. /.WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONS/CSS/4
8 December 2000
(00-5352)
Council for Trade in Services
Special Session
STATEMENT BY THE CHAIRMAN OF THE COUNCIL FOR
TRADE IN SERVICES TO THE GENERAL COUNCIL
6 DECEMBER 2000
1. Since my last report to the General Council, the Council for Trade in Services in Special
Session held two meetings on 1 December and 5-6 December 2000.  The first meeting was  devoted tothe modalities for the treatment of autonomous lib eralization pursuant to Article XIX of the GATS.
The agenda, as set out in WTO/AIR/1450, was adopted.  Submissions were tabled by Hong Kong,
China, in document Job No. 7580, and by Korea, in document Job No. 7634 and Addendum 1.
Members indicated that the issue was complex and required more discussion.
2. The second was a meeting of the Special Session of the Council held on 5 and 6
December 2000.  The agenda, as set out in WTO/AIR/1455 and Corr.1 was adopted.
3. Under item A, on negotiating guidelines and procedures pursuant to Article XIX of the
GATS, Members continued discussion of the papers which had been tabled at the previous Special
Session, namely the Communication from Mauritius on behalf of the African Group (S/CSS/W/7) and
the Secretariat note contained in document J ob No. 5658.  The Council also discussed additional
proposals presented by a  group of 23 developing countries in document S/CSS/W/13, by Korea in
document S/CSS/W/14, and by Switzerland in document S/CSS/W/16.
4. The discussion on negotiating guidelines and procedures covered all the submissions made by
more than 60 Members.  The proposal made by the group of 23 developing countries was in the form
of a draft text of the guidelines and was consid ered by some to be the most advanced proposal
submitted so far on the subject.  At the end of the discussion, Members agreed that the Secretariat
should prepare a first draft of the negotiating guidelines and procedures, on the basis of all written andoral inputs received, well in advance of the next Special Session meeting in March 2001.
5. Under issues relating to the negotiations under Article XIX of the GATS, Members reverted
to proposals tabled at the previous meeting, as well as three new submissions, by India on the
liberalization of movement of natural persons under the GATS, by the EC on an overall approach to
the negotiations, and by Australia on the liberalization of telecommunication services.  There was alsoa paper prepared by the Secretariat on the consolidation of schedules of concessions under the GATT
at the end of previous rounds of negotiations.
6. Under the assessment of trade in services, the Council received a joint submission by
Slovenia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Poland and the Slovak Republic, on the consequences of services
liberalization in certain transition economies.  It also  considered a paper by the Secretariat updating a
previous paper on services statistics (S/C/W/27/A dd.1).  Under the agenda item relating to tourism,
communications were submitted by the Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Honduras and Panama.
These can be found in  documents S/CSS/W/9 and 19.S/CSS/4
Page 2
7. With regard to future meetings, the Special Session took note of a provisional schedule of
meetings for the year 2001.   Subject to confirmation, meetings will be held in the periods:  19-
30 March;  9-18 May;  9-17 July;  1-9 and 12 October, and 26 November - 7 December.  In addition,
it was agreed that a day and a half symposium on tourism services will be held on 27 and 28 February
2001.
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