THE World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) jointly launched a new dataset covering bilateral services trade of over 200 economies from 2005 to 2019.
"The WTO-OECD Balanced Trade in Services (BaTIS) dataset, which provides detailed data for 12 services sectors in addition to total commercial services, offers a complete and balanced matrix that reconciles previously asymmetrical export and import data," an official statement said.
At present, bilateral data are available for less than 70% of world trade in services, the global bodies said. For individual services sectors, data coverage can be much lower.
Moreover, the availability of statistics on bilateral trade in services varies significantly across countries and regions. More than 90% of Europe's services trade can be captured on a bilateral basis. However, this share drops to only 36% for Asia. No bilateral services transactions are currently reported by African or Middle Eastern economies.
The BaTIS experimental dataset, which uses both official statistics and estimates for missing data, covers manufacturing, maintenance and repair services, transport, travel, construction, insurance and pension services, financial services, telecommunications, computer and information services, among others.
BaTIS data show that the share of intra-regional trade in services is very low in Africa, only 7%, even if it comprises more than 50 economies. Intra-regional services flows are also modest in South and Central America and the Caribbean, another large region. The share, in contrast, is highest in Europe and Asia at 63% and 53%, respectively.
BaTIS estimates also reveal that in 2019, 12% of commercial services exports of least-developed countries (LDCs) were delivered to the United States, followed by China at 9.8% and India at 6%, largely relating to international travellers' expenditure and transport.
The WTO said the dataset is a valuable tool for economic analysis, policy-making and trade negotiations. |
