2016年5月28日，世界贸易组织（WTO）和中国（北京）国际服务贸易交易会（CIFTIS）组委会联合主办、中国世界贸易组织研究会承办的“全球服务贸易峰会--服务创新分论坛”在国家会议中心隆重召开。论坛主题为“创新和服务贸易：数字化时代的机遇与挑战”。

 

（论坛现场）

论坛开幕式由中国世界贸易组织研究会会长、中国驻世界贸易组织首任大使孙振宇主持。商务部副部长王受文、世界贸易组织副总干事易小准、经济合作与发展组织(OECD)副秘书长玛丽•基维涅米(Mari Kiviniemi)出席开幕式并致辞。此次论坛共有来自国际组织驻华机构、外国驻华机构、政府部门、中国商、协、学会和地方机构、大专院校和科研机构、企业以及媒体的负责人及专家学者280余人与会。论坛设三个议题。议题一“服务创新：商业视角”、议题二“促进服务创新：国家政策经验”、议题三“国际贸易规则与服务创新”。

 

（石静霞教授进行主题演讲）

石静霞教授应邀参加论坛，并在第三场讨论中就“国际贸易规则和服务创新”之间的关系、目前取得的一些进展评估及进一步的改进建议进行了主题演讲（发言全文经整理附后），并与参会嘉宾进行了交流互动。

 

（石静霞教授发言）

石静霞教授受世界贸易组织服务贸易司之邀参加“京交会服务贸易分论坛”，体现了她在国际服务贸易法领域的研究水平受到国内外专家的认可，同时也凸显了我院发挥学科特色服务社会，为国家建言献策的积极作用。

 

 

International Trade Rules and Services Innovation:

Assessment and Recommendations

 

Jingxia Shi, UIBE Law School

May 28, 2016, CIFTIS

 

Thank you very much, Hamid, for your kind introduction.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Good Afternoon!

It is indeed my great honor to have this opportunity here sharing you with some rough thoughts on international trade rules and services innovation. Considering the time limitation, please allow me to offer three observations on the topic in order to inspire more of your comments and ideas.

First, I’d like to address the relationship between international trade rules and services innovation in the current context.

As widely noted and nicely addressed by DDG Mr. Yi in the first session, globalization and Internet technology have produced profound impact on our life, as well as services trade and innovation landscape. Economic activities are increasingly service-oriented, particularly along with the servification of manufacturing industries, a creative concept brought forward by Swedish experts in 2008. Gradually, the borderline between goods and services becomes blurred. The business case of IBM, moving from a goods producer to a service supplier, serves as an excellent example of a company switching its product characteristics, thus indicating that innovation helps a company to stay on the market by adapting its products to consumers’ needs. More and more firms organize their services production into global or regional value chains, which are becoming more prominent characteristics of the current world economy. This adds to the need of analyzing services production in a value chain context.

One argument to be advocated here is that the interrelationship between international trade rules and services innovation is one of mutual reinforcement. On the one hand, well-designed trade rules and regimes may contribute to services innovation; and on the other hand, services innovation may serve as the driving force for international trade rule making and further boost trade flows. In the recent decade, many countries, including China, are actively pursuing ambitious innovation policies to increase their international competitiveness. The strengthening of national innovation capacities, which often rely on discriminatory policies, improves a country’s ability to engage in and benefit from the international trade regime, but may constitute impediments to services trade, such as prohibition of data flow mentioned by Mr. Ola mentioned in the last session. And this may cause potential violation to trade obligations. Therefore the harmonization of rules and regulations is not an easy task to navigate in today’s world economy.

Second, we need to assess the status quo of international trade rules for the purpose of identifying where we are now, understanding where we are going and how to get there, with a view to promoting services innovation.

At multilateral level, services disciplines are currently covered by GATS. However, the role of innovation was not at the forefront of negotiators’ considerations when the GATS was concluded in 1994. As WTO Director General Roberto Azevedo noted at the WTO Public Forum in 2013, current WTO rules were conceived in a world with no Internet connection and that the multilateral trading system is in urgent need of update if it is to be relevant, if it is to stimulate innovation and development. Thus, in reviewing GATS from the perspective of how it influences service innovation globally, we found that it cannot adequately support innovation as a policy objective in the context of the knowledge economy and the digital era. The WTO has a program on e-commerce but it remains a sideshow in the sense of rule making and not properly designed to tackle the challenges posed by the digital environment.

