RESTRICTEDWORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONS/CSC/M/27
15 April 2003
(03-2095)
Committee on Specific Commitments
REPORT OF THE MEETING HELD ON 27 FEBRUARY 2003
Note by the Secretariat1
1. The Committee on Specific Commitments held a meeting on 27 February 2003.  The agenda
for the meeting is contained in WTO/AIR/2034.  No points were raised under Other Business.
A. C LASSIFICATION ISSUES
2. The Chairperson recalled that a substantive discussion on the classification of computer and
related services had been held during the December meeting of the Committee, on the basis of papers
submitted by the European Communities (S/CSC/W/35) and Chinese Taipei (S/CSC/W/37).  At thatmeeting, also the structure of future work on classification issues had been discussed.  Some
delegations had mentioned that certain requests they had received suggested the use of a specific
classification for some sectors, and that in some cases discussions on classification of sectors took
place in small "friends groups".  The view had been expressed that such discussions should be
channelled into the Committee on Specific Commitments (CSC) in order to arrive at a widely sharedand uniform classification of sectors, which would ensure certainty and predictability of
commitments.  Lastly, upon request by the Committee, the Secretariat had updated the compendium
of classification proposals and had added references to the discussions on the various classification
subjects.  The revised compendium was available as document JOB (02)/143/Rev.1.
3. The Chairperson opened the floor for comments and follow-up reactions on the discussion on
computer and related services, as well as for any comments on classification issues pertaining to other
sectors.  He also encouraged delegations to share their views on how the work of the Committeeshould evolve over the next months.  In particular, he wondered whether (i) Members saw a need for
any additional background documents in addition to the compendium, and whether (ii) there was
interest in an informal meeting on classification before the next formal meeting in May.
4. The representative of Hong Kong, China stated that it was highly desirable for common
classifications to be used by as many Members as possible so as to ensure the comparability of
commitments.  In this regard, her delegation reiterated its previous call for Members who were
working on classification issues in various sectors outside the CSC to share their work in the
Committee from time to time.  While the discussion on classification continued, she was mindful of
the need for Members, when tabling their initial offers, to provide clear descriptions and definitions
for the sectors that were covered.  This was in particular important for those sectors scheduled withoutW/120 or CPC references, so as to ensure sufficient clarity in the scope of the offers.  Another
concern was the impact of any new classifications on existing commitments.  Now that Members had
agreed to work on the basis of consolidated schedule s, one would need to be mindful of the impact of
new classifications on the existing commitments so as to ascertain that Members' existing rights and
obligations would not be impaired by schedu ling of commitments on the basis of differing
                                                     
1 This document has been prepared under the Secretariat's own responsibility and without prejudice to
the positions of Members and to their rights and obligations under the WTOS/CSC/M/27
Page 2
classifications.  In such cases, it would therefore be essential that the Members concerned insert CPC
reference codes in the new commitments for comparison and clarification purposes.
5. Picking on some comments made by delegations during the last meeting, she agreed that it
would be useful for Members to prioritise their work to an extent and to identify sectors for which
further work on classification was needed more imminently.  While the Committee should not excludeother sectors, it might be useful to focus on certain sectors for the time being.  The Secretariat might
be asked to undertake analytical work in respect of the various classification issues, i.e. to analyse the
technical differences between the various proposals on the table and the implications for the
scheduling of commitments.  Of course, such work, if undertaken, should be of a purely technical
nature with a view to assisting Members to take a more informed decision with regard to the use of
classification for their own scheduling of commitments.  She was interested to hear the views of other
Members on this suggestion.
6. The representative of the United States believed that the compendium which had been
prepared and revised by the Secretariat appeared to precisely identify the different proposals with a
short summary.  The Committee therefore already had a basis on which it could conduct its work.
7. The representative of Chinese Taipei noted that her request to include references to each
proposal contained in the compendium had been implemented and was quite useful for her delegation.
8. The representative of Canada, commenting on the suggestion by Hong Kong, China, stated
that it was his delegation's preference that any analysis be undertaken by Members within the CSC on
the basis of Members' proposals.
