Thanks Benny. I can only forward this. I am not an
organisation and there are other issues. I do support
making Parliament take responsibility for GATS and
requested the Ministry in this regard as a matter of
RTI on 08.11.05 after its last press release:
http://mail.architexturez.net/+/MPISG-Media/archive/msg00662.shtml
regards, gita
--- Benny Kuruvilla <bennyk@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> PLEASE FORWARD:
>
> Dear Friends,
>
> Please find below an open letter to Indian MPs
> highlighting concerns on the
> current services negotiations in the WTO. The GATS
> is one of the 3
> contentious areas in the negotiations alongwith
> Agriculture and industrial
> tariffs. But unlike the latter two, India claims to
> have ?aggressive? market
> access interests in GATS. We have highlighted the
> problem with this approach
> and, as well as, other broader issues.
>
> This letter was initiated as part of a campaign in
> Maharastra on ?Defending
> the services sector?. The unions and groups part of
> this process can be
> found in the present list of signatories.
>
> The letter will be submitted to all MPs before the
> winter session of the
> Indian Parliament
>
> Please write to bennyk@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> <mailto:bennyk@xxxxxxxxxxxx> if your
> organisation is willing to endorse this letter.
> Please note that this is an
> organisational sign on and is intended only for
> Indian groups.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Benny Kuruvilla
> (Focus on the Global South -India)
>
>
>
>
>
> SUBJECT: WTO: CALL FOR A STANDSTILL IN GATS
> NEGOTIATIONS
> 15 November 2005
>
> Dear Member of Parliament,
> From 13-18 December 2005, Trade Ministers will meet
> in Hong Kong to decide
> the future course of global negotiations in the
> World Trade Organisation
> (WTO).
> The undersigned social movements, trade unions and
> civil society
> organisations are writing to all members of the
> Indian Parliament with
> several urgent concerns on substantive issues with
> regard to India?s current
> position in one of the key negotiating areas: the
> WTO?s General Agreement on
> Trade in Services (GATS).
> 1. Undermining National Well-Being and
> Welfare
> Over 160 services sectors are in the offing for
> liberalisation under the
> GATS and it seems clear that the Ministry of
> Commerce is not sufficiently
> equipped to understand the complex economic, social
> and environmental
> implications of bringing these sectors into the WTO
> framework.
> It is crucial that lessons from already existing
> liberalisation and
> privatisation attempts inform India?s negotiating
> position in the GATS. This
> assessment is yet to be done by the Indian
> Government. Opening up the
> services sector through the GATS without adequate
> assessment of the impacts
> of liberalisation and privatisation on national
> employment, livelihoods,
> equity and welfare is likely to result in far
> reaching negative impacts to a
> broad cross-section of people, particularly those in
> the low-income brackets
> and situated in rural areas.
> 2. Undermining Policy Sovereignty
> India?s GATS commitments will seriously compromise
> India?s policy
> sovereignty, and render the Indian state powerless
> to introduce new
> regulations, and to penalise foreign services
> providers for high costs, poor
> quality and inadequate access to services by Indian
> consumers.
> Bound commitments under the GATS will limit the
> ability of the central and
> state governments to enact and enforce domestic
> regulations in the public
> interest relating to licensing, technical standards
> and qualification
> requirements. GATS clauses of market access and
> non-discrimination to
> foreign services providers will weaken the power of
> government to supply
> essential services to vulnerable sections of society
> through
> cross-subsidisation. They will also restrict the
> government?s ability to
> further develop capacity in the Indian services
> sector through public
> procurement of goods & services.
> 3. Who is driving the Negotiating Agenda?
> An examination of present negotiations shows that
> the aggressive market
> access demands from developed country WTO members
> will not be beneficial to
> developing country members. Groups such as the EU
> are demanding aggressive
> liberalisation in Mode 3 (Foreign Direct Investment)
> and are calling for
> restrictions on foreign ownership to be removed.
> Making binding commitments
> under Mode 3 will seriously undermine the ability of
> governments to regulate
> foreign investment in the services sector.
