Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 12 • Number 25 • 9th July 2008

Services ‘Signalling Conference’ Set for Ministerial Week

Services negotiators will meet in the middle of the WTO’s upcoming ministerial conference to ’signal’ the improvements they plan to make in their offers on market opening in services, WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy told delegates from two dozen Member states at a ‘green room’ meeting last week.

In preparation for that signalling conference, which is set for the middle of the week beginning 21 July, Lamy urged delegates to begin meeting on a bilateral basis. Indeed, the Director-General stressed that such two-way meetings would be essential to achieving a successful outcome at the ministerial conference, which is scheduled for 21 to 25 July.

In an attempt to narrow persistent gaps in the negotiations ahead of the signalling conference, a meeting of high-level officials - to be chaired by Lamy himself - will be held on 14 July.

The idea of the signalling conference the following week is to assure services ‘demandeurs’, such as the US and the EU, which might make sacrifices on agricultural and industrial trade, that some improvements on the existing offers on market opening in services sectors will be offered, in particular by developing countries such as Brazil, China and India.

Until now, standing commitment offers on market access in services have been in general considered rather weak, in both quantity and quality, as most offers entail little more than the establishment of commitments at existing levels, or even below such levels.

While the signalling conference is intended only for Members that have been active in earlier rounds of the services negotiations, sources reveal that some developing countries that have not been involved in the talks in the past have suggested they might want to participate as observers at next week’s meeting.

While negotiations on agriculture and non-agricultural market access (NAMA) will prove critical for the success of the Doha round (see related stories, this issue), there are significant links between those talks and the ongoing services negotiations. Indeed, it seems that some consider the opening of services markets a necessary trade-off for tariff cuts in agriculture and industrial trade (see BRIDGES Weekly, 4 June 2008, http://www.ictsd.org/weekly/08-06-04/story3.htm).

ICTSD reporting.