April 22 , 2011

WTO Releases Reports from Negotiating Chairs

The Chairs of the WTO negotiating groups yesterday released reports describing the state of play in their negotiations. In the services report, Ambassador Fernando de Mateo, Chairman of the Services Negotiating Group, described the status of market access negotiations, as well as those on domestic regulation, GATS rules, and implementation of LDC modalities. In the market access negotiations, he noted that some members indicated that no progress has occurred since the 2010 stocktaking, and little or none since the July 2008 Signaling Conference. In many of the plurilateral services requests, the report notes wide gaps between requests and offers, and between offers and applied regimes. Some examples:

In financial services, the report said that the offers submitted were "well below current levels of liberalization."
In telecommunications, the report said that the sector "remained plagued by weak commitments, and signals for improvement had been disappointing. "
In energy services, the overall response to the plurilateral request was disappointing, and few recipients "came close to satisfying the entire request."
In logistics services, "Significant gaps persisted between recipients' offers or indications and the requests."
In legal services the report said that there were very few indications that the request would be met.
In audiovisual services, only two out of 29 recipients of the plurilateral request made positive indications about improving their next offers.
In distribution services, "A sizable gap remained between the request's ambition as well as autonomous market openings and the offers and signals of recipients."
In postal and courier services, including express delivery, "...the majority of recipients had not signaled any improvement."

While the report cites some modest progress in terms of signals and engagement in areas including computer and related services, the common theme throughout the report is the large gap between the ambition in the plurilateral requests and the willingness of recipients to make commensurate offers. For the complete report (MS Word, 75 pages), click here.

In an accompanying statement, WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy said that for the first time since the Round was launched in 2001 "Members will have the opportunity to consider the entire Doha package." He said the picture is "impressive" in the significant progress achieved so far, but also "realistic" in what it shows on the remaining divides. He asked WTO Members to think hard about "the consequences of throwing away ten years of solid multilateral work" and called on them to "use the upcoming weeks to talk to each other and build bridges."

For Director General Lamy's remarks and the entire set of reports, click here.