Services Trade in the Balkans

The objective of this study is to provide an overview of policies affecting the area of trade services in seven countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, FYR Macedonia and Romania.

It stresses the growing importance of service trades, which has been growing more rapidly than merchandise trade.

Traditional sectors such as transport and tourism, and newly expanding sectors such as telecommunications and financial services are potentially important not only for generating export revenues but, most importantly, for increasing the overall productivity of the economy and its competitiveness abroad.

This paper recommends more systematic collection and analysis of information on services trade in the Balkans, as well as further liberalization in the multilateral setting of the WTO.