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PACER Plus offers better access and greater certainty for Australian, New Zealand and Pacific island country service suppliers. It has the potential to deliver significant gains in the sector – which is the single biggest component of all our economies and the principal generator of jobs. Services are central to facilitating global and regional value chains and enhancing participation of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises in those chains.
For Australian service providers, PACER Plus offers better access in areas like professional services, financial services, telecommunications, and tourism-related services, as well as education, environmental services and transport. Service suppliers also benefit from improved legal protections for services delivered via direct investment, and services linked to strengthened commitments on the cross-border movement of skilled workers.
Pacific island countries that are members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) – such as Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu – have improved on their Non-WTO Members – such as Cook Islands, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Tuvalu – have made legally-binding commitments to Australia and New Zealand and each other for the first time on services, with the quality of commitments equivalent to or better than their commitments under the Pacific Island Countries Trade Agreement (PICTA).
See the Schedule of service commitments by each Pacific island country member.
In addition to benefitting from each other's services commitments, Pacific island country service providers gain better access to Australia and New Zealand in a range of services including business services, communication services, construction and related services, financial services, tourism, travel and related services.
See Australia's Schedule of service commitments.
Scope
PACER Plus is consistent with WTO GATS rights and obligations.
Key provisions include:
- national treatment, where a PACER Plus member must treat local and other PACER Plus service suppliers equally where there are like circumstances for services sectors listed in its schedule
- commitments on a positive list basis, so that each member designates specific sectors in its national schedule, indicating the type of access and treatment for each sector and for each mode of supply it is prepared to offer service suppliers from other Members. Positive listing provides flexibility to include only those sectors or parts of sectors for liberalisation that members deem appropriate for their stage of development
- most-favoured-nation (MFN) treatment, where a member must extend - immediately and unconditionally - to other members treatment no less favourable than it provides to non-members, unless it schedules an exemption. This will safeguard members interests in regard to future trade partners in areas where they were unable to schedule services or investment commitments at the commencement of PACER Plus
- advanced transparency requirements relating to the publication of licencing requirements, technical standards and international agreements impacting services trade between members. Emphasis on transparency responds to regional business concerns regarding opaque regulatory processes imposing significant costs on enterprise
- exploring opportunities to facilitate the recognition of educational qualifications or experience of service providers, and licensing and certification arrangements.
In line with their individual situations and capacities, Pacific island countries' commitments on services, as well as on investment, reflect existing legislation. Some Pacific island countries have noted in their Schedules on Services and Investment that they will consider revising these schedules to reflect any new or improved rules or regulations on services or foreign investment as a result of PACER Plus.
Coverage of services commitments
PACER Plus commitments encompass all four of the GATS modes of supply for delivering services:
- Mode 1: cross-border trade where a user receives services from abroad through its telecommunications or postal infrastructure (for example, consultancy or market research reports, tele-medical advice, distance training, architectural drawings)
- Mode 2: consumption abroad where nationals of a country have moved abroad (for example, tourists, students or patients) to consume services
- Mode 3: commercial presence, where a service is provided by a supplier from another country via a locally-established affiliate, subsidiary, or representative office of a foreign-owned and controlled company (for example, bank, hotel group or construction company)
- Mode 4: movement of natural persons, where a service supplier from one country provides a service in another (for example, intra-corporate transferees or contractual service suppliers).
Australia has made commitments in 11 out of 12 service sectors that comprise the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services for modes 1-3.
Australia and Pacific island countries have made Mode 4 commitments under the Movement of Natural Persons Chapter.
Pacific island countries' commitments range from 9 to 11 sectors and are in areas including financial services, telecommunications, education services, environmental services, and transport that are critical to their economic development and are of commercial interest to Australia.
Capacity building
Australia and New Zealand have committed to provide capacity building and training to assist Pacific island countries to improve regulations affecting services trade and respond to reductions in barriers to services trade. This assistance may include:
- developing and strengthening qualifications frameworks in consultation with relevant competent agencies
- exploring possible recognition of qualifications in sectors of comparative advantage between national competent bodies from members of PACER Plus,
- strengthening capacity to regulate services according to international standards and benchmarks, particularly in the financial and telecommunication sectors, and
- building capacity for compiling and analysing trade in services data.
Knowledge economies and Pacific island countries
Continuing advances in information and communications technology (ICT) offer the potential to partly compensate for Pacific island country disadvantages arising from small populations, lack of economies of scale and geographical isolation.
While Pacific island countries have historically lagged behind other regions in using ICT to connect to distant buyers and sellers, significant investments by the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank (partly funded by Australia) have opened up new possibilities.
By providing better access and greater certainty for service suppliers and investors, PACER Plus helps Pacific island countries make the most of these technological advances. There is potential for cross border service trade to improve public services (such as e-government, e-learning, remote health diagnostics) and government-to-business interactions – improving trade facilitation. There is also potential to strengthen government-to-government processes (including in border processing), to increase company-level opportunities (such as call centres, data entry, even design and research), and to introduce potential research applications such as centres for marine and ocean science.
Digital tourism is an example of the benefits emerging from the knowledge economy. Tourists often use the internet as a primary source of information, and many will book and pay for travel experiences online. ICT developments have increased the availability of online booking and payment facilities, enabling Pacific island countries to communicate and engage with a global audience.