Officials: WTO Negotiators Must Step Up Talks on Liberalizing Services
GENEVA (AP) - World Trade Organization members trying to finalize a sweeping accord to liberalize global commerce must step up talks on service industries, such as banking, telecommunications and transport, senior officials said Friday.
Failure to pick up the pace could undermine advances in other crucial areas of WTO talks, said Hamid Mamdouh, director of the WTO Trade in Services Division.
"The negotiations are in a very bad situation," he told reporters. "If there isn't a decent services package at the end of the day, it's very difficult to imagine any meaningful outcome on other items," particularly trade in farm goods.
As members of the 148-nation WTO edge closer to a year-end summit in Hong Kong, they are trying to spur treaty talks that have been dragging on for more than four years.
The "Doha Round" of treaty talks - named after the Qatari capital where it was launched in 2001 - aims to slash subsidies, tariffs and other barriers to global commerce, including rules restricting access for foreign service providers.
WTO members, who set the rules for global commerce, pledged in Doha to use trade to help poor nations. The plan was to create a new trade treaty by the end of 2004.
But a WTO conference in 2003 collapsed amid bickering over investment rules between rich and poor members, as well as differences on agriculture.
High-level meetings in Geneva last July finally led to a framework accord on cutting tariffs in agricultural trade, as well as export subsidies that have helped farmers in rich nations and undercut their poor country competitors.
"There isn't a matching degree of precision on services," said Mamdouh. "And that's causing a problem."
Last summer's agreement contained looser language on trade in industrial goods, as well as services. Talks on these areas have lagged behind the farm trade negotiations.
WTO members are hoping their conference in Hong Kong in December will cap talks, leading to a final treaty in 2006 or early 2007.
If they want to hit that target, they must push harder on services now, said Mamdouh.
"If you wait until Hong Kong and say 'We're almost there on agriculture, so let's put a services package together,' it will be too late," he said.
Under the 2001 Doha agreement, governments were supposed to submit by April
2003 offers to liberalize their service industries.
But only 12 did so, including Japan, Australia, Canada, Taiwan and the United States. The European Union submitted its offer several weeks after the deadline, while other key players including India and Brazil handed in theirs later the same year.
Under the accord last July, the deadline was extended to May 2005, but around 40 countries still haven't filed offers.
"What we have on the table now is very poor," said Alejandro Jara, Chile's ambassador to WTO, who is steering the services negotiations. "The question
is: are we going to develop meaningful commercial opportunities out of this round?"
"We have a daunting task over the next few months," he said. "By June we will have to make an assessment of what is deliverable in Hong Kong."
Most of those who have failed to make offers are poor nations which have long been reluctant to focus on services until they get solid concessions on agriculture from rich WTO members.
Some countries, notably India, also are pushing for concessions from rich nations on "Mode Four" - WTO jargon for rules that would allow service providers from one nation to work temporarily in another, without having to immigrate.