The Economic Effects of Removing Barriers to Trade in Telecommunications

摘要

Trade in services is a rapidly growing area of international trade. The importance of services trade to national economies has been increasingly recognised by more and more countries. However, services sectors have long been subject to a wide range of domestic regulations in many countries. As a result, trade in services between countries has been seriously impeded in many ways. Considering the rapidly growing importance of services sectors, potentially large gains can be reaped if more free and open trade in services is realised. Since the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) was reached in 1993, the members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) have signed a number of agreements to begin liberalising trade in key services sectors. Scheduled commitments have been made by member governments to open trade in basic telecommunications and banking services. This marks the beginning of a continuous negotiation process aiming eventually at free trade in all services around the world. Compared with trade in goods, however, trade in services is much more complicated in a number of ways. Unlike goods, the consumption of many services cannot be separated from their producers. When a service is consumed, both its producer and consumers have to meet with each other. When traded internationally, either foreign producers must move to meet local consumers or local consumers have to travel overseas to meet foreign services providers.