Agreement in the WTO to reduce procedures in global trade in services

A total of 67 countries that represent 90% of global trade in services signed this Thursday within the World Trade Organization (WTO) an important agreement to reduce paperwork in this sector, which is expected to save costs of US $ 150,000 million annually.

The agreement “will reduce paperwork and facilitate trade in services by increasing transparency, predictability and efficiency in the licensing and authorization processes,” said WTO Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, presenting this achievement.

“It is a fantastic moment for the service sector, especially for small and medium-sized companies,” said the CEO, who also underlined that sectors such as transport, information technology or communications could be particularly benefited.

The Costa Rican ambassador to the WTO, Gloria Abraham Peralta, who chaired the negotiations, assured that this agreement marks a very special moment, “since it is the first product of negotiations on services in the quarter century of the organization’s history.” .

The Costa Rican delegate thanked the European Union (EU) and Australia for their special encouragement to these negotiations, whose agreement the WTO hoped to present at the XII Ministerial Conference that was scheduled to hold this week, although she finally had to postpone the big event because of the pandemic of COVID-19.

Among the signatories of the agreement, which will promote the use of electronic procedures to speed up licensing processes, are the EU countries but also other large economies such as the United States or China.

The estimated US $ 150,000 million that the new agreement can save would represent 6% of the total costs of trade in services, according to calculations by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).