Ahead of the December 10-13 meeting of the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) highest decision-making body, India has highlighted the difficulties faced by services suppliers from developing economies in complying with rich countries’ complex domestic regulations.
India also rejected attempts by some WTO Members such as European Union and Canada to include ‘gender equality’ in the services trade negotiations agenda.
According to a November 27 WTO report, “the state of play in the services negotiations covers four areas: services trade facilitation, services related to e-commerce, market access, and domestic regulation.”
The WTO’s Ministerial Conference will be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In a submission to the WTO on December 5, India said, “Service suppliers, particularly those of developing country Members, face numerous difficulties in complying with complex domestic regulations brought out by developed country Members.” It particularly emphasised hurdles faced by ‘natural persons supplying services in foreign jurisdictions.’
Incidentally, India is pushing for a Trade Facilitation in Services Agreement, which also aims to ensure easing rules regarding movement of professionals and skilled workers across borders for temporary work/projects.
On gender-related issues (or women’s economic empowerment) including the proposed disciplines on gender equality, India said, “…while we strongly support gender equality in all areas, we cannot agree with proponents that gender is a trade-related issue which can be meaningfully addressed through Domestic Regulation (DR) disciplines.”
The DR disciplines relate to formulation of ‘necessary disciplines to ensure that measures relating to qualification requirements and procedures, technical standards and licensing requirements and procedures do not constitute unnecessary barriers to trade in services.’
‘Limited time’
On services related to e-commerce and services trade facilitation, the report had said, “In view of the limited time available before the Ministerial, proponents in these two areas [India’s TFS proposal as well as the EU proposal for rules to facilitate online service transactions focusing on the issues of electronic contracts, electronic authentication and trust services, consumer protection and unsolicited commercial electronic messages] did not seek further meetings of the Special Session to discuss their submissions after the summer break.”
“No outcome in the form of an agreed text can be expected in Buenos Aires in these areas, and the proponents agree with this assessment…”
The report added that “in terms of post-Buenos Aires work on these two topics, India and the EU have communicated their intention to re-engage on services trade facilitation and online transactions, respectively, after the Ministerial Conference.”
