Issues of Interest to LDCs in the WTO Services Negotiations – Series No. 2: Telecommunications Services.
The telecommunications sector is of crucial importance in every economy. Almost every other sector of an economy depends on telecommunications services in their economic activity. Most businesses today rely to a great extent on data transmission by information and communication technologies for their operations – in other words, functioning without telecommunications services is inconceivable for most business operations. (more…)
Checklist of Questions for the Analysis of Revised Offers.
As the May deadline has passed, Members are in the process of submitting their revised offers within the context of current GATS negotiations. At the time of writing this note, the US, Canada, EC and Australia had submitted their revised offers. (more…)
This note considers the interest of least developed country (LDC) Members to participate in the market access negotiations of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The request and offer process of negotiations begins appropriately with the submittal of an initial request. (more…)
Classification in Services: An Overview of the Main Issues for Developing Countries.
The main objective of this paper is to provide an overview of the main issues related to classification within the context of the services negotiations and to assist developing countries in understanding the implications. (more…)
Analysis of Actual Liberalisation Versus Quad Members GATS Commitments and Offers: Focus on a) Mode 1 and b) Tourism and Travel Related Services.
This note is focused on two areas: a) mode 1 or cross-border supply of trade in services, and b) the tourism and travel related services sector. The goal of this exercise is to assess whether GATS commitments made by a few of the most developed service economies, i.e. Quad members, can be considered “weak”, below actual levels of liberalisation and occurring outside of the WTO GATS regime. (more…)
Issues of Interest to LDCs in the WTO Services Negotiations – Series No. 1: Tourism and Travel-Related Services.
The specific goal of this primer on the tourism and travel-related services sector (hereinafter referred to as “tourism services”) is to provide LDCs with both basic information pertaining to economic activity of the sector and insights of the GATS negotiations related to the sector. (more…)
Considerations for the Submission of Initial Offers in Light of the Current State of Play of Negotiations.
This note discusses the differing negotiating scenarios for individual Members and aims to present a clearer picture of the near term prospects for market access negotiations. From this, general considerations and options are provided for Members facing pressure to submit initial offers. (more…)
Analysis of Actual Liberalisation versus GATS Commitments of Quad Members: Mode 4 and Health Services.
This note is the first of a series assessing the actual or current level of trade liberalisation in select modes and sectors of the Quad members (Canada, European Communities, Japan and the United States) compared with their General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) commitments in the respective areas. (more…)
Background Note: Article VI (Domestic Regulations) with Emphasis on Paragraph 4 and the EU and Japanese Proposals.
Many subsectors within the service sector, such as infrastructure services, are regulated with the aim to ensure a certain level of quality, to protect consumers, or the environment. (more…)
This note discusses some possible ways in which Mode 4 could be addressed within Article VI:4 on domestic regulation. More specifically it tries to show how qualification requirements and procedures, technical standards and licensing requirements may impact the movement of natural persons under Mode 4. (more…)
Checklist of Questions for the Analysis of Initial Offers.
This note focuses on the analysis of initial offers for specific commitments that Members have started submitting since March 2003 in the context of the current services negotiations. Indeed, in order to facilitate and streamline the analysis of the initial offers it may be useful to identify several key questions that can be used as a guide in the analysis of offers. (more…)
The Balance of Negotiations and Discussions in the Doha Work Programme: Overview Matrix of Negotiating and Non-Negotiating Areas.
The Doha Ministerial Conference of the WTO, held in November 2001, launched an ambitious work programme. The discussions/ negotiations initiated under this work programme include a number of issues in addition to the WTO built-in agenda and purely trade-related issues. (more…)
