Reply to comment

During the Uruguay round negotiation, service trade were first included as one of the component for negotiation. developing countries reacted that the industry is not in their favor since developed country passes more comparative advantage in this industry than developing countries. This was the story two decade ago. my argument will be based on East African Community the area which i work and come from. my discussion on this issue will be based on my paper titled Domestic preparedness for service trade liberalization to be presented at Sydney University next month. when you consider currently the five countries of East African Community, Services is now contributing more that 45 percent of their GDP. basically it is the dominant sector in whole economy. when is now happening in the services industry of these countries is a barometer of the whole economy. according to the calculation that i have made basing of the 160 services sub sectors as per the GATS language. Tanzania have liberalized by 37%, Kenya by 39%, Uganda by 61%, Rwanda by 63% and Burundi by 46%. the liberalization i am describing here is based on the commitment made in the East African Common Market protocol. it terms of services growth rate , In Tanzania the growth rate is 6.2%, Kanya is 4.4%, Uganda is 10%, Rwanda is 8.9% and Burundi is 10.4%. when you compare the growth rate as well as the share of the sector to GDP of these countries it is apparent that services now is no longer a phenomenal of developed country alone but a developing country as well.