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According to UNCTAD's 1999 Assessment, developing countries had made substantial commitments under the GATS with respect to many service industries, often binding recently adopted legislation or pre-committing future policies without having had much experience in their implementation, and had undertaken a higher share of full bindings under the cross-border and commercial presence modes of supply.
Hoekman had also pointed out that market access commitments by high-income countries tended to be restrictive with respect to activities where developing countries had a comparative advantage, both low and high-skill intensive labour activities, that required either temporary entry or establishment or work permits.
Examples showed that regional supply chains had emerged, such as in the textile and clothing sector; that, in particular in South Africa, the automotive industry was increasingly integrated into the global industry; that liberalization of the telecommunications sector had led to unprecedented growth in the penetration of mobile phones and access to the Internet.
He drew attention to document S/CSS/W/81, reporting on the work of the Intra-Agency Task Force on Statistics of International Trade in Services and especially on its adoption of the Manual on Statistics of International Trade in Services, which was compatible with existing statistical systems and especially the fifth edition of the Balance of Payments Manual.
For example, a country lacking computer software specialists could have liberalized access for such natural persons; whilst this could be of value to one Member, it might be of no interest to another, who might also be looking to attract software specialists.
As for the bilateral versus multilateral treatment of autonomous liberalization, she said that a mixed approach, by which a multilateral framework would be set up, within which credit and recognition would be worked out bilaterally or plurilaterally, might be a good starting point and she looked forward to further examining this issue.
Commenting on Switzerland's intervention, he recognized that the value of autonomous liberalization differed from Member to Member and that a bilateral approach would be preferable, but was concerned and sought clarification on the example given of mode 3 liberalization, which seemed to imply that, as already established suppliers might be negatively affected by further liberalization, this autonomous liberalization might be considered "negative" and that a "debit", rather than a credit, might ensue.
Second, the technology available enabled both postal and courier service providers to introduce updated processes of collection, classification, transport and delivery, as well as to modernize their management of the information generated through postal traffic, thus making it possible for them to offer services appropriate to the requirements of specific segments of society.
The proposal did not only cover construction services as defined in the W/120 services sectoral classification but also related professional services, given the relation between the supply of "physical" construction services and the supply of related professional services, such as architectural services, engineering, integrated engineering, urban planning and landscape architectural services.
As had been noted at the previous meeting, the definitions of small and medium-sized suppliers differed from Member to Member and his delegation had never intended to suggest a "one size fits all" solution.
Mexico therefore proposed that the agenda for the Special Session include the subject of MFN exemptions under the heading "Termination of Exemptions: Follow-up"; that Members agree, during the sectoral discussions, on a work programme under which they would eliminate all their exemptions, with the aim of completing their elimination during 2004, and not 2002 as indicated in the document; at the same time, that they agree on procedures for the notification of early elimination of exemptions, and thereafter carry out the notification provided for in paragraph 7 of the Annex; and that due respect be given to the flexibility provided for in the negotiating guidelines and procedures for developing country Members.
As for the comments by Argentina, he noted that scope existed for eliminating those exemptions for which the original rationale had ceased to exist, and added that elimination of exemptions through the review process was also important as a complement to their elimination through negotiation.
In the United States view, it was clear that MFN exemptions would be dealt with through negotiations; he wondered how Mexico saw that aspect of treating MFN exemptions, on the one hand, relate on the other hand to the proposed deadline for terminating MFN exemptions, and whether the latter would jump ahead of or mesh together with negotiations.

As to the first question posed by Venezuela, namely the reference in paragraph 5 to certain education services subsectors that may be less subject to the sensitivities relating to the divide between public policy and commercial activity than others, she noted that further on the proposal mentioned specifically Adult education services and Other education services.
Turning to the questions raised by Jordan, Japan, Korea and Turkey about the additional commitments that the United States referred to in its proposal, he said that the United States had in mind issues concerning lack of transparency and unfairness in the administration of regulation, which could be addressed as additional commitments.
The European Communities had included storage services in its list of activities on energy, contained in paragraph 6 of document S/CSS/W/60, but the same was not the case in the index contained in the United States proposal or the checklist in the proposal by Norway.
The negotiations should be flexible enough for developing countries to open fewer sectors, to liberalize fewer transactions, and to increase progressively access to their markets according to their own interests.
One specific meaning had been attached to that concept in the negotiations on basic telecommunications, namely, that unless otherwise specified in a Member’s Schedule the commitment would be considered to allow for all possible technological means available for the provision of that service.
As indicated in the United States proposal, her delegation recognized that that was an issue of concern to a number of nations in the discussion on liberalization of energy services and thought it important to consider how such differences could be addressed in the market access negotiations.
It was also important that countries expressed what the negotiations were not about, namely, that liberalization did not mean deregulation and that negotiations were not about ownership of natural resources.
As to the question by Turkey on inclusion of cabotage or maritime freight transportation, he drew attention to paragraph 52 in the proposal that stated that "In order to realize fully the benefits of efficient, competitive energy services and to make economically meaningful commitments, we need to consider the entire chain of activities involved in resource identification, production, transmission, transportation and distribution, sales and marketing, irrespective of whether the activities take place onshore or offshore".
Turning to the questions posed by the European Communities on the reasons for the scope of Canada's proposal being limited to oil and gas services, he said that the presentation of the proposal on oil and gas services by Canada was without prejudice to the right to submit other proposals on other energy services.
First, in considering the scheduling of market access commitments for markets opened to foreign competition, many of the benefits of the GATS could be accorded to energy service providers already providing services in a foreign market by clarifying where the energy services could be found within the GATS.

