The ISTIA mandate principally concerns the provision of services trade statistics capacity building and other activities related thereto. Services trade statistics capacity building, in relation to the ISTIA mandate has two principal components, the definition of whichconcerns the recipients to whom the services trade statistics capacity building is directed. These two components are defined herewith as statistical-production-related and statistical-user-related.

Recipients of ISTIA statistical capacity building could include, inter alia,
officials of National Statistical Agencies, Ministries of Trade and Industry, Ministries of
Economy, Ministries of Investment, Ministries of Finance and Central Banks.

An OECD-GOIC Conference 
DIALOGUE ON AID FOR TRADE: From Policy to Practice 
took place on 6-7 November 2006 in Doha, Qatar
 

The conference was attended by Ministers, Senior Donor Representatives, and Senior officials of International Organizations.

►►ISTIA Capacity Building Course for Government of Vietnam

On the eve of the accession of Vietnam as the 150th WTO Member, ISTIA provided an intensive week-long course on Services trade policy and Services trade statistics to officials of the Government of Vietnam.  The course, which took place the first week of October, introduced the use of services trade statistics, foreign direct investment (FDI) statistics and foreign affiliate trade statistics, which are new to Vietnam, can be used in the work "Beyond the WTO".  The course also addressed the new Investment Law, and how it treats FDI, which has implications for implementation of the WTO-GATS, to which Vietnam will become signatory in early November.  At the request of the Government, a policy analysis component was added to the course, which provided an interpretation of the new services schedule for Vietnam under the WTO offering of the Government.   More intensive analysis work on  the Vietnam offering on services under the Bilateral Trade Agreement (US-Vietnam) and comparation of the services schedule of the Vietnam GATS services schedule vis-à-vis the China GATS schedule. 

Vietnam has already undertaken steps to improve services trade information, and the course addressed data availability in its current state, and areas where future work could be undertaken.  Participants were officials of the Ministry of Trade, Ministry of Planning and Investment, Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam, Electrical Power University, Foreign Trade University, General Department of Vietnam Customs, General Statistics Office, Ministry of Culture & Information, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Fisheries, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Post & Telecommunication, Ministry of Resource & Environment, Ministry of Trade, National Committee for Intl Economic Cooperation, Ministry of Training and Education, Ministry of Transport, National Office of Intellectual Property and the Voice of Vietnam.  A summary of the topics addressed in this course can be found here.  The course was financed with the support of the Government of France.

Other slides about ISTIA-Vietnam can be found here

 NEWS                                                                                                                                           
►►ISTIA Participates in OECD Inter-Agency Task Force on Standards for Statistics on International Trade in Services & Standards on International Trade Statistics

►►ISTIA accounts to be audited by international accounting firm KPMG

 per agreement with the Geneva office of the firm.

ISTIA has cancelled the application 990 seeking United States IRS/Treasury exempt status. ISTIA adheres strictly to Swiss Civil Code and ISTIA retains a neutral position expected of Geneva-based international non-profits (December 14, 2008)

NEWS                                                                                                                                           
►►ISTIA Invited to Participate in Voorburg Group Meeting, Wiesbaden

ISTIA was invited to the 2006 Voorburg Group in October 2006.  The Voorburg is the consortia of national statistical agencies and experts involved in setting services statistics standards.  The Voorburg Group is responsible for having drafted the Central Product Classification (CPC) system, which is the standard used by the United Nations Statistical Division; the CPC is the model upon which the WTO GATS 120 list is based;  this is the list of services sectoral definitions used in WTO services trade negotiations. Link to more info

ISTIA participated in the International Association for Research on Income and Wealth in Joensuu, Finland.  Conferences of special interest concerned FDI and the relationship of national accounts

Geneva, 28 June 2006 - As WTO trade negotiators work to complete the Doha Round of WTO negotiations, a new international agency arrives with the objective of empowering developing countries in services trade negotiations with better information through statistical capacity building and negotiator training.  ISTIA Listing on Official Geneva Website

ISTIA Press Release
As from the end of June 2006, ISTIA, the International Services Trade Information Agency has come into being in Geneva, Switzerland.  ISTIA will function as an international agency, assisting developing country governments with the improvement of national accounts and other information necessary for developing country governments to better negotiate in the World Trade Organization (WTO) services negotiations, known as GATS (the General Agreement on Trade in Services).  ISTIA was founded in response to official requests made by developing country governments, in the WTO and during pre-WTO trade negotiations, for help in this area, for the past 20 years.  At present, developing country WTO trade negotiators do not have useful information which helps them to assess the value of services trade commitments under WTO-GATS, a fact which has hindered WTO-GATS negotiations for all WTO Members.  ISTIA seeks to change this situation for the better.       

I.ISTIA Statutes               II. ISTIA Mandate                                 III. ISTIA Taxonomy

ISTIA Hosts Panel Session side-event to Hong Kong WTO MC6 Ministerial 

On 15 December 2005, ISTIA will host an evening Panel Session on Trade in Services Statistics to support GATS,as part of the ICTSD Trade and Development Symposium, a side-event to the WTO Hong Kong Ministerial, at theHong Kong Exhibition Centre.  A Panel will discuss:

COUNTING ON GATS NEGOTIATIONS TO SUCCEED

ICTSD Trade & Development Symposium - WTO Ministerial Meeting side event 
Hong Kong Exhibition Centre - December 15 2005 19.15; room 404 
Agenda •  Panel Members

             Are Services Trade Statistics the Magic Bullet?  Many have said that the lack of quantitative information available to LDC and developing-economy GATS negotiators constitutes a bottleneck to successful negotiations.  Is this lacunae the most salient problem?  If so, do credible solutions exist? If not, what other issues need to be addressed?  Given the current situation, where quantitative information is lacking, and which estimation techniques are currently being used in GATS negotiations? In an ideal world, what kind of quantitative information would assist negotiators in their work? 

ISTIA helps developing countries to be able to collect these data for themselves, so that they can view their services-based economies in a manner as transparent as OECD countries are able to do.

ISTIA work seeks to increase transparency of services trade-related information for all WTO Member economies, especially developing country and least-developed (LDC) economies.  At present, such level-of-detail is only possible between the U.S. and selected countries; the U.S. government, through the Bureau of Economic Analysis is presently collects the most detailed level of service-related trade information, using Enterprise Surveys as a part of their Balance of Payments/National Accounts information surveys submitted to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).  

ISTIA capacity building will provide national governments with training in the use of enterprise surveys in services-trade collection, so that they are empowered to collect better and more explicit information, which can be very useful to services trade negotiators working in the context of the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), and for private sector actors interested in transacting business within and with these economies. 

ISTIA work will access world-class expertise to help developing countries to use the new information to make estimations on difficult-to-track service-trade, such as trade performed by traveling service providers (the legal nomenclature for this is GATS Mode 4 trade). 
 

 Contact details:
ISTIA
case postale 3547
CH-1211 Geneva 3, Switzerland
Email: info@servicestrade.org