Fostering regional economic integration is a strategic response to the imperatives of economic reform and adaptation. Within this context, ESCWA organized an EGM on Deepening Regional Economic Integration through the Liberalization of Trade in Services on 02 and 03 June 2016, to discuss technical issues related to trade in services in the Arab region with specific emphasis on techniques to assess liberalization of trade in services, review of other organizations’ activities on trade in services and bridging the gap between research and policy making.
In this respect, the EGM aimed to provide guidance in preparation of the second edition of ESCWA Recurrent Publication on Assessing Arab Economic Integration Report planned to be published in 2017.  This is sought through exploring methodologies for identifying regulatory instruments affecting trade in services, estimating restrictiveness indices related to trade in services, formulating policy reforms to promote trade in services and expost and exante assessing their economic impacts with the overall objective to assist member countries to formulate comprehensive integration policies for higher economic transformation through a better connectivity to global value chains.