Producing more accurate data on international trade in services
MEDSTAT IV organises a workshop with the ENP-S countries to discuss specific surveys that may help better assessing the important of the international flows of services
ATHENS, 17-18 JULY 2018
The service sector is increasingly important: it represents today 50% of GDP for more than 85% of WTO member countries. Over the last 20 years, trade in services became the most dynamic segment of world trade; it is growing faster than the trade in goods. Developing countries and economies in transition have played a growing role in this sector, increasing their share of global services exports from one-quarter to one-third during the period 1998 to 2018. This growing importance of international trade in services is marked by the emergence of new sectors (IT, information services and insurance services). This evolution has put a lot of pressure on the organisations responsible for the production of statistics in this area, including in the ENP-S countries.
At the demand of the ENP-S countries, the MEDSTAT IV project already organised asymmetry exercises on trade in services at the occasion of two sub-regional workshops that took place in January 2018 in Tunis (workshop in French) and Athens (workshop in English). These exercises, that compare individual flows of imports and exports between countries, are instrumental for assessing the quality of the statistics produced on Trade in services and for identifying where improvement may be brought.
The main finding made during these two events was that these statistics on Trade in services are not very developed in the ENP-S countries and this despite new international recommendations. The international experts facilitating the two events concluded that the development of these statistics necessarily involves conducting surveys at the level of the national providers of services.
The purpose of this workshop will be to follow-up on the recommendations made after the asymmetry exercises and to discuss the development of surveys allowing to break down the balance of payments account into 12 posts such as suggested by the Manual on International Trade in Services Statistics (MSCIS 2010).
This new 2010 revision of international standards for Trade in services is intended to ensure the consistency of concepts and definitions with international recommendations for other related statistical areas such as:
- The system of National Accounts 2008;
- The sixth edition of the Balance of Payments Manual and International Investment Position;
- The Manual of International Trade Statistics of Goods Concepts and Definitions;
This workshop will be attended by two representatives from each of the nine ENP-S countries and facilitated by two specialists: one on foreign trade statistics and one on the compilation of the balance of payments.
For more information, please contact Medstat4@expertisefrance.fr
