The meeting of the ministers of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in Geneva last November produced a little-noted but significant accomplishment. In the final hours of difficult, and at times acrimonious, debate, the ministers agreed to initiate a study on international trade in services–industries such as banking, insurance, communications, data processing, engineering and shipping. In the text of the final communique, GATT's contracting parties agreed to:• Recommend that each contracting party undertake a national examination of service sector issues;• Invite contracting parties to exchange this information among themselves and through international organizations, such as the GATT, on as uniform a basis as possible; and• Review the information at their 1984 session to determine whether a multilateral framework on services is desirable, and, if so, how to proceed.Although a modest step, the accord marks an economic milestone, for it is the first time that GATT's contracting parties have agreed to examine trade in services with the possibility of expanding international trade rules to cover services as well as goods.
Cultural distance and international trade in services: A disaggregate view
