The GATS and regional approaches to services trade and investment liberalization, IPRA Working Paper 93

This paper examines the approaches toliberalization of trade in services adopted within existing PTAs as compared to prevailing GATS’ commitments. The paper aims to gain a better understanding of whether and how the difficult issues associated with services trade and investment liberalisation are tackled in the PTA-type arrangement and how much further access is granted under PTAs. Using information and data from a selection of 30 PTAs most of them negotiated after 2000 (from Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Europe, among others), the paper establishes that most major PTAs are at the same pace with GATS in securing the rule-making interface between domestic regulation and trade in services. With exception of rules -making (safeguard mechanism, disciplines on subsidies or domestic regulation), where GATS prevails overall when considered in aggregate, PTAs appear to offer superior value added over GATS in all other areas. Across modes and sectors, PTA commitments tend to go significantly beyond GATS offers in terms of improved and new bindings. However, commitments on temporary movement of labour though superior in PTAs remain modest in scope.