Abstract: In light of the fact that subsidies on trade in services are extensive and may have distortive influences on service trade, it is essential to develop and perfect multilateral disciplines on them. Discussions on service subsidies in the WTO mainly cover exchange of information required by Article XV, proposals made by members in multilateral negotiation and information contained in the Trade Policy Reviews (TPRS). Since there is no standard definition of service subsidy under present law, WTO members have different views on what to be shared and the information exchange turns out to be a failure. On the other hand, the TPRSbased data on subsidies are somewhat biased and limited. As to negotiation on subsidies of trade in services, no great headway has yet been made and the members remain contentious on some key issues, especially what are "subsidies on trade in services" and "subsidies on trade distortion". It is suggested that new disciplines be established on the timehonored rules of subsidies on goods trade with some adjustments in view of the differences between service and goods. In more detail, the definition and categorization of subsidy in Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM agreement) can be adopted while the distinctions between legal export subsidies and actual export subsidies are eliminated. The affected WTO members may have recourse to the WTO dispute settlement mechanism, the rules and procedures for which can be directly borrowed from SCM agreement. But from both a policy and technical viewpoint, the consideration of countervailing mechanism might appear undesirable. As it is essential for developing countries to grant export subsidies to promote service trade, the prohibition of export subsidies shall not be applied to developing countries for a certain period and never to the least developed countries. In addition, it is proposed that subsidies to mitigate the digital divide and reduce dependency on service export be free from the jurisdiction of the WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism (DSM).

Key words: trade in services, subsidy, multilateral negotiation