Gone are the days when services used to be considered as non-tradables. Not only did trade flows in services change as a result of technological innovation and trade opening, but our own conception of trade was substantially modified by the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), which prompted us to view trade in services through a different lens – that of the so-called four modes of supply. We came to accept that trade, particularly trade in services, can take place not only on a cross-border basis but also through the movement of natural persons, or, indeed, companies. That new paradigm opened up novel and promising perspectives for trade negotiations; no longer was there any excuse to ignore services in trade negotiations.

Very few would have predicted that world services exports would have come close to $2.8 trillion in 2006. Even this large sum, however, underestimates the real size of services trade, since international trade statistics simply do not cover all trade in services as defined by the GATS. Moreover, it is not only the value of services trade that is impressive but also the pace of its growth. In fact, since the 1980s, world services trade has actually been growing more rapidly than world production and merchandise trade. Today, more than a half of annual world foreign direct investment (FDI) flows are in services.