This is one of the three main agreements of the World Trade Organization (WTO), beyond non-discrimination principle. GATS emphasized the requirement that transparency must be applied to all service sections, whether they are listed in the commitment schedule or not.

Commerce – After joining, Vietnam has to honor its obligations and commitments in the accessing documents, in which one of the obligations is to assure the transparency according to the general agreement on trade services (GATS). To meet this requirement, on August the 14 2007, “Recommendation on establishing announcement and Q&A station about GATS of Vietnam” was held by the Project on Multilateral Trade Assistance phase II (Mutrap II).

“Transparency” is the heart and sold in the multilateral trade system and one of basic principles of WTO, which plays a crucial role in achieving free multilateral trade, and defining limitation and errors of the world commerce. This is extremely necessary to the commercial services industry.

In the meeting, specialists gave out the results of Vietnamese legal framework relating to GATS, experience and international practice in establishing and operating the announcement and Q&A station about GATS of Vietnam.

According to specialists, Vietnam should put the Q&A station about GATS under Ministry of Industry and Commerce to honor GATS obligations and until the station is finished, Ministry of Industry and Commerce needs to answer all questions according to GATS from WTO members.

The station will be a good channel to transfer questions to other WTO members about their GATS measures. If this decision comes into effect, other Ministries of Vietnam can send questions to the station which later will be transferred to other WTO members. This station will give ministries the answers as soon as they receive the replies.

Ministry of Industry and Commerce is the main agency which is responsible for commercial negotiations, including GATS negotiations. The inter-ministerial mission group, consisting of representatives of concerning professional ministries and independent management agencies, has well-operated during the negotiating process. Specialists said that there should be consideration about the establishment of a sub-department for service industry which includes representatives from private sector such as VCCI, some commercial and specific career associations.