9. The representative of Argentina stated that each proposal that had been submitted by the
delegations contained an analysis of the proposed classification.  However, there were proposals and
counter-proposals on the table, and analytical work by the Secretariat might lead to conclusions that
were more than simply technical.  He requested Hong Kong, China to clarify further what was to be
included in the envisaged analytical work.  Should it be a technical analysis and assessment of
classifications, as some delegations had suggested in their proposals?  Or was it a further development
and elaboration of the compendium that was already on the table?
10. The representative of Hong Kong China stated that she concurred that any analysis by the
Secretariat should be a purely technical one. Her delegation was not trying to ask the Secretariat to
use any value judgments.  The idea was simply to ask the Secretariat to analyse the technical
differences between the different proposals on the table and the implications for the scheduling of
commitments.
11. The representative of the European Communities joined those delegations which had
questions about the Secretariat conducting any analysis at this stage. Perhaps Members might want to
think about another informal classification meeting before the formal meeting in May.  Such an
informal meeting could be a good way for delegations to exchange views and to try to see if they
could come up with a common understanding which might then help others to move forward in
different areas.
12. The Chairperson stated that he would consult on the question of holding another informal
meeting.  He suggested that the Committee take note of the proposal by Hong Kong, China, as well as
the statements made and revert to the item at the next meeting.
13. The Committee so agreed.S/CSC/M/27
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B. MATTERS RELATING TO THE SCHEDULING OF COMMITMENTS
14. A representative of the Secretariat stated the Trade in Services Division had prepared 67 draft
consolidated schedules and had converted another 62 into Word format.  There were three Members
who had indicated that they wished to carry out the consolidation of their schedules themselves,
namely the EC, India, and the US.  The Secretariat had received the consolidated schedule of theUnited States which had been circulated recently as document S/DCS/W/USA.  Members had noticed
that a new document symbol, namely S/DCS/W had been used for the consolidation exercise.  Each
Member was identified through the ISO-Alpha-3 code, which was also used in the WTO in accession
negotiations – the 3 letters indicating the name of the country or Member.  Due to the large number of
pages that were involved in the consolidation exercise, there had been no paper distribution of the
consolidated schedules.  Rather, the schedules were circulated to delegations on CD-ROM, and they
were of course also available on the DDF and WTO web-site.  The S/DCS/W document series was aone-off series, and was not going to be a continuing document series for the future.  Some delegations
had detected errors in their draft consolidated schedules.  These errors would be corrected and new
versions indicating the exact changes on the cover page would be put on the DDF.  In addition, once
sufficient time for feedback by delegations had passed, and the Secretariat felt confident that there
were no other errors, a revised CD-ROM would be issued which would be made available to all
Members.  There were, of course, also paper copies available upon request.
15. The representative of India informed the Committee that his delegation had completed its
work and would be submitting its consolidated schedule very soon.
16. The representative of the European Communities stated that her delegation was continuing its
work; she hoped that the EC would have its consolidated schedule available fairly soon.
17. Reverting to the discussion on approaches to the scheduling of additional commitments under
Article XVIII of the GATS, the Chairperson recalled that the Committee had held two interesting
discussions on the subject in October and December last year.  He requested delegations to considerwhether any follow-up work was required at this time.
18. The representative of Argentina sought clarification on some of the points raised by
delegations at the last meeting.  When speaking of commitments under Article XVIII, some Members
had stated that additional commitments, given their nature, would add to and increase liberalisation
and would not introduce any additional restrictions.  He had doubts as to the limits of additional
commitments.  For example, if a minimum capital requirement was bound under an additional
commitment, it could be argued that such a requirement did not increase liberalisation but rather
constituted a restriction.  Conversely, it could be said that the requirement being bound did in fact add
to liberalisation because it meant that the Member concerned could not increase the capitalrequirement beyond the amount bound in the schedule.  Did an additional commitment always add to
further liberalisation?
