Services Trade in ASEAN: The Road Taken and the Journey Ahead

Description

The member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) set themselves the ambitious aim of establishing a region-wide economic community by 2015, and to deepen it in the context of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) Blueprint 2025. To achieve these goals, service sector reforms will occupy a central place in ASEAN's policy pantheon. This can be attributed to both ASEAN's integration process and its deepening ties within a dense layer of external economic partners. This book takes stock of the experience of ASEAN member states in pursuing trade and investment liberalization in services. It identifies key challenges that the regional grouping can be expected to encounter in realizing its AEC Blueprint 2025 aims. Using a law and economics lens, the book assesses where ASEAN is and is headed in services trade, situating it alongside efforts at crafting a European single market for services.

Dora Neo is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore. She was part of the team that pioneered the first university course on World Trade Law in Singapore, and has given academic talks and conducted government training on trade in services. From 2007-10, she was an instructor for the services module in the World Trade Organization's Regional Trade Policy Course for the Asia-Pacific. She has published on the outsourcing of services, and her most recent research focuses on the liberalisation of trade in services in ASEAN. She graduated from both the University of Oxford and Harvard University. Pierre Sauve is a Senior Trade Specialist within the World Bank Group's Macroeconomics, Trade and Investment (MTI) Global Practice. He has published extensively in leading journals and authored important books devoted to trade in services. He has lectured on trade and investment in services in leading universities (Harvard Kennedy School, London School of Economics and Political Science, Sciences Po, Paris, World Trade Institute, Bern); and led negotiations in services trade as a Canadian government official. Beyond his diplomatic service in Canada, he has served as a staff member of the Bank for International Settlements, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the World Bank Group. Imola Streho is an Associate Professor in the Law School at Sciences Po in Paris. Her research focuses on the liberalisation of trade in services in the European Union. From 2001 to 2009, she was Referendaire at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg where she worked on numerous cases involving the free movement of services. She has delivered guest lectures on international economic law at the National University of Singapore, Melbourne University, the College of Europe, Central European University and Catolica University in Lisbon.

'This comprehensive assessment of progress in liberalizing trade in services between ASEAN countries is a valuable contribution to the literature on trade agreements. It should be required reading for students and analysts interested in understanding the state of play and challenges in integrating ASEAN services markets.' Bernard Hoekman, European University Institute, Florence 'This is the finest volume on services trade in the ASEAN region. Its value though extends much beyond South East Asia. It is a model set up on how writings about trade in services should be approached. The reader will profit from the expertise reflected therein with respect to empirics, but also the deeper questions surrounding integration at the regional- and multilateral level.' Petros C. Mavroidis, Edwin B. Parker Professor of Law, Columbia Law School, New York City 'A great book! Distinguished experts document services trade among ASEAN members, their aspirations for genuine integration, and their policy failures. The volume makes essential reading for firms, officials and scholars. A bonus chapter recounts the EU's successful creation of a single market for services, calling out lessons for ASEAN.' Gary Clyde Hufbauer, Peterson Institute for International Economics, Washington