ISLAMABAD, Dec 29: The government has started formal inter-ministerial consultations to formulate revised offers and requests in the services domain to open up more major sectors and sub-sectors to foreign services providers (FSPs).

Well-placed sources told Dawn on Friday that the whole process of revised offers would be completed within the next few weeks in consultation with all stakeholders before formally submitting them to the WTO secretariat in Geneva.

Pakistan had submitted initial offers list to the WTO last year. Under these offers, it had made 10 liberalisation commitments out of 12 sectors under the GATS. These include business services, communications, construction/engineering services, financial services, health and tourism, veterinary, education, accounting and legal services.

A senior official in the commerce ministry on condition of anonymity told this reporter that even the revised offers were conditional to the market access Pakistan receives in other areas of negotiations as well.

“We retain the right to add, remove or modify any element of the offer until a final agreement--that meets Pakistan’s objective--is reached,” he added.

The official said the list, to be formulated very soon, would be sent to the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet for formal approval. Following the approval, these lists would be submitted to the WTO, he added. An analyst said Pakistan should make well thought-out offers to the foreign service providers, which commensurate with the national interests and protect the interests of the domestic consumers by enacting consumer protection laws.

He said Pakistan, with other countries, faces a series of barriers to export its services to the developed countries. Until these barriers were removed, it would be difficult for Pakistan to get maximum benefits from exporting its services to the developed countries, especially in the areas of allowing movement of natural persons.

There are four ways or modes of supply of trade in services — mode-1 or cross border, mode-2 or consumption abroad, mode-3 or commercial presence and mode-4 or temporary movement (presence of natural person under the General Agreement on Trade in Services -- GATS).

According to the official, new sectors would also be opened up for FSPs. However, the services negotiations would be linked with the overall resumption of negotiations across the board.

Following the submission of the revised offer list to the WTO, Pakistan will start bilateral negotiations with other WTO member countries for getting offers of their interest from them before finalising the final list for submission.

The share of services in the GDP of Pakistan is now about 51 per cent. The share of services in GDP of developed countries is about 75 per cent.