In the situation of an existing official monopoly, such as in certain segments of the electricity sector, market access commitments might be scheduled as follows: (1) the right to invest in an existing monopoly, which represented elimination of foreign investment restrictions; (2) to permit investment in, or operation of, a competing service supplier after a date specified in the schedule, which would be a commitment to a eliminate a cartel or existing monopoly rights; (3) where market access had been granted in some but not all energy market activities, discipline would be introduced through Article 8 for an official monopoly provider abusing its monopoly position to gain competitive advantage in a market outside the scope of its monopoly, for instance, through its control of energy distribution networks; (4) for transmission and distribution services, which were likely to function as natural monopolies, GATS commitments could be scheduled, perhaps through a reference paper, to provide access to and use of a central transmission or distribution facilities upstream and downstream, and to include making available to international competition contracts to construct, which could be a commitment under construction services, and to operate the systems, which could be a commitment under management service.
For example, with regard to services related to exploration and production, those would cover oil and gas because those activities were carried out in a manner that did not defer substantially in those two areas.
Regarding the intervention by the representative of the United States on the issue of monopoly, although further reflection on that statement was necessary, he said that when talking about the right of developing countries to regulate the supply of energy services one should bear in mind that one of the development tools used was the type of monopolies that the United States delegate had referred to.
He also suggested that work should focus on four main types of market access restrictions, namely: restrictions on commercial presence; restrictions on access to international maritime services; non-tariff measures and business practices that placed unreasonable burden on transporters and their clients; and lack of appropriate and transparent competition legislation for all three pillars and of enforcement existing legislation.
Brazil requested that, as the International Civil Aviation Organization was intensifying its efforts to obtain full adherence to the International Air Services Transit Agreement (IASTA), Norway explain what would be the value of bringing first and second freedoms within the scope of the GATS.
Argentina was open to consideration of any elements that could improve the present classification or coverage of certain activities in the air transport sector but only under the present parameters indicated by the air transport Annex.
Switzerland was considering appropriate strategies regarding ENTs, but an initial step could be to require that ENT economic criteria be further specified.
In their written communication, Australia proposed that Members (i) agree to broaden the sectoral classification of environmental services to bring the WTO classification of environmental services into line with current practice in trade in services, and to use this new sectoral classification for negotiations in environmental services; (ii) review any limitation on commercial presence with a view to eliminating barriers that could not be justified; (iii) ensure the implementation of GATS Article I:3(a), in particular that government licensing and ownership regulations at all levels, central, regional and local, were transparent and not unnecessarily restrictive.
She doubted that both exporters and importers would benefit from increased liberalisation because she failed to see how a market opening would result in a reduction of costs for developing countries since trade in this sector was dominated by large monopolies.

Finally, as general comments, he agreed that credit should be given for autonomous liberalization, based on the guidelines to be developed; and that the issue of domestic regulation should be tackled on a horizontal basis in the Working Party on Domestic Regulation.
For example, apart from emergency circumstances, there were other instances where advance publication of proposed regulations might not be desirable, including cases when regulations might be market-sensitive or cases when the commercial interests of individual institutions might be adversely affected.
He asked delegations advocating the use of the Understanding on Commitments in Financial Services how the issue of mode 1 would be resolved, since according to the Understanding only certain subsectors were supposed to be liberalized under such a mode.
Therefore, Korea believed that those prudential regulations should not impair or nullify the market access commitments already made, but there was no suggestion of adopting specific courses of action on the issue, such as a negative list approach as implied by Thailand.
There might be confusions in the interpretation of the scope of measures taken for prudential reasons, but one thing was to take those measure off the schedules, since they were covered by paragraph 2 of the Annex, and another one to affect the regulatory capacity of competent authorities.
While a sound and efficient financial sector was essential for the functioning of an economy, Kenya was hesitant to undertake further liberalization in this sector before the capacity of national regulatory bodies could be enhanced.
Academic teaching about sports could be considered as education, in New Zealand’s view, while other aspects of instruction regarding the practice or performance of a sport, including the training of coaches, could be considered as sporting services.
It also discussed a non-paper by Mauritius on "Emergency Safeguard Measures", in JOB(01)/143, and a non-paper by Venezuela on "Negotiations on Emergency Safeguard Measures: Causal Link", in JOB(01)/101/Add.
As for the structure, the symposium could start with the basic legal context for mode 4 trade, then address the economic angle and the implications of mode 4 trade on home and host countries, current policy regimes and national experiences, and present the regulators' views in the home and host country.
Therefore, the Secretariat would be proceeding accordingly, unless the delegation making the submission requested that the document be issued as unrestricted
Responding to the first issue raised by the Secretariat, the representative of Thailand wondered whether flexibility would still exist with respect to requests for technical assistance made after the mid-November deadline.