Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization
Decision on Professional Services
Ministers,
Decide to recommend that the Council for Trade in Services
at its first meeting adopt the decision set out below.
The Council for Trade in Services,
Recognizing the impact of regulatory measures relating
to professional qualifications, technical standards and licensing
on the expansion of trade in professional services;
Desiring to establish multilateral disciplines with a
view to ensuring that, when specific commitments are undertaken,
such regulatory measures do not constitute unnecessary barriers
to the supply of professional services;
Decides as follows:
1. The work programme foreseen in paragraph 4 of Article VI on
Domestic Regulation should be put into effect immediately. To
this end, a Working Party on Professional Services shall be established
to examine and report, with recommendations, on the disciplines
necessary to ensure that measures relating to qualification requirements
and procedures, technical standards and licensing requirements
in the field of professional services do not constitute unnecessary
barriers to trade.
2. As a matter of priority, the Working Party shall make recommendations
for the elaboration of multilateral disciplines in the accountancy
sector, so as to give operational effect to specific commitments.
In making these recommendations, the Working Party shall concentrate
on:
(a) developing multilateral disciplines relating to market access
so as to ensure that domestic regulatory requirements are:
(i)
based on objective and transparent criteria, such as competence
and the ability to supply the service;
(ii) not more burdensome
than necessary to ensure the quality of the service, thereby facilitating
the effective liberalization of accountancy services;
(b) the use of international standards and, in doing so, it shall
encourage the cooperation with the relevant international organizations
as defined under paragraph 5(b) of Article VI, so as to give full
effect to paragraph 5 of Article VII;
(c) facilitating the effective application of paragraph 6 of
Article VI of the Agreement by establishing guidelines for the
recognition of qualifications.
In elaborating these disciplines, the Working Party shall take
account of the importance of the governmental and non-governmental
bodies regulating professional services.
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Decision on Accession to the Agreement on Government Procurement
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