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9 countries propose Dhaka to open up service sector

ActionAid Bangladesh smells rat

UNB, Dhaka
Nine developed and developing countries have proposed Bangladesh to open up its service sector, which could in turn throw millions of local professionals out of theirjobs.
"Multinational companies will replace local employees with foreign ones if the government opened up the sector," an ActionAid Bangladesh executive, Ziaul Hoque Mukta, told newsmen at a press briefing here yesterday.
He apprised the press of the move drawing information from the Internet (www.polarisinstitute.org) as well as from their own sources.
He said the proposals to open more than 50 areas, now awaiting government approval, were made under cover of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
He noted with concern that the proposals, if granted, would hit the country’s GDP as the service sector contributes about half of it.
The nine proponents are European Union, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Norway, Singapore and the United States of America.
Mukta said the file now on table for government's consideration stated: "Member States are requested to ensure that this text is not made publicly available and is treated as a restricted document."
The EU requested to open the computer and related sectors, telecommunications, construction and related sectors, environment, finance, and transportation.
Sri Lanka requested to open business, transportation, finance, and tourism and travel sectors,
Malaysia seeks the opening of
business and communications sectors.
Hong Kong pleaded for opening communications sector, including internet and telecommunications.
Japan requested the opening of infrastructure sector, and Korea for professional sector and others, including advertisement and printing, communications, construction and related sector, finance sector, including banking and insurance, amusement, cultural and sports sectors.
Norway requested to open telecommunications and environment sectors while Singapore requested for transportation sector.
But the USA did not request anything specific. They just requested fulfilling the requests of the other countries.
As per WTO provision, if the agreement Is done between two member countries, the facility would go to other 144 countries as well.
"The procedure starts bilaterally with the Requested Offer Letter and it ends with multilaterally," said Ziaul Hoque Mukta.
The ActionAid Bangladesh executives also said that this kind of agreement is very much dangerous for the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) of the world.
The process of this kind of agreement, named GATS 2000, was started in 2000. It provides that the countries under the WTO will send request letter to the other countries within June 30, 2000. But Bangladesh did not give any request letter to any country under the WTO while got more than 50 requests from nine countries, the newsmen were told.
Under the agreement the countries which send the requests will get various benefits, including most
favored-nation treatment, free access to local market under the GATS rules, national treatment to the people who will come for services.
Under the GATS agreement, there are two types of commitment: Market Commitment and Applicability of the all requests.
On the other hand, the requests placed by the developed countries with Bangladesh are most horizontal -those are applicable for all sectors.
The ActionAid Bangladesh, a major NGO, also said that developed countries made this regulation through "forgery".
"There was a meeting of the General Council of the WTO held from July 27 to July3L this year. Butin the meeting the member countries of the WTO did not discuss the service sector. This was named the July Framework. But in the main copy of the framework the service sector was included and all the members were forced to sign on the agreement," Mukta said.
'Hie WTO also gave a new chance to the LDCs to give offer letters to the developed countries about the opening of the service sectors in their respective countries till April 2005.
"If the concerned authority of the country did not disagree with this type of agreement in the Ministerial Conference scheduled in Hong Kong for December next year, then we'll lose almost everything," the ActipnAid executive feared.
They pressed their three demands: no offer should be accepted, the decision should come through national solidarity, and the attack of the GATS resisted as it is an undemocratic organisation.