Food safety and animal-plant health data now easier to find

Tuesday 13 November 2007

 A new comprehensive system for searching for information on WTO member governments’ sanitary and phytosanitary measures — food safety and animal and plant health and safety — has been launched.

The SPS Information Management System (SPS IMS) is a comprehensive source allowing users to track and obtain information on measures that member governments have notified to the WTO (an obligation for WTO members), specific trade concerns that they have raised, documents of the WTO’s Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures Committee, member governments’ national enquiry points and their authorities handling notification.

The internal version of the system helps the Secretariat produce official documents such as SPS notifications, and in undertaking faster and more comprehensive analyses and reporting on SPS matters.

The public version of the system, now available through the WTO website, aims to help member governments and other interested people find SPS information according to their specific needs.

For example, the system allows searches to be based on a variety of criteria such as geographic groupings, product codes, comment periods, keywords, etc.

link to website