THE DOHA DEVELOPMENT AGENDA

The Uruguay Round marked only a first step in a longer-term process of services liberalization within a multilateral framework. The importance of the Round lay less in its improving actual market conditions than in creating a completely new system of rules and disciplines for future trade liberalization. This may also explain why the GATS, in Article XIX:1, already provides for a new round of services negotiations to start not later than five years from the date of entry into force of the Agreement.

Consequently a new services round was launched in January 2000. It aims to achieve a progressively higher level of liberalization of services trade while “promoting the interests of all participants on a mutually advantageous basis and … securing an overall balance of rights and obligations” (Article XIX:1). Although the Seattle Ministerial Conference in late November 1999 failed to agree on launching a larger trade round, the mandate to negotiate on services was never put in doubt. In contrast to the preparatory stages of the Uruguay Round, Members no longer focused on whether, but rather on how, to promote services liberalization within the multilateral system.

As a first step in 2000, and as part of an information exchange programme mandated at the Singapore Ministerial Conference, the WTO Secretariat prepared a series of background papers on major services sectors (available on the WTO website) to stimulate policy discussion and promote dissemination of relevant information among Members.