safe and high quality. Technical regulations are legal texts that specify one or more of the features of products such as processing and production methods, shape, design, function, content, size, packaging and labeling, and contain criteria that must be complied with and applied. Conformity assessment processes are carried out to certify that the products are produced in accordance with these criteria. Products that do not comply with the technical regulations are not allowed to be placed on the market and imported.

Technical barriers arise in foreign trade due to differences between countries' technical regulations and negatively affect the free flow of world trade.

In order to prevent the different technical regulations of the countries from being an obstacle, the Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement has been signed within the framework of the World Trade Organization (WTO), of which our country is also a member.

In addition, the Customs Union was established between our country and the European Union (EU) in order to eliminate the obstacles to the free movement of goods. The definition of the Customs Union, as stated on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkey, is that the goods of the party countries can circulate freely within a single customs area, exempt from all kinds of tariffs and equivalent taxes, and the parties apply the same tariff rates and trade policy for imports from third countries.

The CE mark shows that the products comply with the relevant technical regulations and have passed all the necessary conformity assessment processes. It is not possible to export products that do not carry this mark to EU member countries.

In Turkey, a basic platform has been established that exporters will benefit from in the field of technical barriers in trade. On the Site of Technical Barriers to Trade, it is possible to obtain information about the technical regulations of the country you want to export to and to request additional information needed from the Ministry.

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