Govt for easing education, licensing norms at WTO

India will press for expanding the criteria under Mode 4 (relating to movement of natural persons) to include easing of domestic regulations with regard to educational and professional qualifications and licensing requirements at the World Trade Organisation Ministerial meeting in Hong Kong in December this year.

"Until now, in the services negotiations under Mode 4, two kinds of criteria are already available, namely contractual service suppliers and independent professionals. However, not much has been done in domestic regulations like educational qualification and licensing requirements. We would be working to include some of these elements in the Hong Kong ministerial," R Gopalan, joint secretary in the commerce ministry, said.

Addressing an interactive session on the ongoing WTO service negotiations organised by Unctad, he said it was important to get countries to "lock in" the offers made in Mode 1 pertaining to cross-border supply. He added that areas like retail, law and audit were sensitive sectors for India and would not be part of its offers.

Gopalan said countries like the US had not made any improvements from their Uruguay round commitments in their revised offers. "Developed countries have not made enough offers but are considering creation of a benchmarking for services, wherein countries will be asked to come up to a certain level," he said.

Speaking on the occasion, Lakshmi Puri, director, division of international trade in goods and services, Unctad, said while India had clearly defined interests in Mode 1 and 4, it would need to put in place an appropriate regulatory framework to benefit from liberalisation in Mode 2 and 3 (dealing with consumption abroad and commercial presence, respectively).

Puri said UNCTAD had estimated that India could gain up to $40 billion from Mode 4 and between $40-60 billion in Mode 1 She, however, pointed out that liberalisation in Mode 1 and 4 was going to be tough amidst heightened security concerns, political sensitivities and rising job-related protectionist sentiments in major developed country markets.