Africa, services liberalisation and trade in goods: Examining the missing link

Given the important role of services as intermediate inputs in the production in most industries, an inefficient services sector can be costly for the economy as a whole. For example, even if a country were to reduce goods tariffs, distortions would continue to persist should services barriers remain unchanged. This study represents a first attempt to undertake a comprehensive, quantitative cross-country analysis of how manufacturing and services sectors interact in the production process in selected African economies. On this basis, the extent to which this interaction and thus ultimately goods trade itself would be affected by services liberalisation under is looked into.