Introduction

The article from the website “Institute for Global Justice” deals with the effects of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) on the following sectors in Indonesia: telecommunication; industry; sea transportation; tourism; and finance.
First, it gives a brief summary of the reasons for the GATS, who implemented it, and who is profiting from the agreement. Futher it deals with the impacts of the GATS on different sectors mentioned above.

Finally the author critises that there never was an open discussion with different elements of civil society and that that most of the national businesses felt uneasy with the commitment of liberalisation of trade, because they rather wanted to be protected by their government.

Original article by the administrator of the webside “Institute for Global Justice”

Essay by Veit Heilbronner
Master in Tourism Destination Management 2008/2009

The outcome for us most important is the liberalisation of the tourist market and of the sea transportation complying to GATS schedule commitment. In worst case we could only focus on the advantages arising for big companies of the developed countries.
However, I think  we should understand the backgrounds to see the big picture of  changes related to international trade agreements like the GATS, including the negative effects for the developing host countries beside the positive effects. We should be aware of  the point of view of the people of a host country and question who is profiting by those policies.

That is why I chose this article. There are older articles (e.g. “GATS & Resbonsible Tourism” by WWF (http://www.wwf.org.uk/filelibrary/pdf/gats_tourism.pdf)  and “The WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services(GATS) and Sustainable Tourism in Developing Countries – in Contradiction?” by EVB (http://www.evb.ch/cm_data/Tourismus_und_GATS_englisch_2.pdf). They decribe how the GATS influences domestic laws and regulations, particularly environmental standards, how it leads to a lack of environmental safeguards and how it affects the ability of those countries to pursue own tourism development strategies.

So the GATS could be seen as a threat to new regulations aiming at promoting sustainable tourism, because the government may not be capable of implementing proper restrictions to preserve their natural resources. Furthermore, it could be seen as an obstacle to developing policies that aim to guarantee local participation in tourism development as mentioned in the article.

As a fact, protecture measures  of the national economies were a common mean to all the developed countries and even today in times of big scale free trade agreements developed countries protect there own markets for example by subsidising the agricultural sector.

So, of what use is your gained independence as a former colony if the developed countries dictate an economical framework that prevents you from emerging? Couldn´t this be seen as a second colonisation by economical means?