> Also questionable are the gains that India hopes to
> get from liberalisation
> through the Mode 4 route (temporary movement of
> labour). One of India?s key
> demands is that the US increase the quota of H-1B
> visas from its present
> GATS commitment of 65,000 to about 100,000. This
> mirrors the demands of big
> services corporations in the US. India has narrowed
> Mode 4 negotiations to
> the movement of highly skilled professionals and
> does not take into account
> unskilled or lower skilled workers. It is indeed
> unfortunate that India?s
> Mode 4 positions are ?captured? by business lobbies.
> 4. Breaking Ranks Outside and Within
> India was at the forefront of resistance by
> developing countries in the Doha
> (2001) and Cancun (2003) Ministerial Meetings to
> attempts by rich WTO
> members to introduce investment into the WTO.
> However, it appears that India
> is now no longer interested in maintaining
> collective positions with other
> developing countries to resist pressures by
> developed countries for the
> indiscriminate liberalisation of services. India has
> joined a select core
> group that is now driving the negotiations in the
> direction of
> ?benchmarking? or ?complementary approaches.?
> 5. The Urgent Need for Parliamentary
> Scrutiny
> Larger public interest cannot be traded away to
> maintain the myth of
> multilateralism through India?s commitments in the
> WTO, or to benefit a
> handful of domestic commercial enterprises that seek
> to expand their
> business opportunities to other countries. We must
> bear in mind that
> commitments under the WTO are irreversible and that
> policy actions have far
> reaching impacts, some of which may not be visible
> in the short term.
> Allowing water, energy, credit and banking to come
> under a weak regulatory
> environment that is biased towards corporate control
> will further undermine
> the productive capacities of India?s communities,
> workers and farmers
> (majority of Indian farmers are subsistence oriented
> peasant producers).
> Access to affordable services is crucial to building
> strong, healthy and
> productive societies. To defend the integrity of the
> services sector is to
> defend life.
> Though able and intelligent, trade officials in the
> Commerce Ministry are
> not the best judges of ground level impacts of
> possible liberalisation
> commitments. Substantive consultations with regional
> and local governments,
> policy makers in critical sectors such as health,
> education, water and
> sanitation, environment, financial services, labour
> and social welfare, and
> with a broad cross section of civil
> society--including workers, unions,
> farmers, fisher-folk groups, women?s organisations
> and urban poor groups--is
> absolutely critical to fill these knowledge gaps.
> But to date, the few
> attempts by the Ministry of Commerce to engage in
> such discussions have been
> restricted to an extremely narrow base of
> constituencies and biased towards
> pro-GATS lobbies, while apprehensions voiced by
> those who would be most
> negatively affected by GATS commitments are not
> reflected in the Ministry?s
> positions.
> Given this situation we urge you as an elected
> representative of the people
> of India to:
> 1. Call for an immediate halt on negotiations on
> services liberalisation
> under the GATS.
> 2. Unequivocally oppose all proposals for
> ?benchmarking? or ?complementary
> approaches? to services liberalisation.
> 3. Reject Mode 4 concessions as an incentive to open
> up India?s services
> sectors to liberalisation. Mode 4 does not promise
> any relief for the
> unemployment problem in India, since the EU, US and
> other rich countries
> will likely liberalize entry only for the most
> highly skilled professionals
> from India and other developing countries, thus
> worsening brain drain.
> 4. Demand that an inter-sectoral team appointed by
> the Indian Parliament
> conduct a comprehensive assessment of the impact of
> past liberalisation and
> privatisation of services.
> 5. Ensure that the Indian Governments position
> towards Hong Kong is
> comprehensively debated and decided in the
> Parliament
> Services are, in one sense, the backbone of our
> societies and economies.
> Every aspect of our lives, from education, health,
> environment and
> transportation to energy, water, food, hotels and
> finance, are dependent on
> services. We cannot let these be taken out of
> democratic control and into
> the hands of a few Commerce Ministry bureaucrats to
> be signed away as
> trade-offs in the WTO.
