PRESS RELEASE For Immediate Release                                                                     ...............................Contact: John Goyer May 17, 2005                                                                       .................................. ..............(202) 289-7460 x22 CSI Proposes Plan for Advancing Doha Round Services Negotiations ( Washington, DC) Coalition of Service Industries (CSI) Chairman Norman Sorensen today said that the World Trade Organization (WTO) services negotiations are "at a point of crisis," and proposed a plan for moving the lagging talks forward. Speaking before the Trade Subcommittee of the House Ways & Means Committee, Sorensen said that the services component of the Doha Round is at a crisis because "many countries have not tabled offers, and those offers that have been tabled provide for little new liberalization. Not only are offers weak, the hard work of country-by-country, sector-by-sector bargaining is not taking place." As a way to move the negotiations forward, Sorensen proposed that all WTO Members undertake to make commitments in all service sectors in the WTO negotiations. With that as a starting point, negotiators can focus on the depth and quality of commitments. Those commitments should at least capture current levels of liberalization. Subsequent negotiations could then seek to bring commitments up to the levels found in the most progressive schedules, such as those of the US and EU. "M y message is that the WTO is the foundation of the world trading system and that continued active US engagement in it is essential. " Sorensen said. The services sector accounts for about 80 percent of US GDP and continues to be the engine of job creation in the United States. Services account for 80 percent of U.S. private sector employment; between 1993 and 2003, services added 17 million new U.S. jobs, and of the 19.2 million new American jobs forecast to be created by 2012, 90 percent will be in the services sector. Services accounted for $338 billion in US exports last year, with a surplus of $48.5 billion. "All members of the global trading system have a stake in the future of the WTO and the Doha Round, but it is the US that stands to gain the most." Sorensen said. PDF Version