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 […]
ASR Connect
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 […]
Trade Minister Simon Birmingham Congratulates ASR on 20th Anniversary
ASR was honoured to receive a video message from Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment, The Hon. Simon Birmingham, congratulating us on our 20th Anniversary of services sector advocacy. The message was played at our 2020 Annual General Meeting and also served as the launch of our recently-published Statistical Showcase. “The services sector has a […]
ASR Joins Multiassociation Statement Expressing Concerns Over Chinese Personal Information Protection Law
The Australian Services Roundtable has joined a number of international digital advocacy bodies to raise concerns about China’s draft Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL). As the statement details, “The draft PIPL (Article 40) requires critical information infrastructure operators and personal information processors transferring ‘personal information reaching quantities provided by the State Cybersecurity and Information Department’ […]
New T20 Policy Brief from ASR Director Jane Drake-Brockman on Digital Trade
ASR Director Jane Drake-Brockman is lead author of a new T20 Policy Brief: “Impact of Digital Technologies and the Fourth Industrial Revolution on Trade in Services.” From the abstract: Digital technologies are cutting trade costs for services, turning more services from non-tradables into tradables, and putting trade in services on a stronger relative growth path than […]
Video: ASR Moderates Digital Trade Session at Geneva Trade Week
Australian Services Roundtable Director Jane Drake-Brockman moderated the opening session in the Digital Trade stream at Geneva Trade Week on Monday 28 September, Session 3: Digital Trade and Services Trade – Are They Increasingly the Same? Trade is increasingly going digital, blurring the distinctions between goods and services, commerce and e-commerce. Different regions of the world are […]
New Data Links Outward Investment in Services to Australia’s Services Export Performance
By Professor Jane Drake-Brockman Measurement of trade in services is notoriously difficult. The official statistics on imports and exports contained in the Balance of Payments (BOP) are well known, for example, as measuring poorly at best only three of the four modes of international supply of services. As defined in the WTO, the four modes of […]
ASR Calls For Delay To India’s New Digital Tax
29 April 2020: ASR joined a global coalition of nine business associations in a letter to India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, seeking delay in implementation of the recent expansion of India’s Equalisation Levy, in order to hold formal stakeholder consultations on the measure and allow for ongoing OECD negotiations to continue. The letter notes that the limited timeframe within which India’s expansive new levy was approved and took effect allowed for […]