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S/CSC/M/74  
 
27 November 2015  
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Committee on Specific Commitments    
 
 REPORT OF THE MEETING HELD ON 14 OCTOBER 2015 
NOTE BY THE SECRETARIAT1 
The Committee on Specific Commitments (CSC) held a meeting on 14 October 2015, chaired by 
Ms. Brigitte Lüth from Austria. The agenda for the meeting, contained in WTO/AIR/CSC/3, was 
adopted.  
1  ITEM A - ADOPTION OF THE ANNUAL REPORT TO THE COUNCIL FOR TRADE IN 
SERVICES 
1.1.  The Chairperson drew attention to the draft annual report to the Council for Trade in 
Services, which was contained in document S/CSC/W/64. There was no comment on the draft. The 
report was then adopted. 
2  ITEM B - CLASSIFICATION ISSUES 2.1.  The Chairperson recalled that at its last meeting in June 2015, the Committee had continued 
to review the issue of "new services". There were divergent views on whether "new services" 
existed and whether a definition of "new serv ices" was needed. As Members had identified a 
number of services that were not explicitly referred to in either W/120 or the CPC Provisional, she 
suggested having technical discussions with a view to acquiring a better understanding of those 
complex services. In this context, the delegation of China had suggested that the Committee invite experts from the United Nations Statistics Division to give a presentation on the gaps between the 
CPC Provisional and the CPC Version 2, for the purpose of information sharing. After consultations, 
it had been agreed that the proposed presentation would be delivered to the Committee at this 
meeting. This would be done through a video conference with a CPC expert from the UN headquarter in New York, Mr. Ralf Becker, Chief of the Industry and Energy Section within the 
UN Statistics Division. She then invited Mr. Ralf Becker to give the presentation.  
2.2.  The representative of the UN Statistics Divi sion indicated that the work of his Division was 
purely for statistical purposes, covering not only the CPC, but also other classifications, and that 
his presentation was also from the statistics perspective. International work on statistical 
classifications was coordinated by the Expert Group on International Statistical Classification, which set up a technical subgroup for the CPC. In this context, new developments and revisions or 
updates of classification were addressed with emphasis on increased harmonization of 
classifications and concepts. This was because changes in one classification might affect others, 
and new concepts should be introduced in a consistent way. The family of international statistical classifications included those that were internationally accepted as standard classifications in a 
wide range of statistical domains. CPC was a member of the family. Classifications were evaluated 
against strict classification criteria set by the Expert Group to ensure methodological soundness and consistency among international classifications.  
2.3.  CPC served as a "central" classification of  products, which required links to other product 
classifications such as HS, SITC, BOP, EBOPS. It pr ovided classification of all outputs of economic 
activities (production) as defined in the System  of National Accounts (SNA). It also provided 
definitions of services (reference services). CPC covered "products", i.e. the outputs of economic 
activities, but market value was not a criterion for the CPC. For instance, by-products and waste 
                                               
1 This document has been prepared under the Secret ariat's own responsibility and is without prejudice 
to the positions of Members or to thei r rights and obligations under the WTO. S/CSC/M/74 
 
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  were included in the CPC. Produced assets were also included as output of a production process. 
The CPC, therefore, covered both goods and serv ices. With certain exceptions, goods definitions 
were to a large extent based on the Harmonized System (HS); services were defined only in the CPC. In other words, the CPC was the only system  that provided detailed definitions of services. 
There were products that did not fit in either the goods or services definition, for example, 
originals (design, artistic originals, software originals, R&D originals), and on-line content. They were still covered in the CPC and often led to interpretation issues. The CPC was subject to 
updating or revision, taking into consideration changes in the HS, in the industry classification as 
well as in the economy. While the HS affected sections 0-4 of the CPC, changes in the industry classification affected all of the CPC. Considering changes in the industry classification were necessary to ensure that outputs of all industries, especially new or redefined industries could be 
appropriately described. Changes in the economy we re the most important inputs for the updating 
of services sectors of the CPC, which were ba sed on country experiences in data collection, 
observation of new methods of production, and em ergence of new products. Since the Provisional 
CPC of 1989, there were several revisions: CPC Ver.1.0 (1998), CPC Ver.1.1 (2002), CPC Ver.2.0 
(2008) and CPC Ver.2.1 (2015). CPC Ver.1.0 and Ver. 2.0 contained major additions of services categories. New categories related to IT or online activities were introduced in CPC Ver.2.0. There 
were correspondence tables between versions, which became less useful when multiple versions 
were spanned and concepts changed dramatically.  
