GENEVA, Feb 25 (Reuters) - World Trade Organisation delegates began negotiations on Friday to try to draw up a framework for liberalising trade in services.
WTO officials said the talks, mandated to start this year by the 1986-93 Uruguay Round accords and expected to last at least until the end of the year, would focus initially on rule-making with negotiations on market access left until later.
The mandated talks are going ahead despite the collapse of a WTO ministerial meeting in Seattle in December to start talks on a new round of global trade liberalisation negotiations.
But trade officials are sceptical of progress in Geneva in the absence of a wider round that would allow WTO member states to trade off concessions in some sectors in return for better market access commitments in others.
Services was one of the least controversial items discussed in Seattle where officials agreed in principle on a draft text calling for progressively higher levels of liberalisation by reduction or elimination of current limitations.
But trade diplomats say agreement on launching a new trade round is still far off amid continuing disagreement among developed and developing member states on a wide range of issues.:
