Services market opening: Salience, results and meaning

This chapter is structured around three questions. What advances have been made on services market opening? what have been the specific market access commitments of least-developed countries (LDCs)? And what is the progress made with domestic regulation disciplines? This chapter examines the extent to which the services-specific commitments and domestic regulatory disciplines of Article XII members differ from those undertaken by original WTO members at similar levels of development. Although no single indicator exists that can be used to make this comparison, given the textual nature of specific commitments, as opposed to the numerical properties of tariffs, several other possible parameters exist, which could be used alone or in combination to assess such departures. The evidence and patterns in Article XII members’ services market access commitments and regulatory state-of-play and advances are examined. The trends and patterns in the depth and sectoral coverage of commitments are identified. The results from accession negotiations on the rules are reviewed with particular focus on how they compare to the envisaged disciplines on domestic regulation under the General Agreement on Trade in Services Article VI:4. Finally, the performance of Article XII LDC members in their WTO accession services negotiations is reviewed. Overall, the evidence indicates that Article XII members’ services bindings go further than those of original WTO members.