The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) is a treaty of the World Trade Organization (WTO) that entered into force in January 1995 as a result of the Uruguay Round negotiations. The treaty was created to extend the multilateral trading system to service sector, in the same way the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) provides such a system for merchandise trade.
All members of the WTO are signatories to the GATS. The basic WTO principle of most favoured nation (MFN) applies to GATS as well. However, upon accession, Members may introduce temporary exemptions to this rule.
Read more about General Agreement On Trade In Services: Historical Background, Four Modes of Supply, Sectors Addressed, Criticisms
Famous quotes containing the words general, agreement, trade and/or services:
“The first general store opened on the ‘Cold Saturday’ of the winter of 1833 ... Mrs. Mary Miller, daughter of the store’s promoter, recorded in a letter: ‘Chickens and birds fell dead from their roosts, cows ran bellowing through the streets’; but she failed to state what effect the freeze had on the gala occasion of the store opening.”
—Administration in the State of Sout, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“That which corrodes the souls of the persecuted is the monstrous inner agreement with the prevailing prejudice against them.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)
“If the world would only build temples to Machinery in the abstract then everything would be perfect. The painter and sculptor would have plenty to do, and could, in complete peace and suitably honoured, pursue their trade without further trouble.”
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“Those services which the community will most readily pay for, it is most disagreeable to render.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)