US, INDIA TO CO-CHAIR NEW SPECIAL GROUP ON SERVICES
Trade ministers from Brazil, India, the EU, and the US agreed during their 22-23 September summit in Paris to the creation of a 15-country special group on the WTO services negotiations. The group will be jointly chaired by India and the US, both of which pushed for its creation, and will look for ways to advance progress in the services talks in the months before the WTO’s December Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong. It will also evaluate the controversial proposals to establish ‘benchmarks’ — multilateral requirements for countries to liberalise their services sectors — a concept that is strongly opposed by some WTO Members (see BRIDGES Weekly, 21 September 2005).
Press reports suggest that the group will be comprised of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Egypt, the EU, India, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Singapore, South Korea, and the US. Some trade diplomats have noted that the group’s membership tilts heavily in favour of countries that support services benchmarks. They add that it is also geographically unbalanced, as it fails to include any sub-Saharan, Caribbean, or least-developed countries.
Sources say that the group will be holding its first meeting in Geneva on 30 September to take advantage of the presence of senior officials attending the week-long Special Session of the Council for Trade in Services.
ICTSD reporting; "India, US to co-chair WTO group on services," PRESS TRUST OF INDIA, 23 September 2005.
SCANT PROGRESS IN GI DISCUSSIONS
Little progress was made at the 16 September meeting of the WTO Council for Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) on a multilateral registration system for products with geographical indications (GIs). Members discussed three proposals for GI systems that differed primarily on whether or not to make GI protection binding. To facilitate the discussions WTO secretariat had prepared a document presenting the comparable parts of the proposals side-by-side so that they could be systematically analysed.
A joint proposal from Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Taiwan and the US, as well as one from Hong Kong propose a voluntary GI system that would allow each Member to preserve the right to determine the appropriate level of GI protection. The EU on the other hand, would like a binding system that extends GI protection beyond wines and spirits to encompass to all products. They contend that this will benefit developing country products such as coffee, rice and teas.
Trade delegates report that Members simply walked point-by-point through the Secretariat’s compilation of the proposals, seeking clarification on different issues from the submissions’ sponsors. They also suggest that the three proposals do not seem to be obvious building blocks on which a future agreement can be constructed.
Trade observers expect the EU to push for an agreement on GIs at the WTO’s Hong Kong Ministerial Conference in December. Geneva-based negotiators suggested that they are will look to their ministers for guidance on the issue in Hong Kong, even though another meeting on GIs is scheduled for October.
ICTSD reporting.