Following on from their initial tralac Trade Brief “Service Liberalization within Africa – Trying to Quantify the Potential Impact”, the authors utilize the model, database and methods outlined to model a Continental Wide Service Liberalization within Africa.

Continental Wide Service Liberalization within Africa is difficult to measure/model given the complexity of services trade and its associated foreign direct investment (FDI) of multinational companies (MNC) in host countries. Nevertheless, the authors try to quantify the potential economic impact of continent-wide services liberalization within Africa, where they make some bold assumptions when the lack of data requires them to do so. The results are therefore illustrative and raise more questions than answers regarding the underlying assumptions made.

The authors try to model/analyse the behind the border services trade barriers which often are in the form of restrictive regulations affecting the establishment and operations of domestic and foreign service suppliers. More precisely, the focus of the paper will be on foreign invested firms established in the host countries’ domestic markets and the reduction in discriminatory barriers to these foreign services providers, with a second scenario which also extends liberalization to domestic service providers at the same time. The outcome of the model/analysis is then bench marked against similar modeling/analysis undertaken by the OECD to see if the results are in the “Ball Park” or way out of line.