WTO | Services - negotiations

Developments in the Services negotiations back to top

Negotiations on specific commitments

The Guidelines and Procedures for the Negotiations on Trade in Services (S/L/93) refer to the request-offer approach (Word format, 4 pages, 46 KB) as the main method of negotiation. Within the timeframe of the overall negotiating deadline of 1 January 2005, paragraph 15 of the Doha Development Agenda establishes that “participants shall submit initial requests for specific commitments by 30 June 2002 and initial offers by 31 March 2003”.

Pursuant to the Doha mandate, participants in the services negotiations have been exchanging bilateral initial requests since 30 June 2002.

Initial offers
Since 31 March 2003, Members have submitted 69 initial offers:
Albania; Argentina; Australia; Bahrain; Barbados; Brazil; Brunei Darussalam; Bulgaria; Canada; Chile; China; Chinese, Taipei; Colombia; Costa Rica; Croatia; Cuba; Dominica; Dominican Republic; El Salvador; Egypt; European Communities and its member states; Fiji; Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM); Gabon; Grenada; Guatemala; Guyana; Honduras; Hong Kong, China; Iceland; India; Indonesia; Israel; Jamaica; Japan; Jordan; Kenya; Korea; Liechtenstein; Macao, China; Malaysia; Mauritius; Mexico; Morocco; New Zealand; Nicaragua; Norway; Oman; Pakistan; Panama ; Paraguay; Peru; Philippines; Qatar; Saint Kitts and Nevis; Saint Lucia; Saint Vincent & the Grenadines; South Africa; Singapore; Sri Lanka; Suriname; Switzerland; Thailand; Trinidad and Tobago; Tunisia; Turkey; United Arab Emirates; United States; Uruguay.

Several initial offers have been derestricted by the Member concerned and are publicly available in the TN/S/O document series. In addition, some Members have made their initial offers, or summaries thereof, publicly available on their internet sites.

Revised offers
Since 19 May 2005, Members have submitted 30 revised offers:
Australia; Bahrain; Brazil; Canada; Chile; China; Chinese, Taipei; Colombia; Egypt; European Communities and its member states; Honduras; Hong Kong, China; Iceland; India; Japan; Korea; Liechtenstein; Macao, China; Malaysia; Mexico; New Zealand; Norway; Peru; Singapore; Suriname; Switzerland; Thailand; Turkey; United States; Uruguay.

Several revised offers have been derestricted by the Member concerned and are publicly available in the TN/S/O rev.1 document series.

Proposals for the new negotiations

WTO Members are currently tabling proposals regarding both the structure and the contents of the new negotiations which started beginning of 2000.
> The proposals

Special Sessions

Current chairperson of Special Sessions of the Council for Trade in Services.

Search Documents Online
Special Sessions documents on Trade in Services use the code S/CSS/* or TN/S/* (where * takes additional values).
These links open a new window: allow a moment for the results to appear.

> help with downloading these documents

Chairperson's summaries of the Special Sessions of the Council for Trade in Services (Document code varies) > search
Minutes of the Special Sessions (Document code S/CSS/M/* or TN/S/M/*) > search
Working documents of the Special Sessions (Document code S/CSS/W/* or TN/S/W/*)
> search
Annual reports of the Special Sessions of the Council for Trade in Services > search

Press releases (Document code PRESS* and keyword “Services negotiations”) > search

You can perform more sophisticated searches from the Documents Online search facility (opens in new window) by defining multiple search criteria such as document symbol (i.e. code number), full text search or document date.

Proposals for the 1999 Ministerial Conference in Seattle back to top

Before the 1999 Seattle Ministerial Meeting, WTO Members tabled proposals concerning the 2000 services negotiations.