Trade in goods and services, along with some other items, are included in the current account of the balance of payments of any country. Negotiations on the liberalization of trade in services are being conducted in parallel with negotiations on the liberalization of trade in goods. However, there are serious qualitative differences between goods and services, as well as in the organization and technology of their international trade. Table 13 presents the main indicators that distinguish goods from services.
Table 13
Differences in goods and services
It is because of the intangibility and invisibility of most services that trade in them is sometimes referred to as invisible exports and imports. Unlike goods, the production of services is often combined with their export under one contract and requires a direct meeting between the seller and the buyer. However, in this case, there are numerous exceptions. For example, some services are quite tangible (a printed consultant report or computer program on a floppy disk), are quite visible (model haircut or theatrical performance), are amenable to storage (telephone answering service) and do not always require direct interaction between the buyer and the seller (automatic issuance of money in the bank on a debit card).
International trade in services compared to trade in goods has the following features:
· not regulated at the border, but within the country by the relevant provisions of domestic law . The absence or presence of the fact of crossing the border by the service cannot be a criterion for the export of the service (as well as the currency in which this service is paid);
· services are not subject to storage . They are produced and consumed at the same time. Therefore, most types of services are based on direct contracts between their producers and consumers;
· the production and sale of services have greater state protection than the sphere material production and trade . Transport, communications, financial and insurance services, science, education, health care in many countries are fully or partially owned by the state or under its strict control;
· international trade in services is closely related to trade in goods and has a strong impact on it . For example, the impact of the services sector on trade in knowledge-intensive goods, which requires large volumes of Maintenance, information and various consulting services;
· not all types of services, unlike goods, can be traded . Services that come mainly for personal consumption cannot be involved in international economic circulation.
The key to trade in services is that, in most cases, physical contact between the buyer and seller of the service must occur at some point. Only in this case the transaction of international purchase and sale of services will take place. Exists multiple transaction mechanisms on international trade in services:
· Buyer mobility . Service buyers who are residents of one country visit a service seller who is a resident of another country. The mobility of the buyer is usually based on the fact that abroad he will be able to receive a service that is either not available in his country (tourism) or the quality of which is higher (education, health care), or its cost is lower (warehousing of goods, repair of ships).
· Seller mobility . The seller of services, who is a resident of one country, comes to the buyer of services, who is a resident of another country. The mobility of the seller is usually based either on the fact that its recipient is abroad and cannot move to the seller (audit and accounting services for enterprises), or on the specific nature of the service itself (construction).
· Simultaneous mobility of seller and buyer or the mobile nature of the service itself. Both the seller and the buyer either share the service at the same time (international telephone conversation), or are assembled in a third country (international conference), or the seller provides the buyer with a service through a representative office in a third country (secondment of foreign specialists from the Moscow office of the World Bank to the CIS countries to provide technical assistance).
International statistics show that trade in services is one of the fastest growing sectors of the world economy.
The reasons for this growth are very diverse. The sharp decline in transport costs has increased the degree of mobility of producers and consumers of services; new forms and means of satellite communications and video technology in some cases make it possible to completely abandon the personal contact of the seller and the buyer. Technological process allowed to increase the demand for those services that previously had a commodity form. This applies to financial services, services of banks, insurance companies.
There are certain difficulties in statistical accounting of the volume of services provided. The difficulty of counting is due to the fact that, as a rule, services are provided as a set with goods. Moreover, the cost of the service often makes up a significant share of the price of the goods. Services often appear in intercompany exchanges. In this case, it is often impossible to express and determine their value, since there is no market for these types of services at all. In some cases, it is impossible to separate the service from the product (for example, treating a patient with medicines).
Income from banking and insurance operations “drops out” of the statistical report if they are reinvested in the same country in which they were received.
In this regard, according to a number of scientists, the official statistics of the balance of payments, which indicate the annual turnover under the item "services", cannot give an accurate idea of the scale of international trade in services, the value of which, according to a number of experts, is underestimated.
by 40–50%.
The geographical distribution of trade in services provided by individual countries is extremely uneven in favor of developed countries.
