RESTRICTED
WORLD TRADE S/CSC/W/10
10October 1997
ORGANIZATION(97-4366)
Committee onSpecific Commitments
ANNOTATED AGENDA FOR THE FOURTH MEETING OF
THE COMMITTEE ONSPECIFIC COMMITMENTS
Theproposed agenda forthemeeting oftheCommittee onSpecific Commitments on
29October 1997hasbeencirculated inWTO/AIR/697. Thisannotated agenda provides background
information oneachagenda item.
A. Classification Issues
I. ASSESSMENT OFTHERELEVANCE OFTHEADOPTION OFCPCREVISION 1FOR
TRADE NEGOTIATING PURPOSES
1. Atitslastmeeting theCommittee hadafirstgeneral discussion onclassification issues, but
nodetailed discussion hasyettaken place ontherevision oftheCPC nomenclature onthebasis of
document S/CSC/W/6 andS/CSC/W/6/Add.1 to5.
2. InadditiontothosedocumentstheSecretariathassinceproducedtwootherdocumentsinresponse
torequests made byMembers: S/CSC/W/7 "Summary oftheMain Changes Resulting from CPC
Rev1"andS/CSC/W/9 "AQualitative Assessment oftheRelevance oftheChanges Resulting from
CPCRev1ForTrade Negotiating Purposes" inthesectors ofenergy, construction, distribution, tourism
andtransport).
3. Asagreed atthelastmeeting representatives oftheUnited Nations Statistical Division (UNSD)
andoftheVoorburg Group havebeeninvited toattend thismeeting. They willdescribe thestateof
work onCPC rev1anditsbasic underlying principles andanswer Members 'questions.
4. Itissuggested thattheCommittee should thendiscuss therelevance ofCPCrev1toitswork.
II. TREATMENT OFNEW SERVICES
5. Atthelastmeeting theCommittee hadafirstdiscussion ofthequestion ofthetreatment of
newservices (reflected inS/CSC/M/3 paragraphs 4to15).TheChairman thenundertook tocirculate
anInformal Note collating themain ideas expressed. Thisinformal notehasbeen distributed as
JobNo.5719 dated 10October 1997.
III. "ADHOC" SECTORAL SCHEDULING
6. Thisquestion wasalsodiscussed atthelastmeeting. (SeeS/CSC/M/3 paragraphs 23to26).
Itwasagreed toexamine previous experience ofdepartures fromthestandard scheduling model based
ontheCPC, though thegeneral approach should notbeadhocinnature. TheSecretariat hastherefore
prepared abackground noteontheuseofspecial classification methods forthescheduling of
commitmentsinthesectorsofairtransport,financialservices,telecommunicationsandmaritimetransport
(S/CSC/W/11).
./.S/CSC/W/10
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B. Procedural andCost Implications oftheDevelopment ofElectronically Aggregated and
Maintained Services Schedules
7. Onthebasis oftheCommittee 'sdiscussion ofproposals contained indocument S/CSC/W/5
theSecretariat hasprepared anewdocument (S/CSC/W/8) concerning thetiming andbudgetary
implications oftheproposals.
C. Scheduling Guidelines
8. Itwasagreed atthelastmeeting thatthescheduling guidelines needed revision. TheChairman
invited delegations tosubmit inwriting anyviews onscheduling difficulties thattheyhadencountered
andwhattheyconsidered tobethemainshortcomings ofthepresent scheduling guidelines. Aninformal
paper submitted bySwitzerland wascirculated on7October 1997 (JobNo.5628). TheSecretariat
hasalsocirculated ashort paper ontheorigins ofthepresent scheduling guidelines (S/CSC/W/12).
D. Statistics
9. Itwasagreed atthelastmeeting thatthequestion ofstatistics should bekeptontheagenda
inorder tomonitor progress. Theonlydevelopment thathasoccurred sinceistherequest, bytheCouncil
forTrade inServices, intheframework oftheexchange ofinformation exercise, ofapaper bythe
Secretariat onservices tradeflows. Thispaper, which willprovide anindication ofthestatistics currently
available andofthose thatarelikely tobecome available, isinpreparation. Asrequested during the
lastmeeting the1996 Secretariat document onstatistics (S/C/W/5) hasbeenrecirculated.