NCCR Research in Services Trade Presented at the Asian Development Bank in Manila

The Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), the Asia-Pacific Research and Training Network on Trade (ARTNeT) and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) jointly organized an International Conference on ‘Selected Outstanding Issues in Services, Trade and Development’ during 3-5 May, 2011 at the Asian Development Bank in Manila. Pierre Sauvé, Deputy Managing Director and Director of Studies, WTI and Co-leader, NCCR-Trade work programme on preferentialism and Anirudh Shingal, Senior Research Fellow, WTI and Co-leader, NCCR-Trade work programme on impact assessment of trade, co-authored a paper on the preferential liberalization of services trade, forthcoming in the Journal of World Trade. Anirudh presented results from this work at this Conference. 

The objective of this Conference was to discuss new frontiers in services research and also facilitate dialogue between services experts and trade officials from the Asia-Pacific region on the current state of readiness of countries to conduct analytical research in these areas, as well as the implications of such research on the broader development objectives of these countries. The list of speakers included trade experts from the WTO, OECD and international research organizations and the issues discussed included rule-making in services, services trade and climate change, measuring services trade and global value-chains, labour mobility and Mode 4 trade and preferentialism in services.