2.4.  For many goods and services, finding the righ t category to classify them was straightforward 
as they were explicitly mentioned in the CPC or clearly part of a large group of goods or services 
mentioned in the CPC. There were general application rules elaborated in the CPC Introduction 
which guided the decision process for all products. For goods, these rules were consistent with the rules applied in the HS. In difficult situations, the Technical Subgroup or the Expert Group could 
make a classification decision based the above rules. Common problems arising in the application 
of CPC to services mainly consisted of two catego ries. One category related to products that were 
provided in bundles. When classifying bundled services, the general rules applied and priority was 
given to separating them into components. While identifying components might not be difficult, 
evaluation often became a problem. For example, a cell phone contract was a bundled product from the consumer's perspective, which consisted of a cell phone, a physical product and a package of services. The statistical approach was to separate this into two different products, but 
the pricing of each individual component of services was a major challenge for statisticians. The 
other category of problems in classification was related to a grey area, so-called "new services". It was not an official terminology, and statisticians did not treat anything as new. Some online or IT-
based activities were often misinterpreted by us ers as "new". The general rules still applied to 
these services, i.e. to look at the categories th at most resembled the services provided. Since the 
CPC was a classification of all products, theoretically there was a place for all of them in each 
version. Not all services could be explicitly listed in the CPC, but they were still part of the existing 
categories. Concerning so-called "new services", there was a need to distinguish what made those services "new". Services provided through new me ans of delivery were classified as the same 
categories as those delivered through traditional means. This conformed to the general application 
rules. If there was a need to separately identify different means of delivery for statistical purposes, 
new sub-categories could be created in a revision process. With respect to services for which no "traditional equivalent" seemed to exist, they were classified according to those they most 
resembled, taking into account the type of the products delivered and the use of the services. 
There could not be a single grouping for such services. This also conformed to the general application rules. For example, in CPC Ver.2.1 there were places for search engines (84394 Web 
search portal content), Internet access services (8422 Internet access services, 84221 
Narrowband Internet access services and 84222 Broadband Internet access services), cloud computing, web hosting and application hosting (8315 Hosting and information technology infrastructure provisioning services, 83151 We bsite hosting services, 83152 Application service 
provisioning, 83159 Other hosting and IT infrastructure provisioning services). The following 
correspondence table showed how these services might be translated in the preceding versions. S/CSC/M/74 
 
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CPC Ver.2.1 
 CPC 
Ver. 2 CPC 
Ver. 1.1 CPC 
Ver. 1.0 CPC 
prov. CPC 
prov. Title 
Search engines      
84394 Web search portal 
content 84394 84300 84300 84400 Data base services 
Internet access services      
8422 Internet access services      
84221 Narrowband Internet 
access services 84221 84220 84200 75231 
75232 Data network services 
Electronic message and 
information services 
84222 Broadband Internet 
access services 84222 84220 84200 (as above) (as above) 
Cloud computing, Web 
hosting, application 
hosting      
8315 Hosting and information 
technology (IT) infrastructure 
provisioning services      
83151 Website hosting 
services 83151 85960 85960 84310 
84320 84330 Input preparation services 
Data processing and 
tabulation services 
Time sharing services 
83152 Application service 
provisioning 83152 85960 85960 (as above) (as above) 
83159 Other hosting and IT 
infrastructure provisioning services 83159 85960 85960 (as above) (as above) 
 
2.5.   After revisions over the last 25 years, CPC Ver. 2.1 explicitly captured most services that 
might be perceived as "new". Previous versions especially the Provisional CPC could not address 
them in the same way. The UN Statistics Division did not actively provide interpretations for 
inactive classifications. Correspondence tables existed between subsequent versions of the 
classification. Theoretically, these could be li nked to providing a correspondence between CPC 
Ver. 2.1 and the Provisional CPC (and by extension W/120). Since most services were easy to 
identify in CPC 2.1, this would provide one option of obtaining a CPCprov. Code. Linked 
correspondence tables could be used to identify a code in the Provisional CPC for a given service. 
