The agreement, negotiated in the Uruguay Round that brings international trade in services into the WTO. It provides for countries to provide national treatment to foreign service providers and for them to select and negotiate the service sectors to be covered under GATS.
of the World Trade Organisation.
WTO agreement aimed at removing restrictions and internal government regulations in the area of service delivery that are considered to be barriers to trade. Originally agreed in 1994, negotiations are currently underway to expand the agreement further.
Multilateral agreement on services trade, negotiated in the Uruguay Round. GATS is the first multilateral agreement to provide rules governing services trade. GATS requires countries to provide national treatment to foreign service providers in those service industries that they have agreed to liberalize under GATS. Countries can agree to liberalize certain modes of services trade and not others. See “Modes of Delivery.
The WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) created a system of international trade rules. Proponents promised to provide equitable treatment of all participants, stimulate economic activity through guaranteed policy bindings, and promote trade and development through progressive liberalization. However, GATS has greatly enhanced the power of transnational corporations over governments (national, state and local) and has reduced the scope of governments to provide basic human services such as health, education and water.
The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) is a treaty of the World Trade Organization (WTO) that entered into force in January 1995 as a result of the Uruguay Round negotiations. The treaty was created to extend the multilateral trading system to services, in the same way the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) provides such a system for merchandise trade.