ABSTRACT
Early Voluntary Sectoral Liberalization (EVSL)1 was an attempt to liberalize certain sectors before the general goal of ‘free and open trade and investment’ by 2010 for developed members and by 2020 for others. The idea of liberalizing certain sectors earlier than others originated in the Osaka Action Agenda (OAA), which was endorsed by the Leaders Meeting in 1995. The idea gained momentum in 1996. At the Subic Leaders Meeting in 1996, they agreed to support the Information Technology Agreement (ITA) at the WTO Ministerial Conference that was to be held within a month in Singapore. The subsequent success of ITA at the WTO was believed to indicate the possibility of conducting similar liberalization initiatives in other sectors.
