ASEAN-EEC trade in services

• Corporate Author: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies
• Other Authors: Waelbroeck, Jean, Praet, Peter, Rieger, Hans Christoph
• Format: Book
• Language: English
• Published: Singapore ASEAN Economic Research Unit, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies 1985
• Subjects: Service industries > European Economic Community countries; Service industries > Asia, Southeastern; Asia, Southeastern > Commerce > European Economic Community countries; European Economic Community countries > Commerce sia, Southeastern
• Online Access: Click Here to View Status and Holdings.

 Trade in services has been pushed to the centre of the international stage recently. as the United States has made a determined attempt to include exchanges in services firmly in the General Agreement on Trades and Tariffs (GATT) frame- work. But as in other areas, the GATT Ministerial Meeting held in November 1982 failed to agree even on the scope of a clear programme of study on this topic. To a large extent, this failure was the result of the extremely poor climate in which the meeting was held. The main trading partners - Japan, the United States and the European Community had just been enmeshed in a series of bitter trade disputes. Developed countries were experiencing the deepest recession since World War II, with no clear sign that the bottom had even been reached. It would have been surprising to reach agreement on a major programme of trade liberalization at such a time. There was another reason for the failure, and that was that the main trading countries were not sure what their interests were. The initiator of the proposal, the United States, was obviously best equipped among the negotiators from this point of view. But there are many gaps even in Washington's files. Both the European Community's and Japan's negotiators have had too many other irons in the fire recently to have had much time to delve into