The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) held the Workshop on Recent Approaches to the Domestic Regulation of Services in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) region on Wednesday, August 6, at Songdo ConvensiA in Incheon, Korea, where the 3rd APEC Senior Officials’ Meeting is now taking place.
Domestic regulation of services aims to enhance transparency and predictability in domestic processes such as licensing and qualification, with the goal of reducing transaction costs and promoting trade in services. APEC established relevant non-binding principles in 2018, while the World Trade Organization (WTO) adopted legally binding disciplines in 2021 following plurilateral negotiations. These disciplines entered into force in 2024 and currently apply to 72 WTO members, including 16 APEC economies. According to WTO research, these members account for over 92.5% of global services trade, and implementation of the disciplines is projected to cut global trade costs in the services sector by more than USD 127 billion.
The MOTIE workshop brought together government officials from Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the US; Jaime Coghi Arias, Chair of the WTO negotiations on services domestic regulation; Jillian DeLuna, Convenor of the APEC Group on Services; as well as professional experts and representatives from the APEC Business Advisory Council, the Korea Culture and Tourism Institute, Walmart, and other industries. The event consisted of four sessions covering recent developments in APEC and WTO discussions, sharing best practices among member economies, and discussing the impact of domestic regulation on services trade and sector-specific issues such as tourism and AI, and future directions for regulatory development.
At the event, Korea’s Director General for Multilateral Trade and Legal Affairs Oh Choong-Jong stated, “The services industry is the driving force of APEC’s economic growth, and its importance continues to grow as its scope expands with digital transformation.” He added, “APEC, as an incubator of new ideas, has long supported the multilateral trading system. We hope this workshop will serve as a catalyst for achieving meaningful outcomes at the 14th WTO Ministerial Conference scheduled for next year.”