Side Event on Facilitating Trade in Services delivered via Electronic Transmission

The Institute for International Trade is taking a global lead on digital trade as the first organization to host policy research and outreach seminar events for WTO members in the margins of the WTO e Commerce negotiations. 

This side event takes place in the margins of the forthcoming June negotiating round and focuses on the importance of the e commerce discussions for future global growth of trade in services. The Discussion is designed to enhance WTO members’ familiarity with the impact of digitalization on the services industries and the resulting widespread intensification of services globalization

Speakers include:

IIT Industry Professor Jane Drake-Brockman, Founder and Director of the Australian Services Roundtable and Co-Convenor of the Asia Pacific Services Coalition, Adelaide.

Mr Tilman Kupfer, Vice President, Trade and International Affairs,  BT Group, European Services Forum, Brussels.

Ms Christine Bliss, President of the Coalition of Services Industries, US, Washington DC.

Mr Quan Zhao, Trade in Services Lead, Office of the Chief Economist, International Trade Centre, Geneva

Mr Janos Ferenz,  Trade and Agriculture Directorate, OECD, Paris.

Mr John Cooke, CityUK and Chair, LOTIS Committee, European Services Forum, London.

Speakers will draw attention to a recent trend to increasing global market fragmentation affecting digitally-enabled services.  This is partly an unintended result of unilateral responses to the regulatory challenges of the emerging digital economy.   Speakers will highlight the consequent need  for greater international regulatory cooperation among WTO members across the various regulatory building blocks required for increased trade in digitally-enabled services.  The intention is to generate new insights into means of facilitating rather than impeding flows of cross-border e services transactions.

Background

WTO negotiations on e Commerce are now in full swing in Geneva with monthly rounds scheduled from May through June and July 2019.  Background is available, for example, at  https://dfat.gov.au/trade/services-and-digital-trade/Pages/e-commerce-and-digital-trade.aspx. This IIT event is the first in a series of two events, the second is scheduled for 16 July 2019 in conjunction with the Australian Services Roundtable and the European Services Forum.

 

Tagged in World Trade Organisation, World Trade System, Events