Services trade and investment are increasingly important for developing countries. The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) set benchmarks and a framework for future liberalisation. So far the GATS process has not achieved significant additional liberalisation.
For developing countries its main benefits stem from the constraint on backsliding from previous liberalisation and the encouragement to foreign investment of a more stable policy environment. But they would gain from further liberalisation of their domestic markets. And the GATS Review scheduled for 2000 could provide an effective lever for this.