67 countries reach ‘historic’ WTO deal on trade in services

GENEVA (AFP) - A group of 67 countries, including the United States, China and EU members, reached a deal at the World Trade Organization Thursday on facilitating trade in services.

The countries, which account for just over a third of all WTO members but represent 90 percent of global trade in services, concluded the accord after four years of negotiations.

WTO chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala hailed the deal as “historic,” pointing to estimates that it would lower the costs associated with the services trade by as much as $150 billion each year.

Faced with WTO’s long-time failure to conclude multilateral trade deals among all 164 members, smaller numbers of countries have increasingly moved to plurilateral negotiations in a bid to move forward in areas including domestic services regulation.

Washington hailed Thursday’s deal in a statement, saying it would “improve the transparency and fairness of processes for obtaining authorizations to provide services by professionals and firms in a ƒĢùā ÖũũÖƘ ŋĕ Ʃāķùŭ̪̪̍

“This initiative is the first successful WTO services negotiation in years, and shows how WTO members can take practical, common sense steps to address clearly ùāƩłāù ŶũÖùā ťũŋðķāĿŭ̪̪̇ œ ¦ũÖùā Representative Katherine Tai said in a statement.

EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis also hailed the “groundbreaking’’ deal, tweeting that it would “cut red tape in services trade.’’

Trade in services has grown ŭĢėłĢƩóÖłŶķƘ ŋƑāũ ŶĞā ťÖŭŶ ùāóÖùā and the WTO now estimates that it accounts for around half of world trade.

However, trade in services costs are about twice that of trade in goods.

A significant portion of the costs is attributable to regulaŶŋũƘ ùĢƦāũāłóāŭ Öŭ ƒāķķ Öŭ ŋťÖŨŽā regulations and burdensome procedures.

WTO members are free to regulate their service sectors, but starting in 2017, the growing group of countries has worked towards developing good regulatory practices so as not to restrict trade unnecessarily.

Washington jointed the group in July.