Services
Domestic regulation: What are the costs and benefits for international trade in services?
Services have been considered non-tradable and therefore outside the scope of trade policy-making until quite recently. A logical consequence is that explicit policy barriers to cross-border trade in services are rare. What segments markets for tradable services is therefore largely in the realm of domestic regulation. Both the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and a number of regional trade agreements (RTAs) aim at developing disciplines on domestic regulation. GATS Article VI states that disciplines on qualification requirements and procedures technical standards and licensing requirements shall be established to ensure that regulation is not more burdensome than necessary to ensure the quality of the service. Such disciplines are however yet to be established but a reference paper on pro-competitive domestic regulation in telecommunications has been included in a number of World Trade Organization (WTO) members’ GATS schedules of commitments and some RTAs have quite detailed disciplines on domestic regulation in this sector.
Opening services markets at the regional level under the CAFTA-DR: The cases of Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic
The cases of Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic (DR) offer interesting examples of why smaller countries choose to negotiate in a regional context and help explain why the CAFTA-DR regional agreement has led both of them to make services commitments that go significantly beyond their WTO GATS schedules.
The liberalization of postal and courier services: Ready for delivery?
Even if postal and courier services represent traditional means of communication they remain essential to a country’s economic and social development even in today’s information society where new communication technologies keep emerging. Nevertheless these services have been transformed in many aspects in order to face the challenges resulting from the IT revolution.
Services liberalization in the WTO and in PTAs
The first decade of this century has been characterized by intensive trade negotiations. Countries all over the world have resorted to a plethora of fora and mechanisms to enhance trade opportunities overseas. Negotiations at the WTO have been ongoing since November 2001 under the umbrella of the Doha Development Agenda. In parallel to that many new preferential trade agreements have entered into force.
Pourquoi le commerce des services compte
La présente section examine le rôle que le commerce des services joue pour aider les pays à parvenir à une croissance rapide et inclusive. La section C.1 analyse et tente de quantifier dans quelle mesure le commerce des services est bénéfique pour l’économie et promeut la croissance. La section C.2 étudie le rôle que le commerce des services joue dans l’amélioration de la compétitivité des entreprises nationales non seulement dans le secteur des services mais aussi dans le secteur manufacturier. La section C.3 examine de quelle façon le commerce des services promeut l’inclusion dans un certain nombre de domaines comme les compétences l’égalité hommes-femmes et la localisation de l’activité économique. La section C.4 sert de conclusion.
El comercio de servicios en cifras
En esta sección se expone la importancia del comercio de servicios en la economía mundial utilizando los datos sobre el comercio de servicios por modos de suministro (TISMOS) una base de datos experimental desarrollada por la OMC. Esta base de datos presenta los servicios prestados a través de los cuatro modos de suministro clasificados en el Acuerdo General sobre el Comercio de Servicios (AGCS) de la OMC; las estadísticas tradicionales sobre el comercio de servicios solo abarcan tres de los modos de suministro del AGCS. En la sección también se examina la participación de las economías en desarrollo incluidas las de los países menos adelantados (PMA) la importancia de las microempresas y las pequeñas y medianas empresas (MIPYME) y el papel de la mujer en el comercio de servicios. Por último la presente sección explora el valor añadido por los servicios a las cadenas de valor mundiales.
Conclusions
Au cours des dernières décennies les services sont devenus la pierre angulaire de l’économie mondiale et la composante la plus dynamique du commerce international. Ils sont de plus en plus faciles à échanger en grande partie grâce au numérique. De la formation en ligne aux cabinets juridiques virtuels la technologie pénètre tous les secteurs de services transformant les services qui nécessitaient habituellement une proximité physique en services marchands fournis à distance. Le commerce longtemps dominé par les échanges de marchandises fait de plus en plus intervenir les services un processus qui transforme l’économie mondiale.