Countries aim to expand the sectoral coverage of the services agreement and to open up sectors that are already covered.
He steered a landmark national goods and services tax through India's parliament last month and has opened up sectors such as defence and aviation for foreign investment.
"If there really were a deal which opened up sectors where Mercosur can't trade, that would shift resources into those sectors," says Victor Bulmer-Thomas, an economic historian at London University.
International firms cannot afford to ignore the huge Indian market - and India itself is desperate for foreign investment, as it opens up sectors like retail and aviation to overseas companies.
China has repeatedly vowed that it would open up sectors such as financial services.
Economic reforms introduced after 1991 brought foreign competition, led to privatisation of certain public sector industries, opened up sectors hitherto reserved for the public sector and led to an expansion in the production of fast-moving consumer goods.
And a free-for-all could be avoided by an agreement similar to the GATS, in which governments settled on general principles but opened up sector-by-sector.The larger question is whether a WTO agreement on FDI is worth pursuing.
Opening up the sector-by-sector conversation would potentially allow the government to contemplate an emissions intensity trading system for the electricity sector, which some stakeholders think the Finkel review may recommend to the government.
The liberalisation of postal services forms part of the so-called 'Lisbon Strategy', and is aimed at opening up the sector to private capital.