However, there were potential difficulties wi th this approach. Certain concepts or our 
understanding thereof had changed over time. As the above table indicated, many services might 
appear as "Database services" (84400) in the Provis ional CPC. In addition, services did not always 
represent the activity of a unit. For example, th e main income of publishing, TV, or web portals 
was from providing advertising space or time, but this did not make these units advertising 
companies. While the resulting categories in the Provisional CPC might be very general in nature 
and possibly not focused on the desired services, th ey might still be correct in using the concept 
available at the time of drafting the Provisional CPC. Certain outputs might be neither goods nor 
services, such as content which might be linked to CPCprov. 84400.  
2.6.  In conclusion, recently emerged services were explicitly covered in the latest versions of the 
CPC. Separate identification of such services in the CPC was based on statistical needs, not simply on changes in technology. They were naturally not clearly referred to in the Provisional CPC. 
Correspondence tables could provide a tool, but results were restricted by limited details of the 
Provisional CPC in many areas. Delegations could visit http://unstats.un.org/unsd/class/default  for 
further information. 
2.7.  In regard to the presentation, the repres entative of China raised two questions. On the 
statement that market value was not a criterion for including a product in the CPC, he wondered 
how a specific product or a specific service could be reflected statistically if it had no market value. 
The other question was related to hybrid services such as social media. It was a bundle of 
services, and as indicated in the presentation, th ere were services that did not always represent 
the activity of a unit, and social media might be a very good example in this regard. The services S/CSC/M/74 
 
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  provided by social media websites were free, but social media companies like Facebook and 
Twitter were highly profitable with a market value of hundreds of billions of dollars. The profits of 
social media companies came from various channels. When collecting statistics for such services, one might need to look at a number of services bundled together. He asked what was the key 
element of social media services and whether the UN Statistics Division had an estimation of the 
global value of social media services. 
2.8.  Concerning the question on market value, the representative of the UN Statistics Division 
stated that statistics were supposed to cover all outputs of economic activities, which would 
include those products without market value. They could be measured in more physical terms. For instance, waste products could be measured in tons of certain waste that had been used or processed. This type of information was very usef ul for environmental statistics. For services that 
were provided for free, there were also physical measures available, for instance, the number of 
hours spent providing counselling to people or the number of people that had received these social 
services even though the face value of such services was zero. For statistical purposes, one had to 
attach a value to it and often this value was being imputed by the cost of producing the service. 
So there were statistical methods to measure various types of services that might not have a market value.  
2.9.  Social media was an example where a mix of services was provided. For instance, when 
applying the CPC to Facebook, one would have to l ook at each individual service involved. A lot of 
these companies were involved in some forms of publishing of information; their major income was from the provision of advertising space or time. This was certainly a service that had to be 
measured and was measureable: it could be reported by those companies. For published content 
which was free for users, it was more difficult to establish the measure of this service. One could again go back to physical measures looking at how much information was being downloaded, or 
how many users were involved. Right now there was no section in the UNSD that dealt with this 
particular type of issue. A service program was st ill under discussion in order to address some of 
these issues, such as the case of social media. He was unaware of any measure that could 
describe the global value of social media services which was a mix of different services those 
companies provided. Grouping them together was a description of the total output of an economic 
unit, not a description of services. Facebook and other companies could provide data on their economic production, inputs, labour cost, etc. as part of the regular economic statistics.  
2.10.  The representative of Switzerland agreed that there was hardly such thing as a really new 
service. In most cases it was an old service provid ed in a different way. Regarding social services, 
he also agreed that they were a group of different  types of services. That said, he doubted to what 
extent social services were really new. Those services had actually existed before Internet 
appeared, such as services in radio programs, magazines, or meeting clubs to help people socialise, either free of charge or on a commercial basis. 
2.11.  The representative of the UN Statistics Division understood that the intervention by 
Switzerland was about whether there was a traditional equivalent to social media services so that 
people would classify them accordingly. When looking at some of the social media services, it was difficult to say whether they were a continuation of what had existed before, such as membership 
clubs where services were provided to support the interest of a certain group of people. The 
commercial aspect of the operation of social media was completely different from that of membership clubs. A membership club did not get its major income from advertising services, but 
social media's income mainly came from the sale of advertising space and time. This was a 
characteristic of a lot of publishing activities. In the discussions of the Technical Subgroup, these types of units were treated as publishing companies not as an extension or a newer form of 
membership organization, because publishing was at  the core of their operation. They obtained 
content from others together with the right to use and republish the content. This was what they did and was the business model through which they obtained their income. This was a decision on the side of the industry classification where the co mpany was classified as a whole. With respect to 
the CPC, the company was not classified as a whole, given that the company might provide many 
different individual products. Advertising services, the sale of advertising time and space, counted for the major income of such companies. On line content was the services these companies 
provided to their users.  
