ADBI-PECC Conference on Services Trade: New Approaches for the 21st Century

Purpose

The project aims to help clarify the factors essential to competitiveness in services to enable regional businesses and governments to build appropriate strategies to develop and internationalise their services industries. It also aims to address and propose ways to meet key services trade policy challenges facing the regional and multilateral trading systems in the coming years, and to contribute to the development of an agenda for regional services integration that responds to the changing environment and needs of the region.

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Background

Services are key to economic growth and competitiveness. For too long services have been the neglected component of international trade and the missing element in the search for increased productivity and economic dynamism. Services are the wheels that turn the global value-added chains and create an increasingly interconnected international economy.

The APEC region includes some of the largest services exporters in the world. However, in much of the region, the potential for services to contribute to economic growth and development has still to be realized due to a lack of transparency around regulation of services trade and investment and a general lack of knowledge of the dynamism that more efficient services can bring to national economies. Some forms of services trade are still subject to major barriers and it remains challenging for firms to move ideas, capital and people across borders in a seamless fashion. The potential gains that could arise from removing these barriers and facilitating all forms of services trade are beginning to be examined by researchers but are not always known and appreciated by policy makers.

The year 2011 is a timely occasion for focusing on services in the Asia Pacific region for several reasons:

• The international economy is in the midst of a weak recovery, with economic uncertainty still prevalent in many economies, as the aftermath of the global financial crisis continues to be felt in high levels of unemployment, weak job creation and low productivity growth.
• Challenges to services trade policy arising from inclusion of services trade in numerous regional trade agreements are changing the complexion of governance for services, with a growing gap between regional services disciplines and levels of liberalization in RTAs and in the WTO GATS.

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Objectives

The primary purpose of this project is to generate policy-oriented research that will be beneficial for trade policymakers in the APEC region and provide a forum where both policymakers and the academic and research community can discuss emerging issues affecting services, in particular, and trade, in general.

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Participants

About 40 participants.

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Language

English

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Partners

Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC)
Chinese University of Hong Kong