Submission Overview

Trade is a key driver of jobs, innovation and long term prosperity for Australia; it accounts for one in five jobs and exports account for 20% of Australia’s GDP. The services sector is crucial to the Australian economy accounting for 4 out of 5 Australian jobs and constituting roughly 17 per cent of Australia’s total exports.

The international trade environment is rapidly evolving and services exports are growing in volume and value without being covered by adequate trade in services rules, which, for trade in goods, have been established and refined over the past 60-years. Advances in the global agenda for services have previously been stalled by delays in the WTO Doha Round so that specific improvements have been limited to those contained in regional and bilateral Free Trade Agreements. However, given the importance of services, there is a pressing need for TiSA to develop high standards for global trade in services, to allow for more significant and substantive gains to be made.