THE World Bank has urged countries in the Asia Pacific to consider deregulating the services sector in the coming meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation in Singapore this month.

Easing the entry of foreign workers would help bolster growth of the Philippines and other Asian countries that have a lot of talented labor to offer, a top official of the foreign lender said.

?Asian countries can be much more competitive than they already are. The services sector, with some carefully planned deregulation, could have a greater impact on economies,? Vikram Nehru, World Bank chief economist for East Asia and the Pacific, told reporters in a video conference last week.

Vikram said the services sector had the potential of contributing to growth of Asian economies as much as the manufacturing sector had done over the last three decades. For the World Bank, opening up the services sector would benefit countries in need of labor and those with a lot of unemployed people.

The World Bank executive said a major issue that should be discussed during the Apec summit should be the need for Asian economies to integrate more, such as by opening up the services sector.

Nonetheless, Vikram stressed that should countries in the region decide to deregulate the services sector, this should be done carefully. Each country in the region has its own peculiar economic needs. The degree of deregulation should be made following an in-depth assessment of each country?s particular needs.

Analysts said that opening the services sector to foreign players would benefit the Philippines because of the country?s significant number of Filipinos wanting to migrate and look for job opportunities offshore.

Earlier this year, the Japan-Philippine Economic Partnership Agreement (Jpepa) took effect.

The Philippines benefited because it was allowed to send more Filipino nurses, healthcare workers and other professionals to Japan. This partly addressed the problem of unemployment in the country. The labor needs of Japan, whose aging population is requiring more workers in the health sector, were likewise partly met.

Another benefit of liberalizing the services sector would be an increase in remittances. Money sent by Filipinos abroad has made the Philippines the fourth biggest recipient of remittances after Mexico, India and China.

Remittances to the Philippines amounted to $16.4 billion last year, marking a 13.4-percent growth on an annual basis. Remittances account for about 10 percent of the country?s gross national product (GNP).

Besides easing the restrictions on the entry of foreign workers, Vikram said another topic that should be discussed by Asia-Pacific leaders was a commitment to avoid the adoption of protectionist policies. He said that while protectionism might seem to be a solution to the problem of sluggish growth within the short term, this could pose an adverse impact on economies over the long run.

He said Asian countries would be more resilient to shocks, such as the recent global economic turmoil, if they would trade more with one another.

Countries in the region that were badly affected by the global crunch were those that were heavily dependent on exports to the United States and Europe, the drivers of the global economic downturn. When the Western economies suffered from a recession, some Asian countries that exported heavily to these markets?such as Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand?contracted as well.

The World Bank said that by trading more with one another, Asian countries would diversify their sources of export revenues and be less vulnerable to external shocks.