Services businesses have long been calling for enhanced transparency and predictability of regulatory frameworks to reduce the costs of doing business and facilitate their participation in international trade. This is what a group of WTO members taking part in WTO negotiations on services domestic regulation – currently representing more than 70% of world services trade – is seeking to achieve. Participants confirmed at the first 2021 meeting that these negotiations are at a very advanced stage and that an outcome by the WTO’s 12th Ministerial Conference is viable.
