India will aggressively push for substantial market access for its services in the developed world, especially regarding free movement of service suppliers across borders and outsourcing, during the forthcoming negotiations on Services at the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
Officials said the chairman of the WTO Council for Trade in Services, ambassador Fernando de Mateo of Mexico, circulated a report last week asking WTO member countries to come up with five key areas of demands and offers each during the Services Signalling Conference on July 24.
The ministers? signaling conference would indicate as to which all countries are willing to provide market access in different service sectors. It however, would not be the final stand on services.
?Our efforts are to ensure that India gets a lot, especially on Mode 1 and Mode 4 (of the General Agreement on Trade in Services), from developed countries like the US and the European Union. We would also pitch for easing of domestic regulations in those countries,? an Indian government official said.
Mode 1 that is officially known as ?cross-border trade?, refers to services supplied from one country to another -eg. BPOs or international telephone calls, while mode 4 in official jargon is ?presence of natural persons? and is regarding individuals like consultants or software professionals travelling from their own country to another nation to supply services.
However, the US and the EU are yet to make any major concessions in these two aspects. Developed countries had indicated that only if they get market access in developing nations for their agriculture and industrial goods, they would in return open their services markets for the developing nations.
?In services negotiations, only the report of the Chairperson is out. The text will come now after the Ministers? meeting. At the moment there is nothing (that is finalized). There are just good intentions,? commerce secretary G K Pillai told reporters here. India was upset over the draft report of services that was released on May 27 as it did not offer much on Mode 1 and 4.
Commerce and industry minister Kamal Nath had said that a good deal in services has to be a part of the total package and that he has written to WTO Director General Pascal Lamy that if developed nations do not make binding commitments in services, there would be no final agreement.
Services exports accounts for 40% of India?s total exports of goods and services. In 2007-08, India?s services exports were worth $86 billion in 2007-08. The services sector comprises around 55% of the country?s GDP and provides employment to around 142 million people, which is 28% of India?s workforce.
Among the sectors that India is demanding significant market access in the developed country markets are IT and IT-enabled services, telecommunication, construction, engineering, health, R&D. However, due to restrictive domestic regulations in the developed countries, Indian professionals in these fields have been finding it difficult to get short-term visas to offer their services in those countries.
India, however, is not pressing for immigration of its professionals to the developed world in the services sector. It has however pointed out that until now the talks have been only on some sectors like banking and retail that are of interest mainly to the developed countries.
The chairman of the Services negotiations is said to be at an advanced stage regarding bringing out a multilateral text on the sector, while in parallel there have been plurilateral negotiations between countries on market access.