19. A representative of the Secretariat stated that Article XVIII did not contain any obligations as
such.  It only provided a legal framework to negotiate new obligations as long as these did not relate
to measures falling within the scope of Articles XVI and XVII.  Often, obligations were expressed in
terms of binding certain measures such as minimum capital requirements.  As long as such measures
were non-discriminatory, they were not captured by Article XVII, and of course measures such as
minimum capital requirements did not fall under any of the categories of Article XVI:2 either.  If one
wanted to undertake an additional commitment regarding minimum capital requirements, one could
either pledge not to use minimum capital requiremen ts at all, which would be an obligation towards
further liberalisation, or one could set a certain ceiling for minimum capital requirements which
would guarantee that no more onerous requiremen ts would be imposed than those set out in theS/CSC/M/27
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schedule.  Whether the commitment was expressed in positive or in negative terms was a question of
form and not one of substance.
20. The Chairperson concluded that, at present, there was little scope for additional work, and
suggested that the discussion on this item be concluded for the time being.  He noted that any Member
who would like to follow up on any of the issues ma y request that the item be put back on the agenda
of the Committee.
21. It was so agreed.
C. PROCEDURES FOR THE SUBMISSION AND CIRCULATION OF INITIAL OFFERS – STATEMENT BY
THE CHAIRPERSON
22. The Chairperson recalled that paragraph 15 of the Doha Declaration foresaw that initial offers
in the services negotiations would be submitted by 31 March 2003.  As the current meeting of the
Committee was the last meeting before that date, he wanted to recall a few points from earlierdiscussions regarding the technical side of the submission and circulation of initial offers.  As agreed
in the Committee, initial offers would be submitted on the basis of the draft consolidated schedules
which had been circulated in electronic format.  It was expected that Members used the editorial
conventions contained in the note by the Secretariat (JOB (02)/88) to introduce different types of
amendments to their draft consolidated schedules.  The initial offers would be submitted to theSecretariat in electronic format for circulation to all participants.  Unless otherwise indicated by the
participant concerned, initial offers would be circulated and treated in the WTO documentation
system as restricted documents and would remain restricted until Members decided to derestrict these
documents.  The draft offers would be translated into all official WTO languages.  They would be
circulated in a new document series with the sym bol TN/S/O/ followed by the ISO-Alpha-3 code for
the respective participant.  Revised offers would be circulated as revisions of the same documents.
The Alpha-3 codes had already been used for the symbols of the draft consolidated schedules.  The
Chairperson stated that these points had also been circulated as a note from the Chairperson in
JOB (03)/38.
23. Further to a question by the representative of Canada, a representative of the Secretariat
 stated
that initial offers that were received in proper electronic format should appear on the DDF within 24
to 48 hours.  In reply to a question from the representative of Mexico, he stated that the timeframe for
circulation did not include translation to any of the other two official languages.  The Secretariatwould try to secure translation as quickly as possible, but Members were of course aware that a
multitude of documents were submitted to the translation section, and that priority was assigned to
certain documents because of legally imposed deadlines, such as in dispute settlement.
24. The representative of the United States stated that her delegation recognised that in paragraph
16 of the negotiating guidelines and procedures, Members had agreed to use the subsidiary bodies to
their maximum capacity; she believed that the Special Session was the appropriate forum to come up
with more formalised procedures concerning issues related to the request-offer negotiations.  She was
seeking clarification as to how the highest degree of complementarity between the work of the CSC
and the Special Session could be achieved.
25. A representative of the Secretariat stated that the Chairman's note related merely to the
mechanics of the process in terms of determining the format of the draft offers, and their circulation.
It built upon the work that had been done in the Committee in relation to the consolidation of
schedules, the organisation of documents series, and its relation to the documentation system of the
WTO.  Of course, all substantive aspects of the request-offer process in general were a matter ofnegotiation under the auspices of the Special Session.S/CSC/M/27
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D. DATE OF NEXT MEETING
26. The Chairperson proposed that, in accordance with the practice of grouping meetings of
subsidiary bodies close to meetings of the Council, the next formal meeting be held during the week
of the next formal meeting of the Council for Trade in Services in May 2003.
27. The Committee so agreed.
E. OTHER BUSINESS
28. No points were raised under Other Business.
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