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A world trade organization committee has come up with suggestions to make licensing and qualification requirements and procedures more transparent and less restrictive for professionals. The push for mutual recognition of degrees wherever possible is good news for Indian professionals seeking work opportunities in the US and other developed nations. An analysis of the obstacles in the path of Indian professionals and the way forward. India's effort to ensure easier access for Indian professionals into the US and EU markets is getting simpler day after day. A professional looking for work opportunities abroad may find it easier to meet the qualification requirements there if a proposal made by a World Trade Organization (WTO) committee gets through. A consolidated paper of possible multilateral regulatory disciplines brought out by the WTO working committee on domestic regulations has come up with suggestions to make licensing and qualification requirements and procedures more transparent and less restrictive. The paper has pushed for mutual recognition of degrees wherever possible and has said that language skills should not be used as an unnecessary barrier for service providers. If the working paper's suggestion on domestic regulations gets incorporated in the general agreement on trade in services, countries like India stand to benefit as their huge pool of professionals will get easier access into the markets of developed countries including the US and the EU. The working paper, which is the first step towards reaching an agreement on domestic regulations under the general agreement on trade in services (GATS), will serve as the basis for the final negotiating text. The paper pointed out that divergent views existed among members on some of the mentioned points. Although, the US has said it will not unconditionally support any move to regulate qualification and licensing requirements imposed by a country on foreign service providers at the WTO. The US' position on the issue is quite different from a recent working paper circulated by the WTO committee on domestic regulations. The services agreement is scheduled to be in place by the year-end as part of the Doha agreement on agriculture, industrial goods and services. The paper suggested that members should ensure that qualification requirements are pre-established, objective, transparent and publicly available. Qualification requirements, including examinations, should be relevant to the activities to which they apply and should be based on objective criteria, such as competence and the ability to supply the service. On mutual recognition of degrees, the paper said that where possible, autonomous recognition should be accorded to qualifications where they are found to be equivalent to those required for the supply of a service. Recognising that language should not be used as an unnecessary barrier for service providers, the paper proposed that each member should ensure that any requirements of language skills for supplying a service are based on specific needs of supplying the service in general. The paper added that while verifying and assessing qualifications, if the competent authority identifies any deficiency in an applicant's qualifications, the applicant shall be advised of any additional requirements to meet the deficiency based on objective means such as course work, examinations, training and work experience. Members should provide the opportunity to service suppliers to fulfill such additional requirements in the home country, host country or third country, wherever possible.
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