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WTO mulls special visa for services

BS Economy Bureau in New Delhi

The World Trade Organisation is exploring the possibility of starting a special General Agreement on Trade in Services visa in order to facilitate movement of service professionals between countries.

"We are considering a GATS visa because it can serve as a special category visa allowing service professionals to travel to other countries for a certain period of time. The main objective is to distinguish movement of people to other countries for work and not for seeking permanent residence," said WTO deputy director-general Roderick Abbot during an informal interaction with reporters.

In market access in the services sector, there has not been much movement on the discussions on Mode 4, which deals with the movement of natural persons.

This area is important to India, which has a sizeable population of service professionals in sectors like information technology, engineering and medicine.

Commenting on the issue, Abbot said: "Immigration needs to be dealt with as a commercial issue by countries. However, there is a hesitation since countries afflicted by terrorism are keen to regulate the flow of foreigners."

It is in this context that the WTO is considering a special category visa.

Abbot said under the services negotiations, India should push for specific commitments in areas like software from countries which have not done so, like Japan.

He also said thirty papers had been submitted to the working group on investment. The main objective of having investment and competition under the WTO is to ensure that a foreign company is not put at any disadvantage by a local government.

"These issues will not determine the policy of the local government but will be restricted to providing the right regulatory environment," he said.

He, however, clarified that there was no possibility of labour being included in the negotiations at any stage.

"As far as labour is concerned, it is a dead issue. There is no need to fear that labour can be used as a form of sanctions by another country," he said, adding that there was a near consensus that labour-related issues should be dealt by the International Labour Organisation.

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