. /.RESTRICTEDWORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONS/CSC/M/7
18 January 1999
(99-0152)
Committee on Specific Commitments
REPORT OF THE MEETING HE LD ON 25 NOVEMBER 1998
Note by the Secretariat
The Committee on Specific Commitments held its seventh meeting on 25 November 1998
under the Chairmanship of Mr Juan Marchetti of Argentina.  The agenda of the meeting wascontained in airgram WTO/AIR/983.
I. CLASSIFICATION ISSUES
A. ORGANIZATION OF WORK
1. The Chairman recalled that it had been agreed that the discussion of classification questions
would be held in informal mode w ithout formal reports or records.  He suggested to discuss first the
organization of the work on classification.  He recalled that the exchange of information program had
permitted the identification of concrete classification problems, that were now compiled in document
Job No 5353.  He suggested the following course of action:  first, to concentrate work on the problems
of classification identified during the exchange of information, to ask the Secretariat to prepare anupdate of document Job No 5353 in order to include in it the results of the debate of the sessions of
the Council held in October, November and December 1998 and finally to request the Secretariat to
produce after each meeting of the Committee devoted to classification questions a compilation of the
commentaries made by Members with special emphasis on the solutions or approaches suggested.
This would allow an informal Member-driven process as the document would be updated after each
meeting and as it would be possible for Members to go back to sectors previously discussed or to raise
questions about sectors not already discussed.
2. Members agreed to these proposals.  One delegation indicated that at some stage priorities
may have to be decided.  Another delegation said that the compilation of the debates should make
clear when different points of views had been expressed.  The Chairman noted these comments.
B. DISCUSSION OF SECTORAL CLASSIFICATION PROBLEMS
3. A summary of the discussion on this question can be found in the informal document
Job No 205 dated 18 January 1999.
II. SCHEDULING GUIDELINES
4. The Chairman recalled the two proposals he had made at the last meetings:  a collective
reading of the guidelines paragraph by paragraph in order to allow Members to discuss problems and
ambiguities encountered and the drafting by the Secretariat of a note on scheduling problems.  Heunderlined that this note would not identify any national schedule but would simply give factual andS/CSC/M/7
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objective examples of the way certain commitments have been scheduled in the light of the
guidelines.
5. Members approved these proposals with two additional suggestions:  for each problem
reference should be made to the relevant sections of the scheduling guidelines;  and recourse should
be made to the preparatory documents of the scheduling guidelines issued during the Uruguay round.
It was agreed that the collective reading would take place on the basis of the Secretariat note.  It wasalso agreed that the note of the Secretariat should deal with scheduling problems that were not fully
addressed by the existing scheduling guidelines (such as the lack of technical feasibility or licensing
requirements) and would be of an informal technical nature, and therefore would not interpret in any
way the commitments.
III. ADOPTION OF THE ANNUAL REPORT
6. The Committee discussed and modified the draft report to the Council for Trade in Services
contained in document S/CSC/W/18.  The adopted report is contained in document S/CSC/3 dated2 December 1998.
IV. OTHER BUSINESS
7. The Chairman indicated it would consult on the date and agenda (notably in terms of sectors
to be studied) of the next meeting.
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