CSI President Writes to Congressmen Kolbe and Cardin on WTO Services Negotiations

On March 20, CSI President Bob Vastine wrote to Congressmen Kolbe and Cardin to update them on the state of play in the WTO services negotiations.  The Congressmen subsequently sent the letter around to all Members of the House of Representatives as a “Dear Colleague.”  Both letters follow below.

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March 20, 2006

The Honorable Jim Kolbe
The Honorable Ben Cardin
United States House of Representatives

Dear Congressmen Kolbe & Cardin:

Last June, you and 54 of your colleagues co-signed a letter to Ambassador Portman asking for sharply increased US emphasis on the liberalization of trade in services in the World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha Round of negotiations. With services representing 75% of our country's economic output, and 80% of the American workforce, it was critical that the December 2005 WTO Hong Kong Ministerial provide a good outcome for services.

We are writing to give you a brief update on the WTO services negotiations, and we are pleased to report that the Ministerial did indeed provide a good result. Ministers decided that the countries supporting the liberalization of services – such as financial, express delivery, audio visual, energy and others – should develop common or “collective” requests and submit them to the countries whose markets they seek to access.
 
The deadline for doing that was February 28, and despite a good deal of skepticism, this new “plurilateral” process has yielded results with 23 “collective requests” submitted. The U.S. has actively participated in 12 of them. The collective request process has awakened the previously sleepy services talks.
 
But getting like-minded countries to agree on common requests was just the first hurdle.
 
Now, the hard part starts: countries must sit down with each other and undertake the difficult bargaining needed to achieve their objectives. For the US, this means working with about 15-20 key countries to obtain market access for our highly competitive services companies, in order to grow our services exports and create high paying US jobs. Last year those exports were $379 billion, with a $58 billion surplus. A success in the Doha Round means expanding these exports and creating American jobs.

The service sector is projected to account for virtually all new job growth in the United States over the next half-decade, and studies have shown that the United States would be the biggest beneficiary from a Doha Round that substantially liberalizes global services markets. A University of Michigan study projects that the elimination of all barriers to services trade worldwide would yield a welfare gain to the United States of $466 billion – more than $1,600 for every American.

We appreciate your support for a strong services outcome, which will be vital if we are to realize the Doha Round’s potential.

Sincerely,

Bob Vastine
President, Coalition of Service Industries

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80% of American Workforce Employed by Service Industry
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics

March 22, 2006

Dear Colleague:
 
Last June, a bipartisan group of 55 Members of Congress joined us in writing U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman to urge that greater priority be placed on removing barriers to the exports of U.S. services in the ongoing Doha Development Round of negotiations in the World Trade Organization. We recently received the attached letter from the Coalition of Service Industries, which represents U.S. services exporters, regarding the status of the services talks.  Given the importance of the services industry to the U.S. economy, we thought this update would be of interest to you and your staff.

                                               Sincerely,
 


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JIM KOLBE                                                 BEN CARDIN  
Member of Congress                                Member of Congress