July 9, 2009
IN THIS ALERT:
WTO Director-General Lamy to Speak at Global Services Summit
World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Pascal Lamy has confirmed his participation in the Global Services Summit, to be held in Washington, DC on October 13-14. This follows the recent confirmation that Australian Trade Minister Simon Crean will also speak at the event. U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk will make the keynote address. All GSN members are encouraged to attend the Summit, which will raise the political and public profile of services. By bringing together the key policy makers, thinkers, and stake holders who can represent and advance services trade around the world, the Summit will seek to generate support for trade policies that recognize the central role that services play in economic growth and development. To register, click here: http://uscsi.org/ServicesSummit2009.html.
WTO Issues Report on Trade Protectionism
In its latest report on protectionist measures, the WTO says that in the past three months there has been some further slippage towards more trade restricting and distorting policies, but that “high intensity” protectionist measures have been contained overall. A total of 119 trade measures have been reported to the WTO Secretariat by 24 countries plus the 27-member European Union. Of these measures, 83 can be considered restrictive, the WTO says. At the same time, governments have introduced 36 trade-liberalizing and facilitating measures in the last three months. However, the WTO says there is no general indication yet that governments are unwinding or removing the measures that were taken early on in the financial and economic crisis, contrary to the pledge by the G-20 group of countries.
GMF Features New Transparency Tool to Combat Protectionism
The German Marshall Fund (GMF) recently launched the Global Trade Alert (GTA), a new tool to provide information to policy makers and stakeholders about government actions that discriminate against foreign commerce. According to the GMF, the Global Trade Alert complements and goes beyond the WTO and World Bank's monitoring initiatives by identifying those trading partners likely to be harmed by state measures. D rawing upon economic expertise from research institutes in seven regions of the world economy, the GTA will allow policymakers, government officials, exporters, the media, and analysts to report discriminatory measures. It will also provide data on the posted government measures by sector, by implementing country, and by trading partners harmed. For more information, click here: http://www.globaltradealert.org.
ITC Finds Strong U.S. Performance in Global Services Trade
The U.S. remains the world’s largest services market as well as the leading exporter and importer of services, according to a recent report by the International Trade Commission (ITC). The report focuses primarily on professional services and includes separate chapters on advertising, education, healthcare and legal services. The report notes that professional services contributed substantially to the growing U.S. services surplus, and that professional services represented 10% of U.S. private sector GDP ($1.7 trillion) in 2007. For a copy of the report, click here: http://www.usitc.gov/publications/332/pub4084.pdf.