2.12.  The representative of Hong Kong, China noted that based on the presentation, all services 
were covered in the classification and that new services did not exist. The fact that a service was S/CSC/M/74 
 
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  not explicitly listed in the CPC did not mean that it qualified as a new service. She asked whether 
the source of income was a criterion for classification. If the market value of a service was not a criterion for classification, why was the source of income being taken into account as a criterion for classification. In the old days television broadcasting services were provided to the audience for 
free and income also came from advertising. So the business mode of social media services was, in 
that regard, not new.  
2.13.  The representative of the UN Statistics Division said that a distinction was made between 
the classification of companies, i.e. industry cl assification, and the classification of individual 
outputs. The valuation and the source of income was taken into consideration in the classification of companies, as everything a unit did needed to  be given a code. For instance, a TV company was 
treated as a TV program provider whose income sources might be advertising, subscription, or 
government subsidies. But having income from advertising services did not make it an advertising 
company. For a TV company, or an enterprise sim ilar to social media, its main income was through 
a service of providing advertising space or time. The services that advertising companies provided 
were different. Advertising companies did not provide the space or time for advertising, though 
they might buy and resell or arrange for clients the use of advertising time or space. While it was correct that every service was in the CPC, not everything was explicit. Once services became 
important enough, a separate category was created for statistical purposes in order to measure 
them separately. In the Technical Subgroup discuss ion, similarities between TV and social media 
had been noted in the sense that they provided information to users for free. It had also been 
noted that receiving income through advertising fees was typical for publishers. Social media 
companies actually received income through the provision of advertising space and time. The 
provision of information to the users was not important for statistical purposes as there was no money yet attached. Therefore, in the industry classification, social media companies were treated 
as publishing companies. Concerning the CPC, what was relevant was not what the unit did as a 
whole, but rather every individual output that th e company provided. There were categories in the 
CPC that could be used but right now there was no evaluation for it because the services were still 
being provided for free. 
2.14.  The Chairperson thanked Mr. Becker again fo r his excellent presentation and answers to the 
questions. She recalled that Members had diverg ent views about the nature of cloud computing 
services. The debate on cloud computing actually po inted to a key question in classification which 
needed to be clarified: what determined the natu re of a service under the GATS? As Mr. Berker's 
presentation had confirmed, the GATS classifica tion system classified services based on the 
outputs, i.e. products of relevant economic activities. She invited delegates to consider whether 
this meant that the central feature or the essential function of a service defined the nature of the 
service and whether this could also be applied to  services consisting of different components, 
so-called bundled services. 
2.15.  The representative of the European Union stated that while the Committee had had a good 
discussion on issues related to so-called new services, there was no need to proceed further with 
this item as it had been exhausted. 
2.16.  The representative of India reiterated what her delegation had stated in several previous 
meetings. The discussion on classification issues should not have any implications on existing 
commitments. The interpretation of existing commitm ents was to be dealt with in the WTO dispute 
settlement on a case-by-case basis should the need arise. New services should not affect existing 
commitments, as it was presumed that Members had undertaken commitments based on a 
positive list approach and based on their stage of development. The fundamental philosophy of the 
GATS was to provide flexibility to Members to choos e the services they wanted to commit to out of 
the available list of services, based on their readiness. In accordance with the flexibility of 
progressive liberalization, various Members had made commitments in the services sectors of their choice. If existing commitments were made applicab le to new services, it might be contrary to the 
fundamental philosophy of the GATS.  
2.17.  The representative of China echoed India's statement
. 
2.18.  The representative of Australia agreed with the EU that the Committee had probably 
exhausted everything on new services. It should consider other areas that might be appropriate 
for a useful discussion in the Committee next year. S/CSC/M/74 
 
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2.19.  Echoing the statement by India, the representative of Ecuador reiterated that the 
discussions being held on this particular issue could not be used officially to expand the commitments of members. 
