Services rules in regional trade agreements: how diverse or creative are they compared to the multilateral rules?

Services trade represents about one- fifth of world trade as measured by the balance of payments and about one- third based on commercial presence/ establishment. Services have not escaped the recent flurry of regional trade agreements (RTAs), but as a relatively new subject in the trade negotiations arena, they have been less affected by this trend than trade in goods. As of December 2014 there were 122 RTAs with a services component that had been notified to the WTO, compared with 235 agreements with a goods component. The growing importance of RTAs in services raises questions about the rules on services in these agreements and this chapter tries to answer two somewhat provocative questions.