The services sector --including financial services,
telecommunications, transportation, tourism, and professional
services --has become critical to the continued economic dynamism
in the Americas. And the quality and competitiveness of this sector
are essential to economic growth and development. On average,
services --increasingly traded in more numerous and far-reaching
ways than goods --account for nearly two-thirds of the gross
domestic product of the Western Hemisphere. The importance of the
sector, however, is disproportionately large in Central America and
the Caribbean, where it often is the major source of employment and
of foreign exchange.This timely volume is the first to review and
analyze trade agreements covering the services sector in the
Western Hemisphere and their relationship to the General Agreement
on Trade in Services (GATS), in force since 1995 as an integral
part of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Negotiations on
liberalizing services trade are continuing at the multilateral, the
regional or hemispheric, and the subregional levels. It is
imperative to understand what is being discussed and implemented at
these different levels and to articulate the linkages and
relationships among the various agreements and the disciplines and
obligations they contain. Services Trade in the Western Hemisphere
informs the reader about these issues and more. Part 1 deals with
the main issues relevant to the liberalization of services trade at
the multilateral and regional levels, including improvements to the
GATS architecture, the scope of regulatory reform, the relationship
between the treatment of services and investment, WTO requirements
that must be fulfilled by parties to an economic integration
agreement, and disagreements brought to the multilateral dispute
settlement process. Part 2 examines the scope, content, and
liberalizing approach of subregional agreements in the Western
Hemisphere, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and
those promulgated by the Andean Community, as well as several
bilateral free trade agreements covering services, in particular
those signed by Mexico, Chile, and Central America. Part 3
evaluates the extent of liberalization of services trade achieved
to date at the multilateral and subregional levels and discusses
options for improvements in the context of the ongoing Free Trade
Area of the Americas negotiations.
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