RESTRICTEDWORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONS/CSC/M/6
12 November 1998
(98-4544)
Committee on Specific Commitments
REPORT OF THE MEETING HELD ON 16 OCTOBER 1998
Note by the Secretariat
1. The Committee on Specific Commitments held its sixth meeting on 16 October 1998 under
the Chairmanship of Mr Juan Marchetti of Argentina.  The agenda of the meeting was contained in
airgram WTO/AIR/937.
I. CLASSIFICATION ISSUES
A. ASSESSMENT OF THE NEED TO REVISE DOCUMENT MTN.GNS/W/120, AD HOC  SCHEDULING
AND ISSUES RAISED DURING THE EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION PROGRAMME
2. The Chairman recalled the conclusions of the last meeting regarding document
MTN.GNS/W/120, according to which there was agreement to examine this document to see if there
was a need to revise it to make it reflect more closely the actual trade flows and the interests of
Members.  He also recalled that the Council for Trade in Services had given a mandate to theCommittee to examine the classification issues raised  during the exchange of information programme.
He therefore introduced the informal document of  the Secretariat compiling the points regarding
classification made during that exercise (Job N°5353) and asked for comments on these documents
and more generally on the way to fulfill the mandate given by the Council.
3. Canada distributed in an informal document a table of correspondence between document
MTN.GNS/W/120 and CPC rev.1 (Job N°6072), presenting this as a reference document to be used
during the course of the revision of W/120 and not as an attempt to propose a full conversion to rev.1,which could prove problematic in sectors such as  financial services or telecom.  The Canadian
representative suggested that the Chairman of the Committee could chair informal consultations on
classification issues and proposed that the first item taken up should be environmental services.
4. The representative of the US approved the sectoral approach to classification problems
initiated by the Exchange of Information Programme, which he felt would be more productive than ageneral academic and statistical approach.  He underlined that not all sectors had the same importance
in that perspective and that the extent of the classification problems varied considerably from sector to
sector.  The aim of the exercise was not to write a statistical yearbook but a coherent description of
the activities covered by a given commitment.  He suggested that the most useful approach might be
to develop general definitions of sectors or subsectors on which all could agree and which might beused in schedules, perhaps in the form of head-notes.
5. The representative of Japan underlined the fact that rapid technological evolution in services
might imply modification of classifications, but empha sized that at the same time there was a need for
legal stability and comparability of the schedules over time.  Hence while reserving its position on the
final outcome of the work, he indicated that Japan would not oppose the continuation of the workprovided that the following principles were respected:  if changes were to be made they must:  1) beS/CSC/M/6
Page 2
kept to the minimum necessary, 2) be written in a clear manner indicating the concordances and
differences with the former definitions, and 3) not entail any changes in or reinterpretation of existing
commitments.  Japan also favoured the sectoral approach through informal consultations.
6. The Australian representative indicated that the most desirable outcome in the long term
would be the development of a common and universally used system of classification based onCPC rev.1.  She agreed on the idea of informal consultations and gave details about the precise
Australian position on the classification issues raised in document Job N°5353 on postal and courier
services. These comments are reproduced in document Job N°6077.
7. The European Communities agreed on the informal sectoral approach.  More work was
needed in defining problems; for instance, the re ference to the "need to follow more closely the
economic reality" in the Secretariat paper was not substantiated by concrete facts and examples.
The EC favoured the idea of beginning with environm ental services and put a note of caution on the
question of the interlinkages between the various services.
8. Hong Kong, China approved the informal sectoral approach rather than a systematic
comparison between the revised and the provisional forms of the CPC, and suggested that the aim
should be to obtain results that would be user friendly, comprehensive and close to the industry
concepts, and which would not jeopardize existing commitments.  New Zealand also advocated theproduction of a revised W/120 which would confor m more closely to economic reality.  Finally
Canada and Uruguay insisted on the need to take into account the statistical dimension on this
process.
9. The Chairman concluded that there was general support for a sector by sector approach to
classification issues.  It was also agreed that this might best be taken up in the framework of informalconsultations, and that the process might begin with discussion of environmental services. Members
had stressed the need the obtain results that would be user friendly both in a negotiating perspective
and for the purposes of those using the schedules in industry and the public generally, and to avoid
jeopardizing existing commitments.  He underlined that CPC rev.1 and other existing systems of
definition could constitute the basis of this work.
B. N
EW SERVICES
10. The European Communities made the point that since the GATS was by nature all-inclusive,
the question of new services was one of classification rather than one of their coverage by the
Agreement.  Australia agreed with this point a nd indicated that it favoured a technology-neutral
approach to the identification of new services, which would be based on the end-use and not on the
means of delivery.
