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Just before the negotiation deadline of June 30 last year, Mr Tam recalled, the United States who has all along advocated for an open market for financial services decided that she would not commit to opening the US market to new entrants because, in her view, the offers made by some WTO members were inadequate.
After sustained lobbying and intensive deliberations to salvage the negotiations, an interim agreement was reached on July 28, 1995, whereby participants, including Hong Kong, made binding offers to provide access to their markets on a MFN basis without the US.
"The negotiations on basic telecommunication services are still in a limbo," Mr Tam said.
Again towards the end of the negotiations, he continued, representatives of the US raised two issues which they claimed would prevent them from coming to a full agreement if they were not resolved satisfactorily.
The two issues involve accounting rate and satellite services and are highly complicated and technical in nature.
"Admittedly more time is needed to study them in depth before reaching any possible resolution.
"However, it is generally understood that the US was not happy with the offers other negotiating parties have put on the table and wanted more time to urge them to come up with improved offers," Mr Tam said.
"In the end, an agreement was reached on April 30 this year that negotiations will continue until February 15, 1997, so that sufficient time would be available to work out satisfactory solutions to the two outstanding issues and to allow more time for more improved offers to be made.
"Although there is not yet a formal agreement at the moment on this track of negotiation, the comfort is that offers to liberalise basic telecommunication markets will remain on the table during this interim period and will become effective on January 1, 1998."
On negotiations on maritime transport services, Mr Tam said this track of negotiation was doomed from the beginning with no offer from the US as the US was not convinced that the offers from other participants were meaningful for a full- fledged multilateral agreement.