Brussels, 17/02/2014 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission is chairing the sixth round of negotiations for a plurilateral trade in services agreement (TiSA), on the sidelines of the WTO.
The representatives of the 50 countries of the WTO which have been involved in negotiations for an agreement on liberalising trade in services since spring 2013 - Australia, Canada, Chili, Colombia, Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Liechtenstein, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, the USA, and the 28 member states of the EU (which count as a single entity) - met in Geneva on 17 February with a very full agenda.
The first three days will be given over to discussions on the 20 initial offers for opening up services markets. It is currently only Chili, Paraguay and Pakistan that have not yet revealed their cards. The five subsequent days will be spent on regulation in the specific service sectors. Six topics have been selected for detailed analysis - financial services, telecommunications and e-commerce, domestic regulation and transparency, professional services, maritime transport, and the so-called “mode 4” of the WTO general agreement on trade in services (GATS) on the supply of services by foreign persons. “These topics have been chosen because their (co-)sponsors have tabled consolidated texts containing all proposals and comments, paving the way for true draft negotiating texts”, said the European Commission in a press release published on Monday. The participants will also exchange views on road transport, delivery services and air transport.
On Monday, the Commission was very optimistic about the progress of the negotiations - which it wants to stimulate during its exercise of the rotating presidency. “The exchange of offers is seen as a turning point in the efforts to forge an agreement. With members agreeing on the basic text of the agreement provisions and almost all offers on the table, the negotiations are clearly on track”, the Commission stated.
The TiSA is an agreement between several WTO countries (hence the term plurilateral), a coalition of the willing who thus want to bypass the stalemate of the multilateral negotiations of the Doha round on its services section. The TiSA's door remains open to other member countries that want to join it - the idea being for the agreement to be compatible with WTO rules so that the TiSA might be integrated in the WTO system in the future. The negotiations cover all service sectors, including information and communication technology (ICT) services, logistics and transport, financial services and services for businesses. However, the objective of the future plurilateral agreement goes beyond just the opening of service sectors - it is also to develop new rules on trade in services, like those applied to government procurement of services, licensing procedures or access to communication networks. Together, the 50 first countries participating in the negotiations represent more than two thirds of world trade in services. For the EU, trade in services is of strategic importance - with the sector accounting for some three-quarters of EU gross domestic product (GDP) and of EU jobs. Within the EU, cross-border trade in services accounts for around 30% of EU trade, and foreign direct investment (FDI) in services represents around 70% of the EU's FDI flows and around 60% of its FDI stock.
In a study in 2012, the Peterson Institute for International Economics assessed the gain from an international agreement on services to be worth $80 billion in terms of exports between the contracting countries. The US and EU would be the main parties to benefit, with respective gains of $14 billion and $21 billion. The study also shows that, if Brazil, China and India joined the agreement, the overall trade gain would increase by 30%. (EH/transl.fl)