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May 9, 2001

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FTAA - NEGOTIATING GROUP ON SERVICES

Eleventh Meeting

Panama City, Panama, May 7-9, 2001

PRESS COMMUNIQUÉ

The eleventh meeting of the FTAA Negotiating Group on Services (NGSV) took place in Panama City, Panama on May 7-9, 2001. Delegates from the following twenty-two countries were present: Argentina, Bahamas, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Trinidad & Tobago, United States, Uruguay, and Venezuela. The NGSV discussed all of the items  in the agenda, which is attached to this Communiqué.

FTAA - NEGOTIATING GROUP ON SERVICES

Eleventh Meeting

Panama City, Panama, May 7-9, 2001

AGENDA

1. Approval of the agenda.

2. Mandate of the Buenos Aires Ministerial Meeting:

Paragraph 10: We appreciate the considerable work done by the Negotiating Groups in developing the draft texts. In the light of this progress we instruct the Negotiating Groups to intensify efforts to resolve existing divergences and reach consensus, with a view to eliminating the brackets from draft texts, to the maximum extent possible, to work on consolidating texts on the basis of the specific instructions included in Annex I and to submit to the TNC a new version of chapters on their respective areas no later than 8 weeks before our next meeting.

Annex 1: We instruct the Negotiating Group on Services to submit to the Trade Negotiations Committee, its recommendations on modalities and procedures for negotiations by April 1, 2002, for its evaluation by the TNC during its first meeting following that date, in order to initiate negotiations no later than May 15, 2002.