(mai) South Korea Urges Limited Talks On Investment in Next WTO Round Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit source - "Margrete Strand-Rangnes" International Trade Reporter Volume 16 Number 23 Wednesday, June 9, 1999 World News WTO South Korea Urges Limited Talks On Investment in Next WTO Round GENEVA--South Korea has urged that World Trade Organization members negotiate new international rules on investment as part of the global round of trade talks expected to be launched later this year, but said the negotiations should be much more modest than the failed Multilateral Agreement on Investment negotiations held through the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In a paper presented to a June 3-4 meeting of a WTO working group on trade and investment, Korea suggested the negotiation of a WTO multilateral framework on investment that would essentially apply to the manufacturing sector and be modeled after the WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) in terms of new liberalization commitments. "The OECD MAI employed a top-down approach which has aimed, in principle, at comprehensive liberalization in all areas. In contrast, GATS adopts a bottom-up approach (a positive list) which allows each country to choose the level of liberalization depending on its domestic situation," Korea said. "Thus, given its flexibility, the bottom-up approach should be favored during MFI negotiations." In its paper, Korea said that for an investment agreement to be reached at the WTO, the rules "would have to reflect the different realities faced by each member so as to represent an overall balance of concessions." "This implies that an agreement on investment in the WTO should be different from the MAI of the OECD," Korea added. "The MAI's standards were unrealistically high and thus failed to get broad-based participation." Talks on the MAI effectively collapsed last October after France announced it was withdrawing from the negotiations (15 ITR 1750, 10/21/98). France said at the time that an international investment treaty should be dealt with through the WTO. So far the initiative has been received with little enthusiasm. Key developing countries such as India, Pakistan, and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations say they are not convinced of the need for a WTO agreement in this area. The United States has also been silent on the issue, fearing that the hostility to the MAI from nongovernmental organizations and some members of Congress could resurface if investment comes up at the WTO's Seattle ministerial next fall, where the agenda for the new global round of trade talks is expected to be fixed. Trade officials said the Korean paper was welcomed as "constructive and positive" by the European Union and Japan, two of the WTO members most keen on putting investment on the global round negotiating agenda. Other countries that have indicated support for negotiating WTO rules on investment are Brazil, Canada, and Switzerland. By Daniel Pruzin Copyright * 1999 by The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc., Washington D.C. ********************************** In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Margrete Strand Rangnes MAI Project Coordinator Public Citizen Global Trade Watch 215 Pennsylvania Ave, SE Washington DC, 20003 USA mstrand@citizen.org 202-546 4996, ext. 306 202-547 7392 (fax) ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytas-06.11.99-03:02:48-10563