Trade in Energy Services under Different Regional Agreements BCIM, BIMSTEC+1 and ASEAN+4

Synopsis: Contribution of service sector in world economy is increasing over the years and it playing a major role in world trade system. Service sector under WTO member countries generally governed by General Agreement on trade in service (GATS), formed in 1995. As trade facilitation agreement (TFA) in goods under WTO come into force, India also submitted legal draft document to multilateral body for similar agreement for services also (WTO ministerial meeting in Argentina, Jan 2017)1 . But in WTO, still GATS are ongoing issue under current Doha agenda for more liberalization in different service sectors specific issue through successive round of negotiation. Energy services are one of the most important services covered under GATS. In Uruguay round processes of liberalization of energy services was very much limited writhen many countries but in Doha round it’s still ongoing and India and different East Asian countries engaged in negotiation processes2 . Production of primary and secondary energy covered under General Agreement on Trade and Tariff (GATT) and transmission and distribution of energy services covered under GATS rule. More importantly services like construction, engineering and consulting services which intervene in energy value added chain defined as energy related service rather than energy services.3 In study we try to depict definition of energy services based on related services associated with energy through different service database namely EBOPS4 , WTO service list5 and different CPC6 version. We try to map degree of energy service trade liberalization under three regional agreements ( BCIM 7 , BIMSTEC+1 8 , ASEAN+4 9 ) through constructing a Hoekman(1995)10index chart that showing existence of limitation on Market access and national treatment writhen this sector. So Primary objective of our study is to identify different commitments level of liberalization of energy services and perform cluster analysis based on commitment pattern.
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