Trade in Services
WTO GATS Negotiations
How to Read Canada's Initial and Revised Offers
GATS Structure
In order to read Canada's initial and revised offers it is helpful
to review the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) structure.
The GATS consists of a general framework of rules and obligations
and a mechanism by which Member countries can make specific commitments
to liberalize their services markets. These market access undertakings
are set out in each Member’s individual “Schedule of
Specific Commitments.” The GATS structure provides all WTO
Members with the flexibility to decide for themselves in which sectors
they will undertake obligations and whether to maintain or remove
barriers which may exist in these sectors. This means Canada decides
for itself what sectors and to what extent it will open to foreign
competition. For example, a WTO Member can allow a service to be
delivered by a foreign service provider in its country, but could
impose a condition, such as requiring that the service be provided
through a partnership or joint venture. For additional information,
please read "How
to read a GATS Schedule".
In previous negotiations, Canada listed a number of specific GATS
commitments in its Schedule of Specific Commitments in the following
service sectors:
- Business Services
- Communication Services
- Construction Services
- Distribution Services
- Environmental Services
- Financial Services
- Tourism and Travel Related Services
- Transport Services
See Canada's existing Schedule
of Specific Commitments.
In developing an offer, countries review all the commitments for
each sector in their existing Schedule of Specific Commitments and
then choose to take one or more of the following actions:
-
maintain existing limitations and commitments resulting in
no change in market access;
-
remove or alter limitations on existing commitments in a particular
sector or sub-sector to provide increased market access; or
- add new commitments within a particular sector or sub-sector
to provide increased market access.
Both Canada’s initial and revised offers are conditional
on the overall level of liberalization that will be produced at
the end of the negotiations. Each country retains the right to add,
remove or modify any element of its offer at any time until the
completion of the negotiations.
Reading Canada's Initial Offer:
Canada's initial offer is contained in a consolidated Schedule
of Commitments and consists of modifications to our existing market
access commitments. These modifications appear in the offer using
bold, strikeout and italics to modify existing text.
-
Strikeout (strikeout) is used in the initial
offer to represent the removal of part or all of a market
access limitation.
-
Bold is used in the initial offer to represent
increased market access openness. Where Canada has altered
a limitation to make it less restrictive, the new language
appears in bold. Where Canada has added a commitment for a
sector in which no previous commitments were made all the
text also appears in bold.
-
Italics and bold are used simultaneously
to indicate technical refinements that do not alter the scope
or substance of an existing market access commitment.
For example, in the part of Canada's initial offer dealing with
Accounting, auditing and bookkeeping services under the heading
of Professional services, the following entry appears, using strikeout:
Professional Services: Accounting, auditing and bookkeeping services
“Auditing (Manitoba, Québec):
Citizenship requirement for accreditation.”
In the above example, a requirement for persons to be Canadian
citizens in order to provide auditing services in Quebec has been
removed. By doing so, Canada has committed to allowing foreign citizens
to provide auditing services in Quebec.
It should be noted that all text regarding Canada's initial offer
for international maritime transport services appears in bold as
the entire text refers to new commitments. At the end of the Uruguay
Round, negotiating countries were not able to come to an agreement
in maritime transport. Negotiations on this sector continued in
1995-1996, but Members were still unable to bring discussions to
a successful close. At that time, Members agreed that any future
negotiations would resume on the basis of 'best offers' tabled during
the 1995-1996 negotiations. With the launch of the WTO/GATS negotiations
in 2000, Members have again begun to discuss liberalization of maritime
transport services.
Reading Canada's Revised Offer:
Canada's revised offer consists of modifications which were made
as part of Canada’s initial offer as well as additional modifications
to our existing market access commitments. Modifications stemming
from Canada’s initial offer appear using bold, strikeout and
italics as described above. New modifications as part of Canada’s
revised offer are indicated using shading as follows:
-
Strikeout and shading are used
simultaneously to indicate the deletion of any text from the
initial offer.
-
Bold and shading are used simultaneously
in the revised offer to represent increased market access
openness. Where Canada has altered a limitation to make it
less restrictive, the new language appears in bold. Where
Canada has added a commitment for a sector in which no previous
commitments were made all the text also appears in bold.
-
Italics, bold and shading are used
simultaneously to indicate technical refinements that do not
alter the scope or substance of an existing market access
commitment.
For example, in the section of Canada's revised offer dealing with
Accounting, auditing and bookkeeping services under the heading
of Professional services the following entry appears, using strikeout
and shading:
Professional Services: Accounting, auditing and bookkeeping services
“Auditing (Manitoba, Québec):
Citizenship requirement for accreditation.”
In the above example, the requirement for persons to be Canadian
citizens in order to provide auditing services in Manitoba has been
removed. Note that the “strikeout” of Quebec has not
been shaded, because the citizenship requirement for Quebec had
already been removed in Canada’s initial offer.
For additional information, please read "How
to read a GATS Schedule".
Read Canada's initial offer
Read Canada’s revised
offer
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