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Trade in Services: Removing Barriers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 November 2022

Joan Edelman Spero
Joan Edelman Spero*
Affiliation:
American Express Company
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Extract

The meeting of the ministers of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in Geneva last November produced a little-noted but significant accomplishment. In the final hours of difficult, and at times acrimonious, debate, the ministers agreed to initiate a study on international trade in services–industries such as banking, insurance, communications, data processing, engineering and shipping. In the text of the final communique, GATT's contracting parties agreed to:

• Recommend that each contracting party undertake a national examination of service sector issues;

• Invite contracting parties to exchange this information among themselves and through international organizations, such as the GATT, on as uniform a basis as possible; and

• Review the information at their 1984 session to determine whether a multilateral framework on services is desirable, and, if so, how to proceed.

Although a modest step, the accord marks an economic milestone, for it is the first time that GATT's contracting parties have agreed to examine trade in services with the possibility of expanding international trade rules to cover services as well as goods.

Type
Articles
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , Winter 1983 , pp. 17 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association 1983

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References

1 Committee on Invisible Exports, Annual Report 1981/82 (London: Committee on Invisibles, 1982), 14.Google Scholar

2 Stanback, Thomas M. Jr. et al. , Services, The New Economy (Totowa, N.J.: Allanheld, Osmun, 1981), 14.Google Scholar

3 Ibid. These figures for producer services do not include such fields as communications, engineering and construction and transportation, which others might place in this service category.

4 Economic Consulting Services, The International Operations of U.S. Service Industries: Current Data Collection and Analysis (Washington, D.C.: Economic Consulting Services, 1981), 294.Google Scholar

5 U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis, Survey of Current Business (Washington, D.C.: June 1981).Google Scholar

6 Committee on Invisible Exports, Annual Report, 14.

7 U.S. International Trade Commission, The Relationship of Exports in Selected U.S. Service Industries to U.S. Merchandise Exports (Washington, D.C.: 1982).Google Scholar

8 Committee on Invisible Exports, Annual Report, 14.

9 Ibid.

10 Sapir, Andre and Lutz, Ernst, “Trade in Non-Factor Services: Past Trends and Current Issues,” World Bank Staff Working Paper No. 410 (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1980), 10.Google Scholar

11 Spero, Joan Edelman, “Information: The Policy Void,” Foreign Policy, Fall 1982, 139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Brock, William, “A Simple Plan for Negotiating Trade in Services” (Washington, D.C.: Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, 1982).CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also, The World Economy, 5 (No. 3, November 1982) (London: Trade Policy Research Center), 238.

13 Preparation for the GATT Ministerial (Washington, D.C.: Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, 1982), 2.

14 Brock, William, “A Simple Plan,” 18.Google Scholar