The world market for services is currently dominated by eight leading countries, which account for more than 50% of exports and imports of services. The share of the top five is about 40% of exports. At the same time, four countries: the USA, Great Britain, Germany, France account for more than 35% of the total world export of services.
For developing countries characterized by a negative balance in foreign trade in services, while some of them are large exporters of services. For example, the Republic of Korea specializes in engineering, consulting and construction services, Mexico - in tourism, Singapore is a major financial center. Many small island states receive the bulk of their export earnings from tourism.
As for Russia, other CIS states and the Baltic countries, although they have potential reserves for the development of tourism, transport services (they organize sea transportation), their wide export is hindered by a weak material base, as well as shortcomings in the economic mechanism. For their part, Western European countries high quality supplement their services by applying a wide range of restrictions on the use of foreign services, including those from the CIS countries.
When it comes to the distribution of the cost of services according to certain types, the most important in world trade in services are tourism and transport. The biggest in the world merchant navy belongs to Japan, followed by Great Britain, Germany and Norway. Shipping accounts for 50% of this country's service exports. The market for freight and passenger transport services is dominated by the United States, followed by Great Britain and France. They also hold the palm in the field of foreign tourism. Large volume tourism services provided by France, Italy, Canada, Switzerland, where tourism brings 40-50% of export earnings.
For Turkey, Spain and a number of Mediterranean countries, exports are of great importance. work force in the form of the departure of unskilled workers to work.
International trade in services: features, structure and dynamics International statistics show that world trade in services is one of the fastest growing sectors of the world economy. According to the World Bank, the export of services for 1980-1998 grew 3.6 times, increasing by an average of 8% per year. The increase in trade in goods over the same period was less significant - 2.8 times (6% annually). In 1999, the export of services amounted to 1338 billion dollars, or 19.5% of the export of goods.
The concept of "service" has a wide range of definitions. In general terms, services are commonly understood as a variety of activities that do not have a material form in an explicit form. The difference between services and goods in material form is that, firstly, they are not tangible and invisible; secondly, they cannot be stored; thirdly, the production and consumption of services, as a rule, coincide in time and place.
This determines the features of international trade in services in comparison with international trade in goods. Among them: 1) export (import) of services often requires a direct meeting between the seller and the buyer; 2) the export of services includes the provision of services to foreign citizens located in the customs territory of the country of the seller; 3) the range of services offered on world markets is less than their range on the domestic market and less than the range of goods involved in international trade; 4) trade in services has a specific regulatory framework for its regulation both at the national and international levels.
Problems of regulation of the international market of services The world market of services is regulated international organizations. Among some of the reasons that make it difficult to regulate international trade in services, the following can be distinguished: 1) the difficulties associated with estimating the value of exported services. 2) the frequent presence of both commercial and non-commercial components in the export of services. This situation is typical for the export of educational, medical, auditing and consulting services from developed countries to developing countries and countries with economies in transition; 3) insufficient attention paid to the problem of regulation of international trade in services by national and international organizations, for example, the absence of relevant legislative acts.
For a long time services, according to the International Standard Classification adopted by the UN, were classified as "non-tradable" goods, that is, goods that are consumed in the same country where they are produced. With the development of scientific and technical progress, the internationalization of economic life, part of the services was involved in the world economic turnover and the term "tradable services" appeared, which, on the recommendation of the IMF, are reflected in the country's balance of payments
Services are also divided into: - factor services - payments arising in connection with the international movement of factors of production, primarily capital and labor (income on investments, royalties and license fees, wages of non-residents); - non-factorial services - other types of services (transport, travel and other non-financial services).
In the last two decades, the following trends in the development of its individual segments have clearly manifested themselves in the world market of services: - the share of freight and other transport services has decreased (from 42.0% in 1980 to 21.9% in 1999), which is associated with a decrease in the specific weight of raw materials in international trade; - the share of tourism in the export of services has increased, which is due to the growth of incomes of the population, the improvement of means of transport, the development of tourism infrastructure (from 28.0% to 43.2% in 1980 -1999); - in terms of absolute growth rates and importance in the total volume of world exports of services, the main (44.7%) and most dynamically developing segment was “special private services”, which includes financial, insurance, auditing, consulting and other services; - there was a reduction in the share of official and government services.
