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Trade and Industry Department The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
Brand Hong Kong - Asia world city
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Services Negotiation

The current round of Services negotiation began in early 2000 as mandated by the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). It was incorporated into the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) in November 2001. The negotiation covers market access, disciplines on Domestic Regulation, GATS rules (emergency safeguard measures, government procurement, and subsidies), and waiver for Least-developed Countries (LDC). Please visit the WTO website for more information about the current round of Services negotiation.

Hong Kong, China's Objectives

Hong Kong, China aims to achieve progressive services liberalisation to enable our service providers to compete on a par with their overseas counterparts. We also pursue better disciplines on GATS rules such as removing barriers to trade in services arising from domestic regulations.

Public Consultation

Three large-scale public consultation exercises were conducted in 2002, 2005 and 2006 to prepare for the current round of Services negotiation. The views collected have formed the basis for drawing up Hong Kong, China's requests and offers as well as our negotiating positions.

Negotiations on Market Access

Requests

Hong Kong, China has tendered 20 bilateral requests and joined hands with like-minded Members to tender nine collective requests to other WTO Members for further liberalisation in services areas where we possess export interests and capacities, such as logistics-related services, telecommunications, financial services, and maritime transport services. In our bilateral requests, we have also requested the WTO Members concerned to remove discriminatory measures inconsistent with the Most-Favoured-Nation (MFN) principle as well as ensure that domestic regulations would not cause unnecessary barriers to trade.

In parallel, Hong Kong, China has received 18 bilateral requests with six supplementary/revised requests and eight collective requests. These requests seek our further commitments in areas including accounting services, air transport services, architectural/engineering/integrated engineering services, construction and related engineering services, education services, legal services, postal/courier services (including express delivery), and tourism services.

Offers

Hong Kong, China submitted its initial offers and revised offers on further services liberalisation in April 2003 and June 2005 respectively. In general, our offers are commensurate with those of others and in line with our pro-liberalisation position. We have indicated in our initial offers new commitments in environmental services and a number of new business services, a widened scope for distribution services, and improved telecommunications, financial, and maritime transport services. In our revised offers, we have put forth further commitments on transparency of application procedures for movement of natural person (Mode 4), urban planning and landscape architectural services, maritime transport services, and freight transportation services.

We will continue to take into account our economic and social conditions in formulating our offers. The commitments proposed are conditional upon the overall outcome of the Services negotiation. They would come into force only after ratification by the Government in endorsing the outcome of the negotiations. These commitments would augment Hong Kong, China's existing services commitments under the GATS.

Latest Development

There has been little progress in the Services negotiation since 2011. Progress on the Services side is inextricably linked to progress in other DDA areas, in particular market access negotiations in Agriculture and Non-Agricultural Market Access. The more notable progress is on LDC waiver which allows WTO Members to deviate from the MFN principle and grant preferential treatments to LDC service suppliers. Over 50 WTO Members, including Hong Kong, China, have submitted notifications under the waiver to grant preferences to LDC service suppliers. Please click here for Hong Kong, China's notification at the WTO website.

Please visit the WTO website for more information about the latest development of the Services negotiation.

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