Financial Services Plurilateral Request; The Recent CTFS Meetings; CTFS Informals; CTFS Mandate; Status Quo in CTFS...

background; financial services and regulation; trade agreements and the regulatory interface; current crisis and its implications; potential lessons for reform...

Trade in Financial Services:• Highly regulated sector• Sector opened in last quarter of 20thcentury• Some sub-sectors operate on aglobal basis• Market share of foreign-ownedinsurance companies in Europe 41%,Latin America 47% and Asia 12%...

Measuring Financial services production in the economy. Difficult to measure...Only some charges are directly invoiced...

Viewing the challenges from 3 perspectives: Demandeurs, Targeted countries, Systemic...

Whenever a bilateral agrrement affects trade in services, the relevant provisions are multilateralized via Art. II:1 of GATS. Only exceptions: Preferential trade agreements, Recognition measures, MFN Exemptions...