The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) is the first multilateral agreement to provide the rules to trade in a wide range of services along with their progressive liberalization. The area of services is rapidly becoming as important in econo...
The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) is the first multilateral agreement to provide the rules to trade in a wide range of services along with their progressive liberalization. The area of services is rapidly becoming as important in economic terms for developing countries as it is for developed countries.
The implications of the GATS for developing countries are limited. The GATS imposes few limitations on national policy, only requiring that no discrimination across alternative sources of supply occurs. The non-generality of national treatment, and the sector-specificity of market access commitments reduces the value of the GATS.
The developing countries need to push for enforcing the competitive power of their service industries. The developed countries should play a responsible role by eliminating their barriers against imports from the developing countries. These efforts would lead the GATS negotiations into a virtuous circle of mutually beneficial liberalization.