Publication: Regulatory Cooperation, Aid for Trade and the General Agreement on Trade in Services
Date
2007-12
ISSN
Published
2007-12
Author(s)
Abstract
This paper discusses what could be done
to expand services trade and investment through a
multilateral agreement in the World Trade Organization. A
distinction is made between market access liberalization and
the regulatory preconditions for benefiting from market
opening. The authors argue that prospects for multilateral
services liberalization would be enhanced by making national
treatment the objective of World Trade Organization services
negotiations, thereby clarifying the scope of World Trade
Organization commitments for regulators. Moreover,
liberalization by smaller and poorer members of the World
Trade Organization would be facilitated by complementary
actions to strengthen regulatory capacity. If pursued as
part of the operationalization of the World Trade
Organization's 2006 Aid for Trade taskforce report, the
World Trade Organization could become more relevant in
promoting not just services liberalization but, more
importantly, domestic reforms of services policies.
Citation
“Hoekman, Bernard; Mattoo, Aaditya. 2007. Regulatory Cooperation, Aid for Trade and the General Agreement on Trade in Services. Policy Research Working Paper; No. 4451. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/994a62ee-e918-5571-84d2-73ba8b1417a7 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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