The services sector plays a crucial role in the economic growth and development of both India and Singapore. The two countries have liberalized unilaterally and developed global competitiveness in selected services, and now they are major exporters. Consequently, they not only have an aggressive interest in the multilateral liberalization of trade in services, but also perceive this sector as an integral part of their preferential trade agreements.

India and Singapore differ in terms of country size, political system, and governance structure. This results in different ways of approaching PTA negotiations. This chapter presents the experiences of these two countries in negotiating and implementing bilateral agreements encompassing services. It also highlights how liberalization commitments differ between various bilateral agreements, as well as in comparison to the WTO, and explores the factors leading to such outcomes.

The outline of the chapter is as follows. I first provide an overview of the service sectors of India and Singapore, and then discuss the market access commitments undertaken by the two countries in the WTO. The third section presents the PTAs negotiated by the two countries and discusses the reasons for pursuing bilateral agreements simultaneously with multilateral negotiations. The fourth section compares the outcome of bilateral agreements with those under the GATS and highlights the sectors in which India and Singapore are willing to guarantee access to selected trading partners rather than on an MFN basis.