2.20.  The representative of Chile noted that the presentation did not support the existence of new 
services as such, or services that would fall outside the scope of the CPC. Referring to the 
statement that the exercise in the Committee should not affect existing commitments, he thought 
this needed to be clarified. He understood that "affecting existing commitments" did not mean to 
reinterpret Members' commitments. The exercise was to allow Members to have a better understanding of what they had committed to. Otherwise, it would in effect be a veto of any discussion at the Committee, on ex isting or future commitments.  
2.21.  The representative of the European Union recalled his delegation's position expressed at the 
Committee's previous two meetings with respect to new services. The question was not whether 
existing commitments were extended to new services. It was now being slowly established that 
there were no new services. There were new modes of delivering and new technologies, which 
were all covered by the GATS. The GATS was technologically neutral, for example, mobile banking was not a new service, but a new way of providing banking services. What was more beneficial for 
the debate was to give up the notion of new se rvices and look at classification and the exact 
coverage of commitments. 
2.22.  The representative of Brazil reiterated his delegation's concerns with regards to the 
expansion of the scope of existing commitments. 
2.23.  The representative of India noted that th e work of the UNSD was purely for statistical 
purposes and that the presentation was from a statistical perspective. As indicated in the 
presentation, the classifications had been used in different contexts and in many areas. It was up 
to the people and the agencies that were using these classifications to put them in the relevant 
context and to interpret them in that relevant context. For statistical purposes the CPC might list all economic activities and almost each economic ac tivity could be linked to an older one. This did 
not mean that there were no new services. It was a matter of interpretation of commitments on 
the sectors that existed at the point of time wh en the commitments were undertaken. This should 
be dealt with through dispute settlement, not in this Committee. This Committee should not confer and interpret Members' commitments undertaken in the Uruguay round. 
2.24.  The representative of Canada fully support ed the previous intervention by the European 
Union. 
2.25.  The representative of Peru agreed that commitments were generally neutral. Commitments 
under Mode 1 should in no way be affected. 
2.26.  The representative of Switzerland drew atte ntion to the explanatory notes of the CPC, which 
were already included in the Provisional CPC. They set forth the principle of technological neutrality 
and the technique whereby a CPC heading covered a ll of the constituent services. This meant that 
not everything had to be explicitly mentioned in the classification and any service on the market could be classified somewhere in the CPC. This was not only the case now, but also for the future.  
2.27.  The representative of the United States referred to the statements that his delegation had 
made on the issue of new services in the previous  meetings and agreed with the above statements 
made by the European Union and Australia that the Committee had exhausted the topic. 
2.28.  The representative of China noted that in the area of financial services, according to the 
Understanding on Financial Services, a new financial service was a financial service that had not 
been provided in the host country, but already pr ovided in another country. In this sense a new 
service could be viewed as any service not provided in the host country. Another interpretation 
was that a new service was a service whose means of delivery had not been anticipated at the 
time when the commitments on the service had been undertaken. For instance, space travel might be part of transportation services, but how about time travel? Could one imagine that commitments on transportation services also covered time travel? S/CSC/M/74 
 
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  2.29.  The representative of India noted that Chin a had raised a very interesting point. Related to 
that point, she referred to some examples contained in the Secretariat Note JOB/SERV/189 which 
was the source of the current discussion. She drew attention to footnote 4 on page 2 of the Note which stated: "Switzerland, in its bilateral FTA with Japan and in the FTA between EFTA and Hong 
Kong China, has made a reservation on services not mentioned explicitly in the CPC ". It was 
important to consider things in their entirety. Sh e fully supported the point made by China on time 
travel. 
2.30.  The representative of Hong Kong, China agreed that the CPC and GATS commitments were 
time neutral and technologically neutral. There seemed to be the intention to bring into Members' 
commitments a temporal nature. It would be sad if any attempt to have a discussion on classification was viewed as a risk of reinterpreting Members' commitments and a subject for 
dispute settlement. If the CSC was not the forum for the discussion on classification, then its 
terms of reference would have to be amended. As the Chair had pointed out, this technical 
Committee's work was to support the very important function of this organization, i.e. negotiation; 
it would be very useful for Members to have some common understanding of services classification 
and commitments instead of leaving everything to dispute settlement. 
