Services in Doha : what's on the table ?

Services trade reform matters, but what is Doha doing about it? It has been hard to judge, because of the opaqueness of services policies and the opaqueness of the request-offer negotiating process. This paper attempts to assess what is on the table. It presents the results of the first survey of applied trade policies in the major services sectors of 56 industrial and developing countries. These policies are then compared with these countries'Uruguay Round commitments in services and the best offers that they have made in the current Doha negotiations. The paper finds that at this stage, Doha promises greater security of access to markets but not any additional liberalization. Uruguay Round commitments are on average 2.3 times more restrictive than current policies. The best offers submitted so far as part of the Doha negotiations improve on Uruguay Round commitments by about 13 percent but remain on average 1.9 times more restrictive than actual policies. The World Trade Organization's Hong Kong Ministerial had set out ambitious goals for services but the analysis here shows that much remains to be done to achieve them.Transport Economics Policy&Planning,Public Sector Corruption&Anticorruption Measures,Corruption&Anitcorruption Law,Trade and Services,Emerging Markets

Landlocked or policy locked ? how services trade protection deepens economic isolation

A new cross-country database on services policy reveals a perverse pattern: many landlocked countries restrict trade in the very services that connect them with the rest of the world. On average, telecommunications and air-transport policies are significantly more restrictive in landlocked countries than elsewhere. The phenomenon is most starkly visible in Sub-Saharan Africa and is associated with lower levels of political accountability. This paper finds evidence that these policies lead to more concentrated market structures and more limited access to services than these countries would otherwise have, even after taking into account the influence of geography and incomes, and the possibility that policy is endogenous. Even moderate liberalization in these sectors could lead to an increase of cellular subscriptions by 7 percentage points and a 20-percent increase in the number of flights. Policies in other countries, industrial and developing alike, also limit competition in international transport services. Hence,"trade-facilitating"investments under various"aid-for-trade"initiatives are likely to earn a low return unless they are accompanied by meaningful reform in these services sectors.Transport Economics Policy&Planning,Markets and Market Access,Public Sector Corruption&Anticorruption Measures,Economic Theory&Research,ICT Policy and Strategies

Regionalism in Services: A Study of ASEAN

Can regionalism do what multilateralism has so far failed to doâpromote greater openness of services markets? Although previous research has pointed to the wider and deeper legal commitments under regional agreements as proof that it can, no previous study has assessed the impact of such agreements on applied policies. This paper focuses on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), where regional integration of services markets has been linked to thriving regional supply chains. Drawing on surveys conducted in 2008 and 2012 of applied policies in the key services sectors of ASEAN countries, the paper assesses the impact of the ASEAN Framework Agreement on Services (AFAS) and the ambitious ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint, which envisaged integrated services markets by 2015. The analysis finds that over this period, ASEAN did not integrate faster internally than vis-à-vis the rest of the world: policies applied to trade with other ASEAN countries were virtually the same as those applied to trade with rest of the world. Moreover, the recent commitments scheduled under AFAS did not produce significant liberalization and, in a few instances, services trade policy actually became more restrictive. The two exceptions are in areas that are not on the multilateral negotiating agenda: steps have been taken toward creating regional open skies in air transport, and a few mutual recognition agreements have been negotiated in professional services. These findings suggest that regional negotiations add the most value when they are focused on areas that are not being addressed multilaterally. Document type: Articl

Services in Doha. what's on the table?

Batshur Gootiiz; Aaditya Matto

Policy barriers to international trade in services: evidence from a new database

Surprisingly little is known about policies that affect international trade in services. Previous analyses have focused on policy commitments made by countries in international agreements, but in many cases, these commitments do not reflect actual policy. This paper describes a new initiative to collect comparable information on trade policies for services from 103 countries across a range of service sectors and relevant modes of service delivery. The resulting database reveals interesting policy patterns. Although public monopolies are now rare and few services markets are completely closed, we observe numerous “second-generation” restrictions on entry, ownership, and operations. Even in instances in which there is little explicit discrimination against foreign providers, market access is often unpredictable because the allocation of new licenses remains opaque and highly discretionary in many countries. Across regions, some of the fastest-growing countries in Asia and the oil-rich Gulf states have restrictive policies in services, whereas some of the poorest countries are remarkably open. Across sectors, professional and transportation services are among the most protected industries in both industrial and developing countries, whereas retail, telecommunications, and even finance tend to be more open