> This time around, the people of India refuse to be
> confronted with a ?fait
> accompli? as in India?s previous WTO commitments.
> India?s citizens will
> challenge any commitment made without due democratic
> processes.
> We appeal to parliamentarians to call for a complete
> standstill in GATS
> negotiations until the above issues are
> appropriately addressed.
>
>
> SIGNATORIES AS OF NOVEMBER 9 2005
>
>
> 1) All India Bank Officers Association,
> 2) All India Bank Employees Association
> 3) All India LIC Employees Federation
> 4) All India Port and Dock Workers Federation
> (Workers)
> 5) Centre for Organisation Research and
> Education, Manipur
> 6) EQUATIONS ? Equitable Tourism Options,
> Bangalore
> 7) General Insurance Employees All India
> Association
> 8) Focus on the Global South, Mumbai
> 9) Hind Mazdoor Sabha
> 10) INFAM - Indian Farmers Movement, Kerala
> 11) Maharastra State Government Employees
> Confederation,
> 12) Maharastra State Zilla Parishad Employees
> Confederation
> 13) National Union of Seafarers of India
> 14) NCOA - National Confederation of Officers
> Associations of Central
> Public Sector Undertakings, New Delhi
> 15) Open Space, Bangalore
> 16) Samatha, Hyderabad
> 17) Vikas Adhyan Kendra
> 18) YUVA
>
>
=====================================================================
> Benny Kuruvilla
> Focus on the Global South - India
> A-201, Kailash Apartments
> Juhu Church Road
> Juhu , Mumbai - 400049
> India
>
> Tel:91.22.55821141/55821151
> Tel Fax:91.22. 26251347
>
> Email : bennyk@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Website: http://www.focusweb.org
>
> ++++Subscribe to our free monthly e-newsletter -
> FOCUS ON INDIA - for
> issues related to trade, international financial
> institutions and peace and
> security. Write to focusind@xxxxxxxx++++
>
>
__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
http://mail.yahoo.com
organisation and there are other issues. I do support
making Parliament take responsibility for GATS and
requested the Ministry in this regard as a matter of
RTI on 08.11.05 after its last press release:
http://mail.architexturez.net/+/MPISG-Media/archive/msg00662.shtml
regards, gita
--- Benny Kuruvilla <bennyk@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> PLEASE FORWARD:
>
> Dear Friends,
>
> Please find below an open letter to Indian MPs
> highlighting concerns on the
> current services negotiations in the WTO. The GATS
> is one of the 3
> contentious areas in the negotiations alongwith
> Agriculture and industrial
> tariffs. But unlike the latter two, India claims to
> have ?aggressive? market
> access interests in GATS. We have highlighted the
> problem with this approach
> and, as well as, other broader issues.
>
> This letter was initiated as part of a campaign in
> Maharastra on ?Defending
> the services sector?. The unions and groups part of
> this process can be
> found in the present list of signatories.
>
> The letter will be submitted to all MPs before the
> winter session of the
> Indian Parliament
>
> Please write to bennyk@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> <mailto:bennyk@xxxxxxxxxxxx> if your
> organisation is willing to endorse this letter.
> Please note that this is an
> organisational sign on and is intended only for
> Indian groups.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Benny Kuruvilla
> (Focus on the Global South -India)
>
>
>
>
>
> SUBJECT: WTO: CALL FOR A STANDSTILL IN GATS
> NEGOTIATIONS
> 15 November 2005
>
> Dear Member of Parliament,
> From 13-18 December 2005, Trade Ministers will meet
> in Hong Kong to decide
> the future course of global negotiations in the
> World Trade Organisation
> (WTO).
> The undersigned social movements, trade unions and
> civil society
> organisations are writing to all members of the
> Indian Parliament with
> several urgent concerns on substantive issues with
> regard to India?s current
> position in one of the key negotiating areas: the
> WTO?s General Agreement on
> Trade in Services (GATS).
