To read this statement in PDF format, click here. 7 March 2024 – The Global Services Coalition applauds the renewal of the WTO Moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions until MC 14 at last week’s WTO Ministerial Conference. The GSC believes that WTO members must now move forward to secure an enduring ban, grasping […]
Why a Deal in the WTO JSI on E Commerce is a “must-have” for MC13
Read this post as a PDF here. Jane Drake-Brockman (Director, Australian Services Roundtable, Co-Convenor, Global Services Coalition and Visiting Fellow, Institute for International Trade, University of Adelaide) Hildegunn Kyvik Nordås (Senior Associate, Council on Economic Policies, Zurich, and Visiting Professor, Örebro University) Start with the basics. The internet is fundamentally dependent on openness to cross-border […]
The First WTO Outcome on Services in a Quarter of a Century!
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Australia-United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement (A-UK FTA) signed today
The Australian Services Roundtable (ASR) congratulates the governments of both Australia and the United Kingdom (UK) for concluding a comprehensive and cutting-edge Free Trade Agreement and in record time. James Angus Bond, ASR President congratulated Australia’s Minister for Trade, Hon. Dan Tehan, for being the first Trade Minister to sign a bilateral trade deal with […]
Statistical Showcase of Australia’s Services Industry 2020
To mark the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Australian Services Roundtable (ASR) we are proud to present a groundbreaking statistical showcase that tracks the strong performance of Australia’s services industries over the first 20 years of the millennium. The analysis draws on best practice international data sets to offer ground-breaking new findings on […]
Services and Digital Trade Priorities for WTO Ministerial and G20
The Australian Services Roundtable joined 12 other Service Industry Groupings in a joint statement on WTO priorities, released at the Global Services Summit in Washington D.C. on 24 June. The full statement can also be downloaded here. Jane Drake-Brockman, the Australian Services Roundtable Director, participated in Panel Three on Day Two of the summit. Read […]
Digital Services Taxation: Expert Opinions and ASR Contribution
In late 2020 ASR participated in two groundbreaking virtual summits on Digital Services Taxation. The US-based Coalition of Services Industries hosted a three-day forum, during which ASR Director Jane Drake-Brockman hosted a panel with two experts: Patrick Low, Fellow at the Asia Global Institute, and Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, Director at the European Centre for International Political Economy. […]
European Commission reply to ITI data flows letter
ASR recently joined a multi-industry coalition led by ITI to issue a statement on European data flows in the wake of the Schrems II judgment. A reply was received from the European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, in which he argues that despite creating challenges for businesses, the judgment is flexible. As Reynders writes: On […]
ASR joins multiassociation letter raising concerns with European data flows
The Australian Services Roundtable has joined a coalition led by global tech trade coalition ITI to raise concerns about cross-border data flows in and out of the European Union. The letter concerns the European Data Protection Board’s draft recommendations in the wake of the so-called “Schrems II” case (C311/18) which invalidated the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield […]
ASR Joins Global Opposition To Cross-Border Data Restrictions
ASR has joined more than 75 organisations across six continents to applaud the participants in the WTO Joint Statement Initiative (JSI) negotiations for their “commitment to developing a framework of trade rules to unlock the potential of the Digital 21st Century economy”. In a multi-association statement the signatories agreed that the JSI negotiations “offer a […]