GATS & the Doha Agenda Negotiations on Services State of Play

1. GATS & the Doha Agenda Negotiations on Services State of Play

2. Services Negotiations: Two Dimensions

3. Negotiating agenda: two dimensions Liberalization Improvement of specific commitments (MA and NT) Bilateral / Plurilateral Rule-Making - Domestic Regulation - Safeguards - Gov’t Procurement - Subsidies Multilateral

4. Actual regimes tend to be far more liberal in many countries than the existing commitments • Widening gap between UR schedules and • recent economic and sector reforms • market access now negotiated under some FTAs Starting point

5. The Baseline: Existing Commitments

6. Baseline: Current pattern of commitments

7. Baseline:Sector pattern of commitments(Number of Members, March 2005)

8. Actual regimes now more liberal in many countries than the existing commitments Widening gap between UR schedules and • schedules of recently acceded countries • access conditions negotiated under PTAs(?) Mandate: “achieving a progressively higher level of liberalization” (Article XIX:1) Baseline:Closing the gap?

9. Milestones thus far ... • Official starting date Jan 2000 (Art XIX) • Initial offers March 2003 • Revised offers May 2005 • Plurilateral requests February 2006 • Next meeting November 2007 • A new deadline for revised offers?

10. Submission of Offers: State of play INITIAL OFFERS: 72 Schedules (covering 96 Members*) REVISED OFFERS: 30 Schedules (covering 54 Members*) *Counting EC Members (EC 25) individually

11. Offers: Sector by sector

12. Offers: More sectors

13. Sub-Sectors Committed: Before and After Offers(all Members)

14. Offers to date • Modest achievements • (number of sectors and substance) • Uneven participation by developing • economies • Little change in MFN Exemptions • Little progress in rules negotiations

15. Guidance from the Hong Kong Declaration

16. Hong Kong Declaration(WT/MIN(05)/DEC) • LDCs not expected to undertake new commitments • Implementation of LDC Modalities • Timelines (28 Feb / 31 July / 31 Oct) • Plurilateral request-offer negotiations • Negotiating objectives (Modes/MFN exemptions/scheduling principles) but ...

17. Negotiating Objectives Modes 1 - 3 No commercial presence requirements (Mode 1) Commitments at existing levels of access (Modes 1 & 2) Removal or substantial reduction of ENTs (Modes 2 & 3) Higher foreign equity levels, more types of legal entity (Mode 3)

18. Negotiating Objectives Mode 4 - Commitments on: • Contractual service suppliers & independent professionals, delinked from commercial presence • Intracorporate Transferees & Business Visitors - Removal or substantial reduction of ENTs - Indication of duration of stay and possibility of renewal

19. Negotiating Objectives Sectoral Goals • Laid out sector-by sector • Reflect a compendium of articulated negotiating objectives... not those of a consensus, or of any particular Member

20. Negotiating Objectives MFN Exemptions • Removal or substantial reduction of exemptions • Clarification of remaining exemptions in terms of scope and duration

21. Negotiating Objectives Scheduling of Commitments • Clarity, certainty, comparability & coherence (‘4Cs’) of commitments in line with Scheduling Guidelines • Clarification of any remaining ENTs in concordance with Scheduling Guidelines

22. Reasons for hope? • Experience with previous trade rounds • Too much at stake • No credible alternative to WTO – despite negotiation of FTAs • Domestic liberalization moving ahead • Vocal pro-liberalization constituencies in many countries

23. ... and a sense of realism ? “You can’t always get what you wantBut if you try Sometimes you might find You can get what you need ...” (The Rolling Stones)

24. Thank you for your attention!