Long abstract

About Publications & Documents Information by Country

This paper is part of the on-going project on trade in services to produce a set of sector specific checklists in partnership with UNCTAD, by building on the generic negotiating checklists developed in the request-offer paper [“Managing request-offer negotiations under the GATS”].

A key objective of this project is for the checklists to be of immediate operational use in the context of the GATS request-offer negotiations. In particular, it is hoped that they could serve as a capacity building tool to assist WTO Members, in particular developing countries, to assess current requests and offers and fine-tune any further requests and offers. At the same time, they could also yield useful insights into a range of issues arising at the interface of domestic regulation and services trade and investment liberalization. This paper thus aims to present some of the key issues and questions concerning request and offer in the insurance sector.

The checklists below address a range of issues, including the benefits of, and concerns about, open insurance markets, as well as the necessary regulatory elements to be considered in framing the nature of any liberalisation. They also provide an optional menu of questions that WTO Members may wish to consider in the request and offer process in the insurance sector. They can be used by developing Members in the formation of requests and offers and in formulating questions and answers for trading partners

This paper has three parts. Part I provides a brief background on insurance services and their importance in the economy. Part II outlines the treatment of insurance services in the GATS, including the Annex on Financial Services and the Understanding on Commitments in Financial Services, and the state of play in the current negotiations. Part III contains the negotiating checklists, which are presented in three parts: 1) the benefits of, and concerns about, liberalization and the necessary regulatory reform; 2) questions to be raised with trading partners in the GATS context; and 3) additional relevant questions beyond the scope of the GATS.