the OECD. Data are presented using a new, detailed and innovative classification of services trade policies. It is entirely compatible at the measure level with the list of measures used in the context of other efforts, such as the previous 2008-11 World Bank exercise, or the more recent OECD services trade restrictiveness index.

The policy information is used to compute services trade restrictions indices (STRIs), based on the methodology developed by the World Bank in the early 2010s, but with a number of improvements. The ambition is to construct aggregate restrictiveness indices in a consistent and reproducible manner, which are nonetheless easy to understand and amenable to modification and/or simulation. The fact that we have collected very detailed information covering issues beyond market access or discriminatory measures enables us potentially to assess other policy areas relating to domestic regulation, transparency or competition issues. This will enhance the comparability of information, help to identify context-specific best regulatory practices, and ease regulatory cooperation among jurisdictions.

Additional policy data will be made available in due course. In particular, the World Bank and the WTO Secretariat are exploring ways to expand the number of economies covered, including through the participation of other agencies in this joint effort. At the time of writing, new data collection exercises have begun with the participation of the Central European Free Trade Area (CEFTA) and the African Union Secretariats to collect information on economies in the two regions. We are also improving the coverage of sectors, to enhance comparability with the OECD data set, and to focus on areas of interest to developing economies (e.g. architectural and engineering services, construction, computer services, health services, tourism). Efforts are also underway to benefit from synergies with some specialized agencies that may be interested in conducting similar exercises. For example, we have been collaborating with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to widen the scope of the ITU annual telecommunications regulatory survey to incorporate relevant trade policy questions. Such a collaborative approach would enable us to collect additional information of interest for this project, without unduly burdening the respondents of regulatory agencies in the economies.

Also, the World Bank and WTO Secretariat are engaged in the development of a new data set on services PTAs that will, for the first time, cover in a comprehensive manner the most important aspects of these agreements, from the design of the regulatory framework through to the specific commitments on liberalization. We aim at quantifying commitments in the PTAs covered in the new data set, which would allow us to compare the restrictiveness of services policies arising from different PTAs, and to compare them with the restrictiveness of applied services policies, for the economies covered by the World Bank -WTO Services Trade Policy Database.

Finally, the World Bank, the WTO Secretariat and the OECD are continuing to collaborate on the production and dissemination of services trade policy information as a global public good. We are committed to ensuring the gradual convergence of the respective projects. The three agencies are also working to increase the number of economies and sectors covered, and the inclusion of new policy measures.

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