Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) is organizing the “National Meeting on Pakistan’s Trade in Services and Experts Roundtable” in collaboration with International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD), Geneva. The meeting is scheduled to be held on March 17, 2007 in the Rausing Executive Development Centre (REDC) of LUMS in Lahore. The meeting is organized around an independent report on “Opportunities and Risks of Liberalizing Trade in Services in Pakistan” prepared by Dr. Abid A. Burki and Dr. Syed Turab Hussain of LUMS.

In the present round of GATS negotiations Pakistan has received specific liberalization requests from its negotiating partners, among others, in i) construction and related engineering services; ii) architecture, engineering and integrated engineering services; iii) energy services; and iv) environmental services. Moreover, Pakistan has co-sponsored a request for liberalization of temporary movement of natural persons under Mode 4. The report by Burki and Hussain provides a snapshot of trade in services in Pakistan with a specific focus on market access and national treatment commitments and obligations in these sub-sectors under fours modes of supply.

The national meeting will be attended by 30 to 40 key national stakeholders including Geneva-based negotiators, relevant ministries/departments and non-state actors (private sector, academia and civil society). The purpose of this meeting is to help the Government of Pakistan and its Permanent Mission in the WTO to prepare effective negotiating strategies in the GATS negotiations. The event will provide ample opportunity to the delegates to deliberate on the findings and other services trade issues to streamline Pakistan’s position in the multilateral services trade negotiations.

Another objective of the event is to identify a priority sector, out of the four covered in the study, where Pakistan would have a strategic interest in making substantive offers, as well as to consider from a medium- or long-term perspective the advisability of the recommended options for market and regulatory reforms. The National Experts Roundtable is being convened for the priority sector, which will be facilitated by Werner Corrales-Leal, a former Ambassador to the WTO representing Venezuela, who will also compile the main points raised during the discussion and reflect them in a road map for implementation. This roadmap will constitute a practical tool for policy makers to take the next steps and translate the domestic interests identified in the priority sector into specific domestic reform proposals or, where appropriate, specific requests for or offers of GATS commitment.