COMMUNICATION
FROM AUSTRALIA; HONG KONG, CHINA;
THE PHILIPPINES; AND SINGAPORE
ASSESSMENT WORK ON SERVICES
The
following communication dated 19 September 2025, from the delegations of
Australia; Hong Kong, China; the Philippines; and Singapore is being
circulated to the Members of the Council for Trade in Services in Special
Session.
_______________
This communication is submitted for discussion on a potential way
forward in response to the Chair's report on consultations delivered at the
meeting of 12 June 2025.
1 CONTEXT
1.1. Services trade is important for development and economic growth,
both as an export and an essential input.
1.2. Trade growth, employment, and the transfer of technology, knowledge
and capital are all increasingly defined by services. Technological change is
making greater services trade possible.
1.3. Pursuant to Articles IV and XIX of the General Agreement on Trade in
Services (GATS), Members agreed, among other things, to use commitments in
services trade to (i) achieve progressively higher levels of liberalisation and
(ii) increase the participation of developing country and least-developed country
(LDC) Members in trade in sectors and modes of interest to them.
1.4. Members also agreed on guidelines for pursuing these objectives in
S/L/93, which provides that the CTS-SS shall continue to carry out an
assessment of trade in services in overall terms and on a sectoral basis as an
ongoing activity.
1.5. The Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration also called for targeted
technical assistance be provided on, inter alia, compiling and analysing
statistical data on trade in services, assessing interests in and gains from
services trade, building regulatory capacity, particularly on those services
sectors where liberalisation is being undertaken by developing countries.
1.6. While Members have largely yet to deliver on the above objectives in
the WTO, a significant number of Members, including developing members and
LDCs, have made commitments in services that go beyond their GATS commitments
in regional trade agreements (RTAs).
1.7. It is valuable to examine these RTA commitments from a WTO
perspective to examine trends in RTA services commitments and to consider where
certain services commitments in RTAs have progressed ahead of GATS, their
impact on services trade, and what best practices from RTA services outcomes
could provide benefits to the WTO Membership (especially WTO members that face
challenges in pursuing RTAs). For example, some RTAs include enhanced
transparency provisions regarding domestic measures affecting trade in services
in committed sectors as a complement to market access. A discussion on how
development issues were taken up and how sectors and modes of export interest
to developing countries were addressed could also provide valuable insights for
consideration of the way forward under Articles IV and XIX.
2 STOCKTAKE
2.1. Our idea is for Members to conduct a stocktake of progress made in
services commitments in RTAs and explore potential elements for consideration
in the multilateral trading system. This would be carried out as part of the
mandate to continue carrying out an assessment of trade in services in overall
terms and on a sectoral basis, including technical assistance for regional
assessments. This stocktake would initially comprise:[1]
_
i._