Joint Initiative on Services Domestic Regulation

Services domestic regulation (DR) refers to domestic measures relating to licensing requirements and procedures, qualification requirements and procedures, and technical standards that businesses have to comply with to supply their services in a market.

On 2 December 2021, the negotiation of the Joint Initiative on Services DR, a plurilateral trade initiative under the World Trade Organization (WTO), was successfully concluded, with the issuance of the Joint Declaration on the Conclusion of Negotiations on Services DR by the Participants including Hong Kong, China (HKC). Currently, the Joint Initiative has a total of 72 Participants, together accounting for over 92.5% of the world services trade. Other Participants include Hong Kong’s major services trading partners such as China, the European Union, Japan, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States, etc.

Participants of the Joint Initiative have agreed to adopt the DR disciplines as additional commitments in their respective Schedules of Specific Commitments under WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), and extend the benefits of the disciplines to all WTO Members on a most-favoured-nation basis. The relevant DR disciplines applicable to HKC have entered into force on 27 February 2024.

Applicable Services Sectors in Hong Kong

Being a highly open economy with a well-established and transparent regulatory regime, HKC's existing regulatory frameworks are able to accommodate all the relevant DR disciplines. HKC applies the disciplines to all its existing committed services sectors under the WTO GATS, and to six additional sub-sectors under Environmental Services, namely Sewage services; Sanitation and similar services; Cleaning services of exhaust gases; Noise abatement services; Nature and landscape protection services; and Other environmental protection services not elsewhere classified.

Benefits to Hong Kong's service suppliers

The DR disciplines aim to facilitate services trade by mitigating the unintended trade-restrictive effects of DR measures. They focus on improving the transparency, predictability and effectiveness of relevant domestic measures, thereby cutting red tapes and lowering trade costs for service suppliers. Hong Kong businesses will benefit from a more transparent and predictable regulatory environment when they seek to tap into the opportunities in the markets of other Participants of the Joint Initiative.