The members of the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA2
) achieved good
economic growth over the past decade. That was especially true up to the start of the
world economic crisis which had a serious effect on the CEFTA members as it did on
the rest of Europe. Exports certainly contributed to those earlier good results although
the participation of goods and services exports in the overall output is still significantly
lower than in most European Union member states. The plan for post-crisis recovery
in practically all CEFTA member states is based on increasing exports. Even though
that would mainly mean increasing goods exports, services could also make a significant
contribution both directly in securing export income and indirectly by enabling trade.
Services are dominant in the economies of the region and now efforts have to be invested
in realizing their export potentials. In the CEFTA economies which do not have access
to the sea, services account for an average 10% of the GDP while in coastal countries
services account for up to a quarter of the GDP. And while CEFTA members have to a
great extent opened up their markets to the goods trade, primarily because of their aspirations
to join the EU and World Trade Organization (WHO), numerous obstacles to
the services trade remain in place. Some of those obstacles, such as the mobility of the
highly educated workforce, are general in character, that is they are true of all sectors,
while other obstacles are specific to certain sectors. In this article, we are pointing out
the general factors which limit the services trade in construction, information-communication
technology and software, legal services and transport. According to our findings,
the main general obstacle is the mobility of the workforce, especially qualified
and educated (although that is characteristic for many parts of the world including Europe).
Viewed by sector – transport and lawyer services are the most limited.