In short, we live in an era of digitalization while current trade rules has so far not reacted in a forward-looking manner of the digital revolution. No real advance whatsoever has been made since the Uruguay Round. And little can be expected even in a post-Doha scenario. Nevertheless, the situation is that as the innovation process is increasingly organized in global networks and value chains across borders, innovation and trade are now more closely intertwined and their interface is in need of a new look. Addressing its many dimensions in the present-day economic environment could trigger new response that could help revitalize the multilateral trading system and reaffirm its relevance.

These being said, I turn to the third observation focusing on possible recommendations and proposals for trade rules making with a view to further enhancing services innovation. In other words, after identifying the contributions and limitations of the trade regime vis-à-vis services innovation, we should ponder how could this be improved.

The first area is about digital trade, an overlap concept with e-commerce, which is a key area very much relevant with services innovation. In this regard, we note that some progress has already been achieved, such as the conclusion of Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA). I believe that the conclusion of TFA is partly in response to ideas, similar with the one just advocated by Mr. Turley from Fedex, ‘Simplify, Simplify, and Simplify’! Unfortunately, TFA is yet to become effective. Another achievement is the conclusion of Information Technology Agreement (ITA). ITA, a plurilateral agreement on trade in goods, may reduce trade costs associated with the liberalization of ICT products, this likely facilitates service innovation in the sense that ICT products is closely related with important services sectors including research and development, telecommunication, financial, etc..

The recent negotiations of Mega-FTAs, including TPP led by the U.S,, TTIP between the U.S. and EU, TiSA on trade in services, may offer some new approaches and more detailed and better structured templates for addressing services innovation. For example, the service and service-related chapters in the recently concluded TPP, and some FTAs as well, contain some noteworthy regulatory trends and disciplines, such as negative list approach coupled with standstill and ratchet mechanism, prohibition of data localization, enabling cross-border data flow, prohibition of transfer of software source code, open access to internet, represent the rule-making development aiming to unlock potentials for services innovation. Of course, these rules present challenges to domestic policy options, including China’s regulations invoking such considerations as national security, consumer privacy protection, etc. Thus this remains to be seen how the trade rules better strike the delicate balance between regulatory autonomy and services innovation. 

Overall, we are still only at the beginning of finding and defining an appropriate international regulatory framework governing to promote services innovation. The proposal has been made to formulate a Digital Trade Agreement; this even needs more concerted efforts, particularly among big players in the area.

In today’s world, not only trade and investment but also capital, people, data, technology frequently across border. This adds more complexity in crafting innovation-friendly trade rules. My second recommendation, from a legal perspective, involves removing on a collective basis barriers preventing the movement of services suppliers to pursue innovation opportunities wherever these might present themselves. The rationale behind this recommendation lies in the fact that innovation activities are often transmitted by people, and thus increasing the ability of service suppliers to move across borders with more ease is an advisable policy option. Where to proceed? Well, practically, continuing to expand GATS Mode 4 commitments to further encourage temporary mobility of services suppliers is a way forward to improve the current situation.

My third recommendation concerns small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Services innovation has great impacts on the performance of SMEs, in particular on those engaging in e-commerce and digital trade. In the meantime, services innovation has a positive relationship with international performance of SMEs. In fact, SMEs has been a focus in recent years when it comes to innovation, as Internet enables them to conduct services trade more easily. Similarly in China, SMEs have been playing more and more important role in economic transition and development. As a result, SMEs-friendly international trade rules should also be a prioritized area to encourage services innovation. This is a cross-area and systemic issue in need of a comprehensive outlook in devising appropriate trade rules.

My last observation briefly addresses China’s role in promoting pro-innovation trade and investment rules. As already elaborated by Vice Minister Wang and Madam Zhao in the previous sessions, services industry and trade have been an engine for upgrading Chinese economy and dealing with production overcapacity in the reform of supply side. Thus it is in the great interest of China to take more active and substantive actions to spur innovation and facilitate services liberalization. In this regard, sensitive issues, such as cross-border data flow, transfer of source code, Internet regulation, should be on the agenda for China to take serious consideration in striking a necessary balance.

I’ll stop here and thank you very much for your time and attention. Look forward to your comments and questions.