The timing is good because we have started new negotiations on trade in services in the WTO that will certainly include talks on the liberalization of trade in financial services, an area of great importance to you and to all WTO Members.
Financial services has always been seen, from the start of the discussions about whether the GATT should deal with services at all, as a special and controversial sector in terms of its strategic importance and political sensitivity: not only is it the largest of all internationally traded services, and the backbone of all other economic activity, but it is also a key tool for the control of national economies.