Sutton offers few trade-offs

By BRIAN FALLOW

The Government will not make any privatisation commitments involving privatisation of public entities or services to the World Trade Organisation next month, says Trade Minister Jim Sutton.

Nor would it make any offers that would affect Kiwi Share obligations, he said yesterday.

The Government has to table by March 31 its "initial offers" in response to requests for liberalisation that have been made under the WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services (Gats) negotiations.

One of the changes sought was the removal of the Kiwi Share cap on any single offshore shareholding on Telecom and nationality restrictions applying to its directors.

European negotiators were also seeking commitments on water and wastewater services, but New Zealand would not be making any of those, Sutton said.

The Gats process is being watched suspiciously by groups such as the Council of Trade Unions, which see it as a further step towards privatisation and globalisation.

The CTU is also concerned because the wish-list of concessions requested of New Zealand by other countries was only made public on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade website on Friday.

The unions' view is that this has left an impossibly narrow window for debating the concessions sought.

But Sutton said that the initial offers tabled on March 31 would be essential, conditional and revocable.

"New Zealand will reserve the right to modify or withdraw them in light of subsequent developments in negotiations, particularly in light of the responsiveness of our trading partners to our requests," he said. "We will not be pursuing any unilateralist negotiating agenda, but seeking reciprocal benefit."

Consultations with industry and interest groups had indicated that New Zealand service exporters still faced major barriers in international markets, he said.

"The Government does not intend to make any initial offers to change actual current policy settings, including those for local government.

"At most we would be offering to commit, on a conditional basis, to settings that reflect our settled policy in certain areas. There is sufficient negotiating coin in this respect."

This indicates that there will be no offer that will limit the Government's right to provide, fund or regulate public services such as health or eduction, as feared by the public sector unions.

Sutton said that the proposals would not involve any commitments regarding changes to the present immigration regime.