11. Canada, US, Japan and New Zealand also approved the idea that the new services issue was
mostly a question of classification, which should be treated as part of the sectoral process of
identification of classification problems.  The US underlined that where uncertainty arose as to the
coverage of a "new" service by an existing commitment, the answer would depend on the nature of
the service and on the nature of the commitment, wh ich would have to be examined case-by-case.  It
seemed unlikely that the Committee would be able to  develop any generally applicable solutions for
such cases, which would essentially have to be negotiated bilaterally.
12. New Zealand approved the Australian idea of a technology-neutral approach and pointed out
that up to now the discussion on new services had failed to produce results due to the absence of
concrete examples and to the difficulty of distinguishing in the abstract between a new technology or
a new way to deliver a service and a new service strictly speaking.  In that respect the more specificsectoral approach generated by the Exchange of Information Programme could be more rewarding.S/CSC/M/6
Page 3
13. The Chairman concluded that there was a consensus to treat the question of new services from
now on mostly in a classification context.  He noted the mention by several delegations of the need for
a technology-neutral approach and stressed the difficulty of the distinction between new technology
and new services.
II. PROCEDURAL AND COSTS IMPLICATIONS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF
ELECTRONICALLY MAINTAINED SCHEDULES
14. The Secretariat reported that due to severe budgetary constraints, it had not been possible to
obtain a special budgetary allocation to permit the engagement during 1998 of the temporary assistant
who will be needed to enter commitments into the new, consolidated and electronically up-dated
format.  However, funds for this purpose could be made available from the organization's existing
budget for Publications, on condition that the electronic schedules would eventually be made public.
Though no formal decisions to this effect had been taken, it seemed to have been the understandingand the intention of the Committee throughout that the electronic schedules should be made available
to industry and the public;  if this could be confirmed, the Secretariat would be able to go ahead with
the production of schedules.  In reply to questions  the Secretariat indicated that the production of a
CD-ROM containing the schedules could be done without significant costs for programming:  to
make the schedules available on-line to delegations , which would be the eventual aim, would however
entail significant programming work and therefore some additional cost, even though all costs would
be minimized as far as possible by the use of commercial software and existing infrastructure.
15. Members generally expressed a preference for the early production of a CD-ROM, stressing
the value of having the schedules available in this form in advance of the forthcoming negotiations.
Several indicated that they would make clear in th e budget context the importance they attached to the
completion of this project and therefore of the allocation of the necessary resources to it.  The
Secretariat also answered a question from the delegation of Japan by indicating that the copy-right in
the schedules would belong to the Secretariat, but that Members would have the same permanent right
of access to it  as to all other WTO documents.
16. As far as the agreement of Members to the publication of the aggregated schedules was
concerned it was decided that Members would have one week to consult their capitals on this point
and that in the absence of objections agreement would be considered as obtained.
III. SCHEDULING GUIDELINES
17. The New Zealand representative made a short presentation of the paper submitted by this
delegation at the last session of the Committee (job n°1851).  She stressed three points in particular:
the usefulness of the elaboration of a checklist to help Members in assessing whether unspecified
licencing requirements should be scheduled or not, the possible need for additional transparencyinformation on licencing and the need to address collectively the question of technical feasibility and
its technological evolution.
18. Australia indicated that it agreed with mo st of the ideas expressed by New Zealand, in
particular on the need to establish a presumption of compatibility of unspecified licencing entries with
Articles XVI and XVII and the need not to leave the question of technical feasibility to the decision ofindividual Members but rather to achieve a commonly agreed list, taking into account the specificities
of different sectors and modes and their technological evolution.
19. The Chairman suggested two possible approa ches to the discussion of the scheduling
guidelines:  the Committee might undertake a collective reading of the guidelines, paragraph by
paragraph, and the Secretariat might be asked to produce a factual note on the difficulties or questionsit had encountered in the interpretation and the use of the guidelines.  These two possibilities wereS/CSC/M/6
Page 4
not, of course, mutually exclusive.  It was agreed to discuss these ideas further at the next meeting of
the Committee.
IV. STATISTICS
20. No new point was reported under this item.
V. OTHER BUSINESS
21. The Chairman indicated that he would hold informal consultations on the Article XXI
(modification of schedules) procedures on 5 November.  A further informal meeting of the Committee
would be scheduled in late November, if possible in  close proximity to the meeting of the Council for
Trade in Services on 23-24 November, for the discussion of classification issues.
__________