Inaugural address by Shri R. Gopalan, Joint Secretary Department of Commerce

It gives me immense pleasure to welcome all of you to this two-day National Workshop on WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services. It is my privilege to welcome the two experts from Geneva who are here to conduct this Workshop. Let me now introduce Mr. David Hartridge and Mr. Martin Roy, who are both well conversant with all issues relating to WTO negotiations on Trade in Services. Mr. Hartridge was Director of the Services Division of WTO for over ten years and is an expert on all GATS related issues. Mr. Martin Roy is presently in the Services Division of the WTO as Economic Affairs Officer and has extensive knowledge in the area of Trade in Services.

Recognising that technical cooperation and capacity building are core elements of the development dimension of the multilateral trading system, the Doha Ministerial Declaration established an extensive mandate for technical cooperation and capacity building to enable countries to effectively participate in the negotiations, implement WTO rules and obligations, and also to draw on the benefits of an open and rule-based multilateral trading system. It was on this basis that we had organised a similar Workshop last year in October with the support of FICCI.

That workshop had concentrated mainly on sectoral issues and served a very useful purpose in briefing those connected with the Administration of the Agreement, the stakeholder industry and institutions on the status of services negotiations and various issues confronting trade in services at the multilateral level.

The present workshop is a continuation of this effort and aims to build capacity and improve understanding for greater participation in the services negotiations. This Workshop would be dwelling on the present status with regard to scheduling issues as well as on issues relating to various Rules under the GATS viz., Domestic Regulations, Emergency safeguards Measures, subsidies and Government Procurement in services, which are very integral to the negotiations on Trade in services. It will also focus on brainstorming on two critical modes: Modes 1 & 4, in which securing liberalised access is a priority.

As we are all aware, the negotiations on Trade in Services are presently underway at the WTO. The Doha Ministerial Conference gave a fillip to the negotiations when it mandated a deadline for filing of initial Requests and Offers. The negotiations are now in the crucial market access phase with countries submitting their Requests and Offers to their trading partners. As we go into the Market Access phase of the negotiations it is felt that there is also a need to expand our knowledge of the General Agreement on trade in Services, its rules and its functioning. There are many issues on GATS, particularly on the rule-making front on which we need clarity and it would no doubt be beneficial for us to have the two experts from WTO amongst us to clarify them.

I am sure that the deliberations at the workshop would be useful in achieving our objectives and the participants are able to take advantage of the presence of the WTO experts and emerge wiser from the discussions.

Thank you.