Service

Overview of Trade in Service Protocol

The AFCFTA Protocol on TiS consists of 29 Articles arranged under six parts covering a variety of subjects with implications for trade in services. 

The principal objective of the protocol is creating a liberalized service market in the continent

  • Enhancing competitive ness of service 
  • Promoting sustainable development 
  • Fostering domestic and foreign investment
  • Accelerating efforts on industrial development to promote the development of regional value chain 
  • Liberalizing trade in service progressively 
  • Ensuring consistency and complementarity among the protocol and annexes of specific sectors 

The protocol sets ways of trading service under the frame work of AfCFTA. Member states are obliged to provide their commitment on liberalizing their service market. The document sets the service sectors and sub sectors the other members can access with the limitations and the conditions to be fulfilled. Obligation of states with regards to this document is a specific obligation while the general obligations are those that are applicable on every member state without regarding duties related with schedules of commitment. 

The general obligations and disciplines include, among others, the non-discrimination principle, transparency, and regulation. The non-discrimination principle entails extending benefits for service providers and services given to any country to member states as well as those treatments given to local service and service providers. Transparency on the other hand, it’s the obligation to notify any new law, regulation and measure that can affect trade in service. Regulation is the right of every member state to regulate the service sector in line with its policy objective.

Instances or circumstances where the agreement will be violated by member states are also provided by the protocol. The circumstances where a member can violate the basic principles of the agreement are stipulated under several provisions of the protocol.