OECD members commit to liberalisation

International

Member countries of the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which include all of the world’s most developed economies, have agreed to further liberalise their insurance and private pensions markets, according to a statement issued last week by the OECD Council. The OECD Code of Liberalisation of Current Invisible Operations, which governs developments in this area, will extend obligations on countries to open up their insurance markets and introduce further liberalisation of private pension regimes. The OECD says that the intention is to better facilitate and improve regulation of the cross-border trade between OECD countries in insurance and private pensions services. The OECD emphasised the importance of the implementation of legally binding rules, of progressive, non-discriminatory liberalisation of capital movements and of the right of establishment (of foreign enterprises in domestic markets). The OECD also emphasised the importance of “peer pressure” which encourages unilateral negotiations between individual countries rather than solely relying on the obligations and pressures imposed on countries through broadly negotiated lib-eralisation programmes by multilateral bodies such as the OECD.