etc.; and 2) conditions on the service supplier – in other words, measures affecting the 'production' of services, e.g. local content and performance requirements. Measures affecting government procurement of services are also captured in category B.

Category C covers measures related to competition. While this category and the next could arguably be part of conditions on operations, we treat them as separate to ensure compatibility with the OECD database. This category encompasses measures that grant rights or prerogatives to state-owned suppliers, as well as measures aimed at countering anticompetitive behavior or restrictive business practices.

Category D deals specifically with the regulatory framework and administrative procedures, focusing on non-discriminatory regulations – other than those already covered elsewhere in the classification – that may still have an impact on trade in services. Conscious of the efforts of governments to establish disciplines in new areas, we strove to include measures pertaining to the regulatory framework (e.g. licensing requirements and procedures, review mechanisms, regulatory transparency) as well as measures affecting cross-border data flows. Issues such as regulatory transparency, the nature of the regulatory authority, the application of international standards, or administrative procedures and requirements are captured by this category.

In addition, the classification identifies within each sub-category, whether measures discriminate against foreign provision or not. The latter is done by allowing for the inclusion of measures which are discriminatory by nature (e.g. foreign equity limitations), and by distinguishing, whenever relevant and to the maximum extent possible, between measures that apply to all services and service suppliers as opposed to those applying to foreign ones only.

The meta-classification of measures described above is intended to facilitate convergence towards a single classification and quantification methodology. Therefore, the classification remains, at the measure level, fully compatible with the classification utilized in the OECD Services Trade Restrictiveness Regulatory Database and the previous classification of measures developed by the World Bank 10 years ago.

# _Data collection methodology_

For the purposes of data collection, economies and information sources were divided into two groups. For the 43 economies that had been already included (in 2016) in the OECD STRI Database, the data were sourced from that database, thanks to the cooperation of the OECD Secretariat, which is gratefully acknowledged.<sup>10</sup> In a few cases, where information on certain measures in our database was not available from the OECD, other secondary sources were used. For the remaining 25 economies included in this analysis, data were collected through a survey jointly conducted by the World Bank and the WTO – the WB/WTO Survey on Impediments to Services Integration. In what follows, we will concentrate on the data-collection methodology used for the latter group.

For each of the 25 economies covered in the WB/WTO survey, we prepared 24 questionnaires: 23 (one per subsector) containing the <u>common</u> and <u>sector-specific questions</u> plus one containing <u>general questions. Each subsector questionnaire consisted of around 160 questions. The</u> questionnaires were completed by local law firms that were familiar with the policy regime in the respective economies and sectors and had experience in working on similar projects. The complete list of law firms that contributed to the questionnaires is contained in Annex 7.

The <u>general questions focus on</u> _economy-wide measures_ that are described in a single law or regulation applicable to all services sectors in the same way. Such measures include, among others, those pertaining to acquisition and rental of land and real estate by foreigners, notification and screening of foreign investment, restrictions on payments and transfers, conditions on visas, restrictions on cross-border data flows, etc. The <u>common questions cover measures that are</u> potentially pertinent for all sectors of the economy, but that are dealt with in _sector-specific legislation_ (and not in generally-applicable legislation, as in the case of general questions), such as the existence of a regulatory authority, forms of establishment and ownership conditions, licensing,

> 10 We are very grateful to the OECD Secretariat for its long-standing cooperation in our effort to put together the Services Trade Policy Database, which involved sharing information from the OECD regulatory database for the year 2016 and clarifying diverse aspects regarding the collection and comparability of data. For further information on the OECD data collection process, including the validation of information, see <u>https://www.oecd.org/trade/topics/services-trade/.</u>

6