2.31.   The representative of China stated that the point he wanted to make with the example of 
time travel was that Members' commitments might be over-interpreted. Another example might be 
rail transport services on which many Members had undertaken commitments. Would the current commitments cover any future rail transport, including super rail transport from the earth to the moon, if it became scientifically possible one day? 
2.32.  The representative of Chile stated that despite how incredibly different time travel might 
seem from moving around in a bus, they basically did the same thing: moving people or goods 
from one place to another. So they were all transport services. Different business models or 
different ways to supply services did not necessarily lead to different services. While commitments 
were made at a certain point in time and under certain circumstances, it was incorrect to believe that those commitments were static and frozen in time. This did not mean that commitments 
might be read differently over time. Reality was much more complex than that, and there were 
elements that were permanent and elements th at were subject to change. Regulations might 
change, whereas the commitments on transport serv ices, be it "unbound" or "none", were what 
they were meant to be, whether travel ling through time or on a highway. 
2.33.  The representative of Canada said that the reason new financial services were defined in the 
Understanding on Financial Services was because there was a positive obligation to allow people to 
provide new services. Outside of that context, there was no value in trying to come up with a 
definition for new services. He was concerne d that Members started to interpret their 
commitments as only applying to services that had previously been supplied in their territory. This would severely narrow the scope of commitments and thus was undesirable. 
2.34.  The representative of the European Union stated that the discussion was about how to look 
at existing and future commitments and how to ad dress the technological neutrality of the GATS. 
The fact was that a commitment covered all means of delivery. For instance, was cloud computing covered by a commitment from 1994? The answer was yes. There was no time or technology 
dimension to the commitments which were all neutral. Similarly, a commitment on legal service 
taken at a time before environmental law was created, did not mean that it did not cover services on environmental law. 
2.35.  The representative of the Secretariat drew attention to a couple of documents that might be 
of useful guidance for discussion. One was a report of the Services Council, contained in document 
S/L/74 dated 27 July 1999, which examined how different GATS provisions would apply to e-
commerce. It was there that Members had agreed to the concept of technological neutrality. In a 
number of dispute cases, panels had addresse d the question of the sectoral scope of a 
commitment, in particular in the cases US – Gambling  and China – Audiovisual . In the latter case, 
the panel noted the distinction between a genuinely  new service and the supply of an old service 
through new technological means. S/CSC/M/74 
 
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  2.36.  The Chairperson stated that she would hold  consultations on the future work under this 
item. She then suggested that the Committee take no te of the statements made and revert to this 
item at its next meeting. 
2.37.  It was so agreed.  
3   ITEM C - SCHEDULING ISSUES 3.1.  The Chairperson recalled that the Secret ariat had circulated the summary of informal 
discussions on scheduling issues that had taken pl ace in 2005-2006. She had been consulting with 
Members on how the Committee could build on previous work and move forward under this 
agenda item. At the last meeting, a number of Members had expressed interest in having technical discussions on scheduling issues. One specific su ggestion had been to examine Economic Needs 
Tests (ENTs) as it had been noted that most ENTs in Members' schedules were inscribed with no 
criteria for application. 
3.2.  Noting that the Committee had done some work on ENTs in the past, including the Notes 
prepared by the Secretariat, the Chairperson invited Members to consider how to address the issue 
in order to add value to past work. One option would be to examine ENTs on a sector or mode 
basis to consider what kind of measures usually qualified as ENTs and which elements would normally constitute the criteria for assessing "economic needs". In addition to the issues raised in 
the past, Members had encountered some important scheduling issues in recent negotiations 
which had yet to be discussed in this Committee, such as requirements on data localization or 
concession. She also invited Members to consider the desirability of having technical discussions on these issues. 
