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U.S. PROPOSAL FOR A FRAMEWORK FOR Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, at our last special session of the Council for Trade in Services, you were able to lead us to agreement on a program for the first phase of negotiations under Article XIX of the GATS. All of us appreciate your efforts in guiding us to a consensus on this paper. This so-called "roadmap" was an important achievement in the Council during these early days of the mandated negotiations since it gives us some direction in our work in this body and the subsidiary bodies and establishes important benchmarks along the way to gauge our progress. Among other things, Mr. Chairman, the roadmap urges delegations to provide proposals by the end of this year and identifies certain areas that might be addressed by such proposals. These areas include negotiating modalities; increasing participation by developing countries and special priority for the least-developed; modalities for autonomous liberalization; and other issues arising in the Council and its subsidiary bodies. Well, Mr. Chairman, we have taken you at your word and have prepared a U.S. negotiating proposal addressing these items, as well as other objectives in the negotiation. The U.S. believes that it might be a useful framework for delegations to consider in coming months, as we progress during this first phase of negotiations and prepare for the next. I understand our paper is being prepared by the Secretariat and that copies will be available by the end of the meeting. Article XIX contains an ambitious mandate for our negotiations and we have sought to reflect this in our proposal. This mandate recognizes that successive rounds of negotiation to liberalize trade in services is key to growth and prosperity in all of our economies. Access to high-quality, low-cost services is essential for ensuring a competitive national economy and competitive domestic industries. In many WTO Members' economies, the share of services in GDP ranges from 60 to 80 percent. And even in many developing countries, this share is well over 50 percent and growing. The relatively large share of services in most countries' GDP demonstrates the potential for these countries to increase their own exports of services. We believe that these negotiations can be successful only if they accomplish several things: First of all, the negotiations must aim for going beyond the status quo by actually reducing or eliminating existing restrictions, as we all know is specifically mandated in Article XIX. Second, developing countries must be full participants with priorities of their own that are being addressed in the negotiations. In this respect, we are encouraged that the first concrete proposal for liberalization has come from several developing countries on tourism services. We propose that a needs assessment for developing countries appear as a regular agenda item for special sessions to identify sources of assistance that may help countries specify their interests in the negotiations. Third, the negotiations must continue to take account of national policy objectives, such as maintaining high levels of protection for consumers, health, safety and the environment, and ensure flexibility for developing countries to phase-in implementation of liberalization consistent with their development needs. I know that delegations will need some time to digest the specifics of our proposal, particularly since it is only being made available today. Under the circumstances, we would not expect a full discussion of the paper until the October session of the Council in special session. To aid delegations in their review and their consultations, we will provide separately a summary of the main points in the proposal. In the meantime, we plan to hold consultations with delegations to explain the points in the paper before it is discussed in the fall. We look forward to hearing reactions from delegations and any questions you may have during this period before the October meeting. Thank you. |