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While SITPRO is better known for its work aimed at simplifying international trade in goods, it is also very interested in services, not least because services trade accounts for 70% of UK GDP. Like goods, services are also traded across borders and the simplification of processes and procedures can facilitate that trade. Making access to services more difficult than they need to be damages the competitive advantage held by UK service suppliers in several sectors. Many services also feature as part of the supply chain for goods. So facilitating trade in those services could also facilitate trade in goods.
EU Services Directive
SITPRO cautiously welcomed the EU Services Directive. However as an instrument designed to complete the internal market for services it only goes so far and careful and consistent implementation by EU member states will be crucial if it is to create new opportunities for UK suppliers.
The initiative to remove barriers to pan-European trade in services through the implementation of the Services Directive is to be applauded, but the process itself is fraught with difficulties. The success of the Directive will hinge on the efficient working of the Point of Single Contact (PSC), where all the information necessary to enter a market can be accessed by service suppliers. The problem though is that there will be not one PSC but 27, one in each member state. Since the PSC in each member state is essentially outward facing there is a very real concern that some member states may not implement as fully as others or be as transparent as others in an unjustifiable attempt to protect their own suppliers from competition in their home market. SITPRO believes that an expansion of the electronic single window approach of which SITPRO is a firm supporter will be the simplest and mostly effective way of ensuring that the PSC is transparent and easy to access. As implementation plans across the Community develop, SITPRO will seek to ensure that the opportunities promised to service suppliers actually materialise and it will provide guidance on how UK service suppliers can take advantage of those opportunities.
Services Trade Advisory Group (STAG)
To help SITPRO engage effectively and efficiently in this new area of work it intends to establish a new advisory group to help it. This group will comprise members of the trade across the broad spectrum of the services sectors and representatives from government with an interest in our workplan.
A particular issue that the Group will be asked to advise SITPRO on is the creation of a device to encourage the positive participation of developing country WTO member states in the multilateral GATS negotiations in the Doha round. SITPRO has considerable experience in this area in the context of the WTO negotiations on an Agreement on Trade Facilitation. However the nature of the regulation of services and the way in which commitments are made mean that the focus will sway towards cross cutting issues such as Mode 4, disciplines on domestic regulation and transparency in particular.
For further information about SITPRO's work in this area, please contact Graham Bartlett (graham.bartlett@sitpro.org.uk 
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