3.3.  The representative of Turkey noted that her delegation had not inscribed any Mode 4 related 
ENT nor any quantitative limitations in its schedules. Turkey had doubts about the commercial 
value of commitments listed with ENTs which contained almost no information. She presumed that 
there was broad agreement within the Membership that lack of transparency with respect to the 
content of ENTs had chilling effects on the service suppliers. This was much more so in a mode of supply that was being neglected and impaired with discretionary entry and temporary stay related 
policies. Turkey had suggested that further work on ENTs might be helpful with a particular focus 
on Mode 4. This suggestion had been support ed by some Members while one Member had 
suggested to cover all modes of supply. As stated in the Secretariat’s Notes (S/CSS/W/118 and Add.1 to this document), 39 horizontal Mode 4 related ENTs and 45 sector specific ENTs were 
inscribed in Members’ schedules. A large number of ENTs inscribed in schedules provided no 
guidance concerning the underlying criteria. Even among those that provided certain indications, very few had specified the criteria according to the Scheduling Guidelines. The scheduling issues 
related to ENTs had been on the agenda of the Committee in 2011. Mode 4 related ENTs had been 
the focus of these discussions, but there had not been much contribution to the discussions other 
than from India, Canada, Australia, Switzerlan d and Turkey. The common observation stated by 
those Members had been the lack of transparency wi th regard to the objectives and criteria being 
applied, therefore the inconsistency with the Scheduling Guidelines undermined the value and 
predictability of the commitments. One Member had shared the idea of eliminating ENTs, underlining the need to specify remaining tests, i. e. the relevant criteria, implementation process 
and the authorities in charge. Another member had drawn attention to the plurilateral request on 
Mode 4 which stressed the need to remove or substantially reduce ENTs and to provide details relating to their application such as (1) the service sectors and occupations to which ENTs were to 
be applied; (2) the definition, criteria and conditions to be used; and (3) the duration of 
application. Previous discussions had also emph asized the need to strike a balance between 
specification, precision and the right to regulate. According to the Information Note by the 
Secretariat on 19 September 2005, ENTs had also been discussed in the past. One Member had 
suggested the idea of multilateral disciplines in the form of a Reference Paper which would address (i) the definition of ENTs; (ii) criteria for the introduction of ENTs; (iii) procedures for application; (iv) guidelines for administration of ENTs; transparency and full availability of information; and 
finally (v) duration and review of ENTs applicatio n. There were also papers of OECD and UNCTAD 
that dated back to 1999 and 2001 about Mode 3 and Mode 4 ENT entries in Schedules of WTO 
Members. Under this agenda item, a possible idea might be to explore whether Mode 4 related 
E N T s  w e r e  i n s c r i b e d  i n  g r e a t e r  d e t a i l  i n  R T A s .  T u r k e y  w a s  a l s o  o p e n  t o  w o r k  w i t h  i n t e r e s t e d  
Members who had specific suggestions to move forward the discussions. S/CSC/M/74 
 
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  3.4.  The representative of Canada said that his delegation was open to technical discussions 
regarding the scheduling of ENTs. Canada had also  noticed that not all Members had explicitly 
scheduled ENTs on Mode 4 covered categories where these ENTs were actually applied and practiced. This was of a concern to Canada. He encouraged Turkey to make a written proposal 
which would allow Members to have better clarity on the nature of the discussion and allow 
everyone to prepare accordingly. 
3.5.  The representative of India said that her delegation was open to a technical discussion on 
scheduling issues related to ENTs in Mode 4. A written proposal would facilitate Members to 
participate in this discussion.  
3.6.  Open to a technical discussion on ENTs, the representative of the European Union echoed the 
suggestion for a written proposal. The challenge of the discussion would be to draw the line 
between scheduling and market access. The di scussion should build upon the Scheduling 
Guidelines with an added value. The discussion should cover all modes of supply as well.  
3.7.  The representative of the United States also urged that the discussion on ENTs cover all 
modes of supply and that Turkey come up with a written proposal. 
3.8.  The representative of Brazil sought Member s' views on the role the Committee could play in 
clarifying some technical issues with regards to the scheduling in LDC waivers, especially in the 
current context of the negotiations leading to the Nairobi Ministerial. Currently, for Brazil, it was 
not straightforward to identify the preferences that  were being granted in the notifications without 
the schedules of commitments. This was not a proposal, but to raise Members' attention on certain technical work that could be done. 
3.9.  The representative of South Africa noted th at, as indicated in the annotated agenda for this 
meeting, most ENT related entries in Members' schedules were inscribed with no criteria for 
application and thus rendered the operation of ENTs non-transparent and unpredictable. The 
annotated agenda further indicated that there was less information about how scheduled ENTs 
were applied in practice as well as the procedures involved in the exercise. Against this background, South Africa supported Turkey's proposal to have technical discussions on scheduling 
issues, particularly with regards to the examin ation of Mode 4-related ENTs with a view to 
enhancing transparency in their application an d explore which approach the Committee should 
consider for scheduling ENTs. South Africa was also of the view that the review of ENTs should cover all modes of supply and not be exclusively done to Mode 4. 