The factors that led to the intensive development of international trade in services in the postwar period were: - Scientific and technological progress, which contributed to the growth in the production of services, the emergence of new types of services and the expansion of their scope; - a long economic recovery in most countries of the world, accompanied by an increase in business activity, labor productivity, and the level of well-being of the people; - increase in the share of services in the structure of GDP in many countries of the world; - development of international trade in goods and technologies, capital migration.
Modern Features trade in services The geographical orientation of trade in services is even more asymmetric in favor of developed countries than international trade in goods. The share of developed countries in the world export of services is about 90% and exceeds their share in the export of goods. Developed countries are major exporters and importers of services. In 1999, the share of Western European countries in world exports of services was 46.2%, the USA - 19.5%, Japan - 4.4%.
The share of developing countries in international trade in services has increased due to South Asian exporters of services: South Korea, specializing in engineering consulting and construction services, Hong Kong and Singapore, focused on financial services, etc. At the same time, these countries continue to be predominantly importers of services. There are no developing countries in the top ten exporters.
Developed countries specialize in the provision of business services, developing countries - in the provision of tourism services (approximately 17% of all foreign exchange earnings). The share of countries with economies in transition is still low - 3.5% and 2.9% in world exports and imports of services, respectively. In the region of Central and Eastern Europe, the Baltics and the CIS, the largest share in the provision of services belongs to Russia, the most competitive in the world market of services are the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary.
The degree of monopolization of world trade in services is much higher than that of international trade in goods. The foreign share in the balance sheet of the French bank "Credit Lyon", which occupies the 9th place in the world ranking list, is 46.4%. In the secondary insurance market, 32 largest Insurance companies concentrated in their hands more than 70% of its volume. Each of the 6 largest audit companies in the world (Arthur. Andersen, KPMG, Ernst-and-Young, Coopers and Lybrand, DTT, Price Waterhouse) has its offices in more than 110 countries world, and their total share in the industry's income is estimated at 30%. 60% of the global consulting services market is concentrated in the hands of 40 companies.
The settlement of the basic principles of international trade in services was one of the debatable issues of the Uruguay Round of negotiations within the framework of GATT. Until that time, on an international scale, regulation in this area took place only within the framework of specialized organizations, including codes developed by the OECD, that is, it was practically absent. Already at the beginning of the negotiations, a contradiction between developed and developing countries emerged. The first group believed that trade in services should be included in common system regulation of international trade, and the second was of the view that services should be separated from material goods. As a result, a separate negotiating group for services was established at the start of the Uruguay Round. The GATT was taken as a model and basis for negotiations, but due to significant differences in the movement of goods and services across the border, a completely new agreement was drawn up - the General Agreement on Trade in Services, GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services, GATS).
Features and specifics of the organization of international trade in services
Trade in goods and services, along with some other items, are included in the current account of the balance of payments of any country. Negotiations on the liberalization of trade in services are being conducted in parallel with negotiations on the liberalization of trade in goods. However, there are serious qualitative differences between goods and services, as well as in the organization and technology of their international trade. Table 13 presents the main indicators that distinguish goods from services.
Table 13
Differences in goods and services
It is because of the intangibility and invisibility of most services that trade in them is sometimes referred to as invisible exports and imports. Unlike goods, the production of services is often combined with their export under one contract and requires a direct meeting between the seller and the buyer. However, in this case, there are numerous exceptions. For example, some services are quite tangible (a printed report of a consultant or a computer program on a diskette), quite visible (a model haircut or a theatrical performance), storable (telephone answering services) and do not always require direct interaction between the buyer and the seller (automatic withdrawal of money from a bank). on a debit card).