> 1. Undermining National Well-Being and
> Welfare
> Over 160 services sectors are in the offing for
> liberalisation under the
> GATS and it seems clear that the Ministry of
> Commerce is not sufficiently
> equipped to understand the complex economic, social
> and environmental
> implications of bringing these sectors into the WTO
> framework.
> It is crucial that lessons from already existing
> liberalisation and
> privatisation attempts inform India?s negotiating
> position in the GATS. This
> assessment is yet to be done by the Indian
> Government. Opening up the
> services sector through the GATS without adequate
> assessment of the impacts
> of liberalisation and privatisation on national
> employment, livelihoods,
> equity and welfare is likely to result in far
> reaching negative impacts to a
> broad cross-section of people, particularly those in
> the low-income brackets
> and situated in rural areas.
> 2. Undermining Policy Sovereignty
> India?s GATS commitments will seriously compromise
> India?s policy
> sovereignty, and render the Indian state powerless
> to introduce new
> regulations, and to penalise foreign services
> providers for high costs, poor
> quality and inadequate access to services by Indian
> consumers.
> Bound commitments under the GATS will limit the
> ability of the central and
> state governments to enact and enforce domestic
> regulations in the public
> interest relating to licensing, technical standards
> and qualification
> requirements. GATS clauses of market access and
> non-discrimination to
> foreign services providers will weaken the power of
> government to supply
> essential services to vulnerable sections of society
> through
> cross-subsidisation. They will also restrict the
> government?s ability to
> further develop capacity in the Indian services
> sector through public
> procurement of goods & services.
> 3. Who is driving the Negotiating Agenda?
> An examination of present negotiations shows that
> the aggressive market
> access demands from developed country WTO members
> will not be beneficial to
> developing country members. Groups such as the EU
> are demanding aggressive
> liberalisation in Mode 3 (Foreign Direct Investment)
> and are calling for
> restrictions on foreign ownership to be removed.
> Making binding commitments
> under Mode 3 will seriously undermine the ability of
> governments to regulate
> foreign investment in the services sector.
> Also questionable are the gains that India hopes to
> get from liberalisation
> through the Mode 4 route (temporary movement of
> labour). One of India?s key
> demands is that the US increase the quota of H-1B
> visas from its present
> GATS commitment of 65,000 to about 100,000. This
> mirrors the demands of big
> services corporations in the US. India has narrowed
> Mode 4 negotiations to
> the movement of highly skilled professionals and
> does not take into account
> unskilled or lower skilled workers. It is indeed
> unfortunate that India?s
> Mode 4 positions are ?captured? by business lobbies.
> 4. Breaking Ranks Outside and Within
> India was at the forefront of resistance by
> developing countries in the Doha
> (2001) and Cancun (2003) Ministerial Meetings to
> attempts by rich WTO
> members to introduce investment into the WTO.
> However, it appears that India
> is now no longer interested in maintaining
> collective positions with other
> developing countries to resist pressures by
> developed countries for the
> indiscriminate liberalisation of services. India has
> joined a select core
> group that is now driving the negotiations in the
> direction of
> ?benchmarking? or ?complementary approaches.?
> 5. The Urgent Need for Parliamentary
> Scrutiny
> Larger public interest cannot be traded away to
> maintain the myth of
> multilateralism through India?s commitments in the
> WTO, or to benefit a
> handful of domestic commercial enterprises that seek
> to expand their
> business opportunities to other countries. We must
> bear in mind that
> commitments under the WTO are irreversible and that
> policy actions have far
> reaching impacts, some of which may not be visible
> in the short term.
> Allowing water, energy, credit and banking to come
> under a weak regulatory
> environment that is biased towards corporate control
> will further undermine
> the productive capacities of India?s communities,
> workers and farmers
> (majority of Indian farmers are subsistence oriented
> peasant producers).
> Access to affordable services is crucial to building
> strong, healthy and
> productive societies. To defend the integrity of the
> services sector is to
> defend life.
