Facts and Figures

Abstract

It may seem contradictory to treat services as a homogenous sector of activity and at the same time to speak of various groups of service activities as service “sectors” in their own right. We have already argued the reasons why there is no reason to reject the notion that services have enough common characteristics to be considered as generally distinguishable from goods, and we have also pointed out the close intermingling of service production with goods production. This does not mean, however, that services cannot be grouped in different sectors corresponding to sets and subsets of functions performed by them in the economy at either the national or the international level. Among those, the activities that represent the greatest interest from the point of view of their impact on the international economy are banking, insurance, telecommunications, data services, professional and business services, transport, and what may be called the two “hybrid” categories of tourism and labor services. Table 5-1 shows the relative importance of these service sectors in international trade.¹