Understanding Your Country’s Services Trade

I.3 Domestic Consultations

The majority of WTO Members have already participated in negotiating rounds under the GATT and have experience in identifying and addressing the concerns of goods exporters. By contrast, since the GATS is a young agreement, there is a smaller base of experience from which to identify and pursue trade interests in services, and statistical information is far more patchy. Services trade statistics have historically been incomplete, in part because there is not a convenient check point (such as a border crossing) and most countries lack a registry of service exporters to query.

Second, since very many service firms are small or very small, they are likely to be under-represented in statistical surveys due to response burden. In addition, very small firms typically do not have staff dedicated to government relations, and they may have had little motivation to date to get more actively involved since services agreements as yet offer few actual benefits to private firms (other than transparency).

In order to negotiate effectively, Members need to identify their main services markets; develop a vision of future trading and growth opportunities; and assess the impact of various liberalisation strategies on the sectors concerned and, even more important, on overall economic and social development. Consultations with independent experts and various stakeholders may contribute greatly to this process. They would include not only the business community, i.e. producers, importers and commercial users of services, but non-profit organizations representing consumer and other interests, and the economic research community. Before useful consultations can take place participants need to be informed about the GATS.

It is important to ensure that the domestic decision-making process is not distorted by vested interests that may have been created under traditional trade regimes. It would be of little surprise, for example, if market incumbents that have long been shielded from import and domestic competition, express a strong preference for perpetuating the status quo. Industry consultations should, thus, form part of a broader information gathering and evaluation process. Promising strides have recently been made to promote cross-country research networks in various regions of the world, including in Sub-Saharan Africa (e.g. African Economic Research Consortium or the Southern Africa Trade Research Network) with a view to providing independent inputs for decision-making and putting trade policies into a wider developmental context.

As a potential source of inspiration, Box A.A provides a listing of potential contributors to the consultation process, apart from the producers and agencies directly involved.