SENIOR OFFICIALS DISCUSS SERVICES WITH LAMY

Senior officials from some 30 countries met with WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy on 9 May to discuss the way forward in the Doha Round negotiations on services trade.

The invitation-only 'green room' meeting focused primarily on the two-track approach being followed in the talks. The first involves the organisation of a 'signalling conference' at which larger economies are expected to indicate their willingness to undertake binding commitments to open up their services sectors to foreign competition. The second, parallel track, deals with the negotiating committee chair's work on a new multilateral text to provide guidance to the talks (see BRIDGES Weekly, 7 May 2008).

Sources now expect that services chair Ambassador Fernando de Mateo (Mexico) will release a text shortly after framework agreements on agriculture and non-agricultural market access (NAMA) are circulated on 16 May or early next week. Unlike the agriculture and NAMA texts, a services text would at most set out guidelines for the negotiations; services market-opening is negotiated through a process of requests and offers. The text may also deal with the implementation of the 'LDC modalities', a longstanding agreement that the Doha Round negotiations should be used to boost the participation of least-developed countries in global services trade.

Sources report that the green room meeting reaffirmed plans to organise a services signalling conference on the sidelines of an as-yet hypothetical gathering at which ministers are to strike framework deals on agriculture and manufacturing trade. The format of the conference has not been determined, with talks ongoing about the mechanics of how it would be run. One official source suggested that a half day round table meeting followed by a ministerial-level discussion seemed likely.

The signals, while not equivalent to final offers of specific liberalisation commitments, are intended to assure services 'demandeurs' such as the EU and the US that their financial services companies, for instance, stand to gain increased access to overseas markets.

Lamy is expected to report to the broader Membership on the depth of market-opening signalled at the conference, albeit without naming specific countries. The nature of this report remains unclear, with the EU seeking to make countries' signals relatively binding when scheduling commitments, sources report.

Also at the meeting, officials generally expressed disappointment with ongoing bilateral meetings, which were linked to the sluggish agriculture and non-agricultural market access (NAMA) talks.

Informal consultations on domestic regulation are being held this week.

ICTSD reporting.