Assessing Barriers to Trade in Services in the MENA Region

This paper aims to assess barriers to service provision in the financial, telecom, and transport sectors ofselected MENA countries, including both trade and domestic restrictions. The analysis is focused oncomputation of aggregate and modal trade restrictiveness indexes (TRIs) by sector, drawing on informationgathered from detailed questionnaires and country reports prepared by local consultants. The conclusionshighlight that significant regulatory reforms have taken place in the service sectors of Egypt, Jordan,Lebanon and Morocco over the last decade, but that a broad range of restrictions still remain. The mostsignificant change in these service sectors has been the lifting or softening of the constraints imposed onforeign equity participation. Reforms, however, have had varying degrees of impact on market structuredepending on the country and the sector.