The World Trade Organization on Tuesday approved new rules facilitating trade in services among more than 70 member states, the European Union’s trade commissioner said, despite initial objections from India and South Africa.
The set of rules will streamline licensing requirements and ease procedural hurdles faced by businesses, according to a press release.
It will help reduce the cost of global trade in services by more than $119 billion each year, he added.
Its inclusion in the WTO means that all 164 members have agreed to the organization’s rules requiring full consensus.
“Achieving this result…and integrating it into the WTO was not an easy task,” EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said during the 13th WTO Ministerial Conference in Abu Dhabi.
“We faced opposition from two WTO members,” but a “spirit of compromise” eventually overcame the obstacles, he said without naming any countries.
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WTO chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, meanwhile, thanked “India and South Africa for finding a way forward”, calling the services “the future of trade”.
Global services exports are valued at more than $6.5 trillion, accounting for 23% of total global trade, according to the EU.
The latest WTO agreement applies to 71 member states that signed the initiative, but businesses from other member states can also benefit.
China, the United States and the EU are among the 71 signatories. India and South America have not signed.
Costa Rica, which led negotiations on the initiative, called it an “important milestone” for member states and the WTO.
This “is the first WTO result in services in more than 25 years. A real success story for this organization,” said Costa Rican Foreign Trade Minister Manuel Tovar.
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Source: AFP