WASHINGTON, DC. APRIL 21, 1998. As world trade in services approaches $2 trillion a year, and the 2000 deadline for the start of a new round of WTO services negotiations looms, a unique group of individuals will gather at Ditchley Park Conference Center, Oxfordshire, on April 24-26 to chart a new direction for liber-alizing global trade in services.
The Conference, called "Services 2000", will be chaired by Jaime Serra, former fi-nance and trade minister of Mexico. The multinational group includes represen-tatives of the private sector, governments, international organizations, and aca-deme from many countries.
Services are vital to today's economies. In nearly all countries they contribute far more to output than manufacturing or agriculture. Efficient telecommunica-tions, financial services and transport are essential to healthy growth and in-vestment.
All services benefit from greater competition, which widens choice and lowers costs. But services are traded internationally much less than goods. Market barri-ers are widespread.
Negotiations to open up world trade in services began in the 1980's and resulted in the General Agreement on Trade in Services in 1994. But real progress has come only with the adoption of Agreements on Basic Telecommunications, and Financial Services, in 1997. Until these signal successes, the sectoral approach to services liberalization had been very widely considered a failure.
"It is increasingly urgent," said Dr. Serra, "to decide among competing visions of the future paths toward global liberalization of services, and to prepare a new blueprint for 2000 and beyond."
One vision of the future is that the next, "Millennium Round", should compre-hend all trade issues, not just services. Another is that it should be less ambi-tious, concentrating on services and several other matters where new negotia-tions are already required by prior WTO agreements.
"What is certain", said Dr. Serra, "is that governments are only beginning to focus serious attention on the direction and content of WTO Services 2000. We hope the Ditchley Conference will make a materially useful contribution to their effort."
Among the topics on the Conference agenda are: assessment of progress to date; whether the WTO is properly structured to handle new subjects; the challenge of including regulatory reform in trade negotiations; discussion of regional ar-rangements including the New Transatlantic Marketplace, competition policy, dispute settlement, China's WTO accession, and the EU's proposed Charter for the organization of global electronic commerce.
Conference sponsors include American International Group, Association of British Insurers, The Chubb Corporation, EDS, and the London Investment Bankers Association.
Organizations supporting the Conference include the US Coalition of Service Industries Research and Education Foundation, British Invisibles, the Hong Kong Coalition of Service Industries, the Union of Service Industries of Argentina, the Services World Forum, and the Santiago de Chile Chamber of Commerce.
Contact: Linda Schmid (202) 289-7460
Harry Freeman, CSI Advisor (301) 986-5299