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The initial and revised offers of new or improved commitments are made known
to all WTO members since the entire membership may be affected by these
commitments' entry into force. Envisaged amendments are inscribed into the
existing schedules and made available to all members via the WTO
Secretariat. Some offers are publicly available if the member concerned has
agreed to de-restrict the document.
Offers that have been derestricted can be found on the WTO website.
While it is difficult to provide an assessment of the request-offer process
as it is on-going, some general observations can be made of the services
negotiations overall:
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At the target date of 31 March 2003, 12 initial offers were available,
followed by 26 more submissions (including one schedule for the European
Communities) prior to the Cancun Ministerial Meeting in early September
2003. By December 2005, the date of the Hong Kong Ministerial Meeting, the
total number had reached 69 (covering 93 WTO members), complemented by 30
revised offers. There has been very little change since; only the number of
initial offers has increased to 71 and revised offers to 31.
- All developed members and relatively many developing countries with some
exceptions have made contributions. The fact that Sub-Saharan African
countries have submitted a relatively low number of offers might be
attributed to a high share of least-developed countries (LDCs) in this
region. Moreover, according to the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration, LDCs “are not expected to undertake new commitments”.
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Overall, the offers have focused on the sectors and modes that already
dominate existing schedules, with relatively few significant changes in the
pattern of bindings. Sectors with a limited number of existing commitments
(e.g. in education, health distribution, postal-courier, road transport) are
not attracting many offers. The limited progress of the request-offer
process was highlighted by the report of the Chairman of the Council for
Trade in Services to the Trade Negotiations Committee (TN/S/23). In the
report, members' sectoral and modal objectives were also compiled.
- In July 2008, at the request of WTO members, the Chair of the TNC convened a Services Signalling Conference for interested ministers to indicate how their governments' current services offers might be improved in response to requests that had been received. The signals, as reported by the Chair of the TNC, were noted by participants as being better than expected.
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Little headway is being made in the rule-making areas. While the Chair of
the Working Party on Domestic Regulation was able, in April 2007, to table a
draft text that seeks to define middle-ground positions, the negotiations on
the three other issues (emergency safeguards, government procurement and
subsidies) are far less advanced.
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Services are an important component of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) and
given the concept of a Single Undertaking, a meaningful package in the
services area will be important to ensuring a successful conclusion of the
Round.
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