In cooperation with MEDT, CLDP hosted several activities on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), which focused on standards, technical barriers and conformity assessment. Two very well-attended primary Workshops enabled experts to discuss similarities and differences one day, and then share these bilateral comparisons with commercial stakeholders the second day. Side meetings prior to and after the Workshops provided a better policy understanding to the visiting U.S. experts and enabled consideration of future work. Betsy Hafner and Christine Brown from USTR, Erik Puskar from NIST as well as Dmitriy Bodik and Steven Galan from UL skillfully distinguished key differences between the U.S. and Ukrainian regulatory regimes in very active exchanges with Ukraine participants.

The workshops’ format allowed Ukrainian ministries, standards bodies, and private businesses to extensively question the five U.S. specialists and vice versa. A number of similarities exist between the U.S. and Ukrainian regulatory systems, however, clarifications regarding differences proved insightful. A unique format for the workshops excluded formal presentations in favor of participatory dialogue. Detailed questions compared practical implementation and maximized the exchange of views, a workshop tactic that proved highly successful. Occasional “spot” on-line or document visuals supplemented the dialogue when necessary. The success of this Workshop format was in large part due to the quality of the experts provided by CLDP, and attendance by Ukrainian industry representatives and specialist participants. 

CLDP held follow-up meetings with Ukraine’s ElektroKable Association and MEDT after the workshops and will be reaching out to its talented U.S. TBT experts to identify additional distinctions noted during the week that can serve as a basis for discussing continued cooperation with Ukraine with a view to capacity-building and improved bilateral trade.

As a follow-up to these activities and, on October 9-10, CLDP will present at an International TBT Forum sponsored by MEDT. Substantive highlights elaborated in the intensive discussions this past week will form part of the messaging in the upcoming International Forum, which will be held in Kyiv.