TISA Moves Forward, Byepassing WTO

Negotiations for a planned agreement to liberalise services trade continued to make steady progress last week.

The 6-10 July meeting on the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), as the proposed deal is known, included a regular negotiating round as well as the above-mentioned stocktaking meeting, the latter of which involved a review of all negotiating topics, from offers to proposals to draft text.

The past week also saw Mauritius formally join the services talks, bringing the number of participants to 25, when including the 28-nation EU as one party. Mauritius is the first African country to join the TISA initiative and had confirmed its intent to request a seat at the negotiating table this past March.

The group now includes Australia, Canada, Chile, Chinese Taipei, Colombia, Costa Rica, the EU, Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Korea, Liechtenstein, Mauritius, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Switzerland, Turkey, the US, and Uruguay.

These participants account for over 70 percent of global services trade, according to the European Commission. China’s pending application, which was submitted in September 2013, has not yet been formally approved, and no indication has been given on when or if this will occur.

Since the launch of the talks, TISA participants have been discussing a series of proposals for “new and enhanced disciplines” to include in the agreement, such as financial services, air and maritime transport, transparency, telecommunications, and government procurement, to name a few.

Of these disciplines, financial services and domestic regulation are advancing well, with sources noting that there has been significant convergence in what should be in those annexes, though details still need fine-tuning.

Other annexes that are also reasonably far along include telecommunications services, Mode 4, and e-commerce. Mode 4, in trade jargon, refers to the movement of natural persons – in other words, when someone from one country is in another’s territory for the purpose of supplying a service. E-commerce and Mode 4 are two areas that are particularly significant for many developing countries’ services trade interests.

Other areas that have advanced, but to a lesser degree, reportedly include maritime transport, transparency, and environment services. Government procurement, an EU proposal, is in the early stages of discussion, sources say, being comparatively new.

Talks on a proposal backed by the US on competitive delivery services is considerably less advanced and will require more fine-tuning and discussion if it is to gain more support, sources say. Meanwhile, a proposal submitted by Turkey on healthcare services last year is unlikely to move ahead, given that the majority of TISA participants have said that they do not wish to engage on the subject within the trade deal.

TISA participants are reportedly aiming to have completed offers from all participants in early autumn. To date, Pakistan and Paraguay have not yet tabled initial offers, and some of the existing offers from other participants are not complete.

TISA participants have not put a formal deadline on the talks, sources say. The group is set to meet two more times this year, in October and December, with trade officials then aiming to hold another stocktaking exercise in early 2016.