Technical Regulations (TR) are prepared, adopted and applied in the Member Countries of the Andean Community by central, regional/departmental, local or municipal government agencies or by several of these jointly, within their respective spheres of competence.

In order to keep Technical Regulations from becoming unnecessary obstacles to trade within the subregion, on June 25 the Andean Community Commission approved Decision 562, establishing requirements and procedures for their preparation, adoption and application.

Decision 562 promotes a harmonized structure of the national technical regulations issued by each Member Country and by the Andean Community Commission, allowing any interested party to find out the compulsory technical requirements products covered by the technical regulations must meet.

It also provides for notification and counternotification procedures, allowing Member Countries to find out about, comment on, or object to any draft TR other Member Countries intend to issue. Furthermore, it facilitates the harmonization of national TR, strongly affecting trade within the region and with third countries.

This Community legislation was updated through Decision 615 creating the Andean Community System on Technical Notification and Regulation (SIRT), made up of the five Member Country Focal Points and that of the Community in the Andean Community General Secretariat.

These six interconnected information antennas allow the SIRT to operate like an “EXPORT WARNING” System with which commercial agents can find out the compulsory technical requirements for any product they wish to introduce into a given Andean country and, in the near future, into any World Trade Organization signatory country.