3.10.  The representative of China supported a technical discussion on the issue of ENTs. Recalling 
that he frequently received questions from regulators seeking clarification on ENTs, he hoped that 
the discussion in the Committee could shed some light for his future work. 
3.11.  The representative of Australia said that her delegation was also very interested in technical 
work in this Committee on Economic Needs Tests, which should cover all modes of supply and not 
j u s t  M o d e  4 .  A n y  f u t u r e  w o r k  s h o u l d  b u i l d  o n  the important work that had been done by the 
Secretariat as mentioned in Turkey's intervention. Australia looked forward to a more detailed 
proposal on this topic in writing. In relation to Brazil's suggestion about potentially further work on the LDC waiver notifications, the Council for Trade in Services was probably a better forum for the discussion. 
3.12.  The representative of Hong Kong, China noted that her delegation also valued a technical 
discussion on ENTs, in particular on the specificity of ENTs in Members' schedules. Since ENTs 
were not confined to Mode 4, the problem of the lack of transparency or lack of details would be 
equally undesirable in all modes of supply. Hong Kong, China would prefer a discussion covering all 
four modes. 
3.13.  The representative of Chile said that his de legation shared interest in having discussions on 
ENTs which should cover all modes of supply. Chile would welcome a written contribution from 
Turkey. He sought clarifications from Brazil on its suggestion. 
3.14.  The representative of Switzerland indica ted that ENT was an important subject for his 
delegation as well, particularly in view of the cases where some big economies had undertaken S/CSC/M/74 
 
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  commitments without mentioning any criteria for ENTs, which might imply the possibility of closing 
markets. He therefore joined other delegations in  supporting the initiative of Turkey and looked 
forward to a more specific paper in this regard. 
3.15.  In response to Chile's enquiry, the representative of Brazil said that he was not making a 
proposal, rather an observation that this Committee could somehow contribute technically to the 
discussions on LDC waiver notifications as there were  difficulties in identifying preferences in some 
notifications, for example, "unbound" in both notifications and commitments. If some kind of 
clarification could be obtained in this Committee, it might be helpful to have a standard approach 
to the issue of LDC waiver. 
3.16.  The representative of Chile understood th at the example described by Brazil was in the 
context of a mode-to-mode comparison. Referring to  his delegation's notification, he suggested to 
identify preference on a sectoral basis. 
3.17.  The representative of Turkey thanked de legations for their support. She would take into 
consideration the suggestions and interest expres sed by Members. Noting that ENT entries in 
Members' schedules were under Modes 3 and 4, she wondered whether there were ENTs scheduled 
under Modes 1 and 2. 
3.18.  The representative of Hong Kong, China noted that according to the Secretariat Note 
(S/CSS/W/118 of 2001), there were in total 253 ENTs or entries resembling an ENT in Members 
schedules at that time, of which there were six entries under Mode 1, and four under Mode 2. 
3.19.  The representative of the Secretariat understood that the question from Turkey was 
whether the ENT entries were relating to Modes 3 and 4, and the answer was yes. The Secretariat 
Note was broader in its scope of research, covering measures that resembled ENTs. Nothing in the 
GATS confined the application of Economic Need s Tests to Modes 3 and 4, but the question was 
whether ENTs in schedules were actually more focused on Modes 3 and 4. This did not restrict the 
Members from raising any questions with the respect to the application of Economic Needs Tests in 
Modes 1 and 2. From a practical point of view, the application of Economic Needs Tests to the authorization of service suppliers was predominantly an activity of territorial jurisdiction. In other 
words, it was basically about the establishment of service suppliers within the host country's 
territory. It would be difficult to apply it in the case of Mode 1 or 2 where the service supplier was 
in a foreign jurisdiction. 
3.20.  The Chairperson indicated that she would continue to hold consultations on scheduling 
issues including ENTs and look forward to written proposals from Members. She then suggested 
that the Committee take note of the statements made and revert to this item at the next meeting.  
3.21.  It was so agreed.  
4   ITEM D - OTHER BUSINESS 4.1.  No delegation made interventions under th is item. The Chairperson adjourned the meeting.  
 
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