Appointment of the Chairperson
The Chairperson said that, in accordance with the rules of procedure for meetings of the Council for Trade in Services (S/L/15), the election of the new chairperson should have taken place at the first meeting of the year in order to take effect at the end of that meeting.
Negotiations on Emergency Safeguard Measures (article x of the gats)
The Chairperson recalled that, as mandated by the work programme on emergency safeguard measures, the outgoing Chairperson had circulated on 14 March 2003 a Report on Negotiations on Emergency Safeguard Measures (S/WPGR/9).
With respect to the period covered by the Report, her delegation had understood that it would start from July 2002; she took note that the Chair had chosen a more comprehensive approach.
Political will was required on both sides, and the substantive aspect of this political will could be, for instance, a willingness to engage in a more precise and concrete debate, or responsiveness on concrete examples.
For any future work on this sensitive issue, in particular the stocktaking, the United States would insist that any report be agreed by consensus of the Members, and not in the form of a Chair's note.
The delegation of Japan requested that the statement that his delegation had made at the last informal meeting be reflected in the report of this meeting.
As stated in paragraph 29 of the Report, basic issues regarding the raison d'être of an ESM remained, such as: for what situations a safeguard was needed; when would it be needed; who should be protected; against what, etc.
On paragraph 26, she noted that many safeguard-type provisions in bilateral trade agreements referred, for instance, to balance-of-payments and infant industry problems and, hence, were not of the same nature as the GATT Article XIX safeguard provision.
three different outcomes were possible in this negotiation: (i) should the WPGR be able to identify situations justifying an ESM and demonstrate the feasibility and desirability of an ESM to deal with them, the result could be an ESM agreement; (ii) should the WPGR have identified such situations, but failed to prove feasibility and desirability of an ESM, the result could be making Article X:2 permanent; and, (iii) should the WPGR be unable to identify such situations, this would suggest that there was no need for an ESM.
Switzerland had agreed with the Chair's Report that the discussion on emergency safeguard measures had not brought about convergence and that views remained very different.
but also taking into account suggestions by the outgoing Chair in his Report, he invited Members to continue their examination of concrete examples of situations where safeguard action might be needed, and of the form such action could take.
First, the identification, in case they existed, of concrete examples of emergency situations in the services area that were not already addressed by GATS provisions.
The representative of Chile said that both the EC paper and the Shangri La example provided by ASEAN at a previous meeting could be useful means to overcome the current "stalemate" situation described by the outgoing Chair.
Her delegation hoped the Working Party would be able to find elements of common understanding on the concept of "emergency" and noted that this question had been raised in the informal contribution by Chile, Costa Rica and Switzerland.

The representative of Uruguay drew attention to the Note by the Secretariat in JOB(03)/20, containing a compilation of references made by delegations to safeguard type measures, which could provide possible examples.
Those delegations which had notified such provisions should explain how these would be applied, based on the elements contained in the overview of the Synopsis (situation justifying an ESM, like services, domestic industry and acquired rights, compensation, etc.
These negotiations were not heading towards a conclusion because Members were discussing the same issues time and again: characteristics of an ESM,
The representative of Argentina said that, instead of focusing on positive listing and flexibility provided for by the GATS, Members should consider to what extent the existence of an ESM would facilitate the undertaking of specific commitments.
The representative of Uruguay noted that, while the EC delegation considered that certain provisions in bilateral agreements were not "emergency" safeguard provisions, it had not questioned that these were "safeguard" provisions.
The representative of New Zealand took note of the suggestion to circulate the matrix that her delegation had presented informally at a previous meeting in a more formal way.
The measure referred to as "emergency safeguard measures" in the Japanese Schedule, under Road Transport Services, subsector of Freight Transport Services, aimed at ensuring a stable supply of services in exceptional situations where over-capacity in a clearly delimited area disturbed the normal operation or continuation of the business in question; the measures would allow to prevent,
they did not make any distinction between foreign and domestic suppliers and only in exceptional circumstances, as defined in detail in relevant rules and regulations, which ensured transparent application.
Many questions had already been discussed, as mentioned by the delegation of the Philippines, but had not received an adequate answer.
It was modelled on the safeguard mechanism in goods, rather than the agriculture’s special safeguard or the safeguard in textiles because ASEAN felt that the majority of the membership preferred such an investigation-type mechanism.
 Taking into account other views, ASEAN had come up with a middle ground solution and proposed a de facto use of two definitions of "domestic industry" – one for establishing injury and one for the application of the measure (ADA Articles I and II).
injury caused by foreign suppliers would be a basis for safeguard action, but foreign companies might or might not be affected by the measure which protected acquired rights.
He enquired how Japan had solved the question of feasibility when it had scheduled an emergency safeguard, irrespective of whether it was an Article X type provision,
He asked whether this could be considered a safeguard measure under mode 3 and, if so, whether the United States had solved the question of feasibility when scheduling this measure and, in particular, how it would be implemented it.
It was true that this was the only rule-making area out of the four under the GATS in which the question of desirability and feasibility had arisen in such a focused manner.
In this respect, her delegation shared the view of ASEAN that Members might need to convince their domestic industries to support the further opening of their markets, reminding their industries that emergency actions might be employed whenever injury or threat of injury occurred.
She encouraged delegations to read the ASEAN draft agreement again and hoped that those delegations which had been asked questions regarding safeguard-type provisions in schedules or bilateral agreements would reply.
At that meeting, it had been decided that, before undertaking this compilation, the Secretariat would check whether relevant information was already available in the Working Group on Transparency in Government Procurement (WGTGP) and would report to the Working Party on GATS Rules.
With respect to information on relevant activities of the Working Group on Transparency in Government Procurement, he intended to consult informally with Ambassador Saborío Soto, the Chairperson of that Group, to see what kind of contribution could be made to this Working Party.
"None" would indicate that foreign suppliers were allowed to bid and would be treated like nationals; limitations could be listed, concerning entities covered, thresholds, national treatment (other than those in Article XVII column).
although the report on government procurement would be submitted on the Chair's responsibility, Members should be given the opportunity to comment.
The representative of Hong Kong, China recommended, with respect to the scope of the discussion, that the EC proposal could be discussed on the understanding that it would be without prejudice to delegations' position on the scope of the mandate.
The representative of Chinese Taipei enquired whether the framework just presented by the EC differed greatly from the previous EC contribution in S/WPGR/W/39.
She enquired how parallel market access negotiations on government procurement would be conducted under the GATS and the Agreement on Government Procurement.
in relation to both goods and services, to be dealt with in the WGTGP and looked forward to Ministers giving a mandate to negotiate an Agreement on Transparency in Government Procurement.
The EC proposal, which was based on total flexibility, could benefit all Members, especially developing countries and his delegation was ready to listen to suggestions on how to improve it.
The new column proposed by the EC would contain commitments under the GATS for opening possibilities to bid for government procurement, but would not exempt Members from complying with Articles XVI and XVII or the commitments under the GPA.
Other Business
The Chairperson said that, due to lack of time, it was not possible to have a first informal exchange of views on the sentence, contained in the three work programmes (S/WPGR/7), calling on the Working Party "
to prepare for the opportunity provided by the Fifth Ministerial Conference to take stock of progress made in the negotiations".