ABSTRACT
Dealing with trade in services in the multilateral context first came to the forefront of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in 1982 with a request by the Government of the United States that services be included in the Work Programme established by the Ministerial Declaration of 1982. This chapter provides the terms of reference for the negotiations to liberalize trade in services and was adopted by participants in their capacity as representatives of governments. An "umbrella" Trade Negotiations Committee has been established to carry out the negotiations, as well as two separate negotiating groups which report to the Trade Negotiations Committee: one on goods and one on services. A number of issues which have emerged in the course of the negotiations flow naturally from the complex nature of activities normally considered to be part of the services sector.
