OECD published Services Trade Restrictiveness Index
On 14 February 2023, the OECD Services Trade Restrictiveness Index was published. According to a new OECD report, 2022 marks a dynamic year in the regulatory environment for trade in services.
The Services Trade Restrictive Index (STRI) provides annual information on regulations that affect services trade in 50 countries, which represent more than 80% of the global trade in services, as well as on 22 key services sectors. The Index offers a comprehensive and transparent overview of global trends in services trade regulations, facilitating deeper analysis of the effects of such regulations on trade in services and the wider economy. It also helps trade negotiators identify restrictions that impede trade, benchmark domestic policies relative to global best practice and is a source of regulatory transparency for businesses seeking to enter foreign markets.
The index ranges from 0 to 1, where 0 is a market without any restrictions, 1 is an absolutely closed market.
Kazakhstan was included in the list of countries for which the Index is calculated in November 2018, and this year Kazakhstan is also represented in the OECD flagship study under the Country Program of Cooperation between Kazakhstan and the OECD.
On average, Japan, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands displayed the lowest regulatory barriers to services trade across sectors in 2022. Economies with the highest trade liberalisation impact on the STRI in 2022 were Viet Nam, Japan, and Kazakhstan.
The report notes that in 2022, the global regulatory environment for services trade was dynamic with an increase in the volume of regulatory changes compared to 2021, reflecting countries’ efforts to address various global economic challenges. The OECD’s annual monitoring of services trade restrictions shows substantial services liberalisation efforts occurred in 2022, underpinned by government actions to improve business operations in domestic markets, to advance regulatory transparency, and to ease the remaining hurdles on business travel following the COVID-19 pandemic.
The average level of restrictions in non-OECD countries across the 22 sectors was 1.5 times higher than in OECD countries in 2022, indicating continued regulatory fragmentation and uneven conditions for services market access.
In 2022, distribution services, sound recording, and architecture services were the most liberal sectors, while air transport services, legal services, and accounting services were the most restrictive sectors on average.
Over the period 2014-2022, Kazakhstan, Brazil, and the People’s Republic of China were the three leading reformers. Kazakhstan has progressively introduced several liberalisation measures, especially after joining the WTO in 2015. Part of these liberalisation measures are crosscutting and include lifting of quotas and labour market tests for the movement of services providers, as well as improving regulatory transparency.
Country information of the STRI results for Kazakhstan can be found at the following link: https://www.oecd.org/trade/topics/services-trade/documents/oecd-stri-country-note-kaz.pdf