BRAZIL SEEKS DELINKING OF GOODS AND SERVICES ISSUES.

Jul 18, 1985

BRAZIL SEEKS DELINKING OF GOODS AND SERVICES ISSUES.

GENEVA, JULY 17 (IFDA) — Brazil Wednesday sought to defuse the confrontation and tensions between Third World and Industrial countries over the issues of a new round of multilateral trade negotiations in GATT including services, and organising a high level meeting to prepare for this.-

In an effort to partially accommodate the viewpoints of U.S. and others, Brazil proposed separate high level meetings on goods and services, where the two issues could be discussed without any linkages, and possible compromises explored.-

The Brazilian draft decision on the "trade in goods" would have the GATT Council decide to convene a senior officials meeting "to be held in the framework of GATT", in September 1985, "to explore the possibility of a consensus on the need, the subject matter and the modalities for multilateral negotiations on trade in goods".-

The senior officials meeting, the draft decision further stipulated, would have before it the priorities of the GATT work programme and "the pertinent elements related to trade in goods contained in the statements and communications submitted by Contracting Parties individually and/or collectively".-

The GATT secretariat was asked to service the senior officials meeting.-

A separate draft decision on the services, "authorised" the chairman of the Contracting Parties to organise a separate meeting of senior officials in October 1985 on services, but within the framework of the 1982 Ministerial declaration and the 1984 agreed conclusion on services of the GATT Contracting Parties.-

The 1982 GATT Ministerial meeting had called for national studies by interested CPs, and for the exchange of information on such matters through international organisations like GATT.-

The 1982 decision had also envisaged that in 1984, the Contracting Parties would consider whether a multilateral framework on services was appropriate and desirable.-

The 1984 agreed conclusions of the contracting Parties, authorised the chairman of the Contracting Parties "to organise the exchange of information" on services, and agreed to consider in 1985 the issue of desirability and appropriateness of a multilateral framework on services.-

The Brazilian draft decision recalled these decisions, and would have the Council recognise that the issue of services was not within the competence of the GATT.-

On this basis, it would have the Council agree to "authorise" the chairman of the Contracting Parties (Felipe Jaramillo of Colombia) to organise the exchange of information provided for in the agreed conclusions of November 1984 on services, at senior official level, in the month of October 1985.-

The GATT secretariat, the Council would further agree, provide the necessary support for this.-

The results of this exchange of information were to be submitted to the Contracting Parties.-

The draft decision would also have the Council decide that "should any multilateral action on issues in services be considered appropriate and desirable by the Contracting Parties, it would have to take place outside the GATT framework and be subject to a prior understanding" on four conditions.-

These were that

-- There could not be any "parallelism" between possible multilateral action on issues in services and any GATT negotiations on trade in goods,

-- At no stage, could there be any trade-offs or cross-linkage between the two processes,

-- GATT principles and rules shall not apply to any possible multilateral action on issues in services, and

-- Secretariat support for any possible multilateral action on services, including preparation therefor, shall be provided jointly by international bodies to be agreed upon.-