OECD Experts Meeting on the Services Trade Restrictiveness Index (STRI)

 

 

Agenda Background documents Previous meetings

The OECD Trade and Agriculture Directorate held an Experts Meeting to present the Services Trade Restrictiveness Indices (STRI) at the OECD Conference Centre in Paris on 2-3 July 2009. This Experts Meeting marked the culmination of the pilot phase of the project, which aims at quantifying barriers to trade in services by developing indices of restrictiveness for the three pilot sectors of business, construction, and telecommunication services.

 

A prerequisite for effective negotiations on liberalisation of services trade is a good understanding of the driving forces and barriers to trade in services. A host of restrictions on market access, national treatment and other regulatory measures affect the cost of foreign services suppliers to enter and service a foreign market. The STRI project has compiled and aggregated relevant restrictions into indices in order facilitate cross country comparisons of regulatory profiles for the 3 pilot sectors.

 

The July meeting presented the results of analyses of the regulatory and trade data for business, telecommunications and construction services. The meeting began with an outline of the methodology used in index development with commentary from relevant experts, and was followed by a half day presentation of the sector specific indices. The meeting closed with a discussion of how these new indices may be used by various stakeholders.

 

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Agenda (also available to download in pdf format)

Thursday, 2 July 2009 Session I: MethodologiesVenue and Practical Information

 

Developing the STRI: The top-down and bottom-up approaches (OECD Secretariat)

 

Methodology for Deriving the STRI (paper)

Presentation by Hildegunn Kyvik Nordås, OECD

Presentation by Sébastien Miroudot, OECD

 

Discussants:

                    Natalie Chen, University of Warwick (presentation)

                    Tani Fukui, US International Trade Commission (presentation)

Discussion

Session II: Professional Services

 

Presentation of the Indices (OECD Secretariat)

 

Services Trade Restrictiveness: Professional Services (paper)

Presentation by Massimo Geloso Grosso, OECD

 

Discussants:

                    Henk Kox, Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) (presentation)

                    Alison Hook, International Law Society of England and Wales

                    Russell Keune, Architect, Independent Consultant (presentation)
                    Olivier Boutellis-Taft, Federation of European Accountants

 

Discussion

Session III: Computer Services

 

Presentation of the Indices (OECD Secretariat)

 

Services Trade Restrictiveness: Computer and Related Services (paper)

Presentation by Molly Lesher and Hildegunn Kyvik Nordås, OECD

 

Discussant:

                  Henk Kox, Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) (presentation)

                  Lee Tuthill, WTO Secretariat 

 

Discussion

Friday, 3 July 2009 Session IV: Telecommunications Services

 

Presentation of the Indices (OECD Secretariat)

 

Services Trade Restrictiveness: Telecommunication Services (paper)

Presentation by Hildegunn Kyvik Nordås and Molly Lesher, OECD

 

Discussants:

                    Ewan Sutherland, Independent Consultant

                    Eric Loeb, AT&T

 

Discussion

Session V: Construction Services

 

Presentation of the Indices (OECD Secretariat)

 

Services Trade Restrictiveness: Construction Services (paper)

Presentation by Massimo Geloso Grosso, OECD

 

Discussants:

                    Roger Flanagan, Reading University (presentation)

                    Victor Chen, University of Melbourne (presentation)

 

Discussion

Session VI: Possible uses of the STRI and next steps

 

Panel:

          Peter Neary, Oxford University (presentation)

          Alexander Keck, WTO Secretariat (presentation)

          Rolf Adlung, WTO Secretariat (presentation)

          Joaquim Oliveira Martins, OECD Secretariat (presentation)

 

Discussion

 

Background documents

 

 

Testing the Services Trade Restrictiveness Index: Gravity Regressions and Trade Costs Analysis 

 

The Services Trade Restrictiveness Index: Issues and Challenges in its Design [TAD/TC/SXM(2007)2]

 

Measuring Bilateral Trade in Services: A Note on the Data Collected and Estimated for the Services Trade Restrictiveness Index [TAD/TC/SXM(2008)2]

 

Previous meetings

 

• Towards a Services Trade Restrictiveness Index (STRI) - December 2008