> Though able and intelligent, trade officials in the
> Commerce Ministry are
> not the best judges of ground level impacts of
> possible liberalisation
> commitments. Substantive consultations with regional
> and local governments,
> policy makers in critical sectors such as health,
> education, water and
> sanitation, environment, financial services, labour
> and social welfare, and
> with a broad cross section of civil
> society--including workers, unions,
> farmers, fisher-folk groups, women?s organisations
> and urban poor groups--is
> absolutely critical to fill these knowledge gaps.
> But to date, the few
> attempts by the Ministry of Commerce to engage in
> such discussions have been
> restricted to an extremely narrow base of
> constituencies and biased towards
> pro-GATS lobbies, while apprehensions voiced by
> those who would be most
> negatively affected by GATS commitments are not
> reflected in the Ministry?s
> positions.
> Given this situation we urge you as an elected
> representative of the people
> of India to:
> 1. Call for an immediate halt on negotiations on
> services liberalisation
> under the GATS.
> 2. Unequivocally oppose all proposals for
> ?benchmarking? or ?complementary
> approaches? to services liberalisation.
> 3. Reject Mode 4 concessions as an incentive to open
> up India?s services
> sectors to liberalisation. Mode 4 does not promise
> any relief for the
> unemployment problem in India, since the EU, US and
> other rich countries
> will likely liberalize entry only for the most
> highly skilled professionals
> from India and other developing countries, thus
> worsening brain drain.
> 4. Demand that an inter-sectoral team appointed by
> the Indian Parliament
> conduct a comprehensive assessment of the impact of
> past liberalisation and
> privatisation of services.
> 5. Ensure that the Indian Governments position
> towards Hong Kong is
> comprehensively debated and decided in the
> Parliament
> Services are, in one sense, the backbone of our
> societies and economies.
> Every aspect of our lives, from education, health,
> environment and
> transportation to energy, water, food, hotels and
> finance, are dependent on
> services. We cannot let these be taken out of
> democratic control and into
> the hands of a few Commerce Ministry bureaucrats to
> be signed away as
> trade-offs in the WTO.
> This time around, the people of India refuse to be
> confronted with a ?fait
> accompli? as in India?s previous WTO commitments.
> India?s citizens will
> challenge any commitment made without due democratic
> processes.
> We appeal to parliamentarians to call for a complete
> standstill in GATS
> negotiations until the above issues are
> appropriately addressed.
>
>
> SIGNATORIES AS OF NOVEMBER 9 2005
>
>
> 1) All India Bank Officers Association,
> 2) All India Bank Employees Association
> 3) All India LIC Employees Federation
> 4) All India Port and Dock Workers Federation
> (Workers)
> 5) Centre for Organisation Research and
> Education, Manipur
> 6) EQUATIONS ? Equitable Tourism Options,
> Bangalore
> 7) General Insurance Employees All India
> Association
> 8) Focus on the Global South, Mumbai
> 9) Hind Mazdoor Sabha
> 10) INFAM - Indian Farmers Movement, Kerala
> 11) Maharastra State Government Employees
> Confederation,
> 12) Maharastra State Zilla Parishad Employees
> Confederation
> 13) National Union of Seafarers of India
> 14) NCOA - National Confederation of Officers
> Associations of Central
> Public Sector Undertakings, New Delhi
> 15) Open Space, Bangalore
> 16) Samatha, Hyderabad
> 17) Vikas Adhyan Kendra
> 18) YUVA
>
>
=====================================================================
> Benny Kuruvilla
> Focus on the Global South - India
> A-201, Kailash Apartments
> Juhu Church Road
> Juhu , Mumbai - 400049
> India
>
> Tel:91.22.55821141/55821151
> Tel Fax:91.22. 26251347
>
> Email : bennyk@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Website: http://www.focusweb.org
>
> ++++Subscribe to our free monthly e-newsletter -
> FOCUS ON INDIA - for
> issues related to trade, international financial
> institutions and peace and
> security. Write to focusind@xxxxxxxx++++
>
>
__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
http://mail.yahoo.com