International trade in services compared to trade in goods has the following features:
· not regulated at the border, but within the country by the relevant provisions of domestic law . The absence or presence of the fact of crossing the border by the service cannot be a criterion for the export of the service (as well as the currency in which this service is paid);
· services are not subject to storage . They are produced and consumed at the same time. Therefore, most types of services are based on direct contracts between their producers and consumers;
· the production and sale of services have greater state protection than the sphere of material production and trade . Transport, communications, financial and insurance services, science, education, health care in many countries are fully or partially owned by the state or under its strict control;
· international trade in services is closely related to trade in goods and has a strong impact on it . For example, the impact of the services sector on the trade in knowledge-intensive goods is great, requiring large amounts of maintenance, information and various consulting services;
· not all types of services, unlike goods, can be traded . Services that come mainly for personal consumption cannot be involved in international economic circulation.
The key to trade in services is that, in most cases, physical contact between the buyer and seller of the service must occur at some point. Only in this case the transaction of international purchase and sale of services will take place. Exists multiple transaction mechanisms on international trade in services:
· Buyer mobility . Service buyers who are residents of one country visit a service seller who is a resident of another country. The mobility of the buyer is usually based on the fact that abroad he will be able to receive a service that is either not available in his country (tourism), or the quality of which is higher (education, medical care), or its cost is lower (warehousing of goods, repair of ships).
· Seller mobility . The seller of services, who is a resident of one country, comes to the buyer of services, who is a resident of another country. The seller's mobility is usually based either on the fact that the recipient is located abroad and cannot move to the seller (audit and accounting services for businesses) or on the specific nature of the service itself (construction).
· Simultaneous mobility of seller and buyer or the mobile nature of the service itself. Both the seller and the buyer either share the service at the same time (international telephone conversation), or gather in a third country (international conference), or the seller provides the buyer with a service through a representative office in a third country (secondment of foreign specialists from the Moscow office of the World Bank to the CIS countries to provide technical assistance).
International statistics show that trade in services is one of the fastest growing sectors of the world economy.
The reasons for this growth are very diverse. The sharp decline in transport costs has increased the degree of mobility of producers and consumers of services; new forms and means of satellite communications and video technology in some cases make it possible to completely abandon the personal contact of the seller and the buyer. The technological process has increased the demand for those services that previously had a commodity form. This applies to financial services, services of banks, insurance companies.
There are certain difficulties in statistical accounting of the volume of services provided. The difficulty of counting is due to the fact that, as a rule, services are provided as a set with goods. Moreover, the cost of the service often makes up a significant share of the price of the goods. Services often appear in intercompany exchanges. In this case, it is often impossible to express and determine their value, since there is no market for these types of services at all. In some cases, it is impossible to separate the service from the product (for example, treating a patient with medicines).
Income from banking and insurance operations “drops out” of the statistical report if they are reinvested in the same country in which they were received.
In this regard, according to a number of scientists, the official statistics of the balance of payments, which indicate the annual turnover under the item "services", cannot give an accurate idea of the scale of international trade in services, the value of which, according to a number of experts, is underestimated.
by 40–50%.
The geographical distribution of trade in services provided by individual countries is extremely uneven in favor of developed countries.
The world market for services is currently dominated by eight leading countries, which account for more than 50% of exports and imports of services. The share of the top five is about 40% of exports. At the same time, four countries: the USA, Great Britain, Germany, France account for more than 35% of the total world export of services.
Developing countries are characterized by a negative balance in foreign trade in services, while some of them are large exporters of services. For example, the Republic of Korea specializes in engineering, consulting and construction services, Mexico - in tourism, Singapore is a major financial center. Many small island states receive the bulk of their export earnings from tourism.
As for Russia, other CIS states and the Baltic countries, although they have potential reserves for the development of tourism, transport services (they organize sea transportation), their wide export is hindered by a weak material base, as well as shortcomings in the economic mechanism. For their part, Western European countries complement the high quality of their services by applying a wide range of restrictions on the use of foreign services, including those from the CIS countries.
If we talk about the distribution of the cost of services by individual types, then tourism and transport are of the greatest importance in world trade in services. The largest merchant fleet in the world belongs to Japan, followed by Great Britain, Germany and Norway. Shipping accounts for 50% of this country's service exports. The market for freight and passenger transport services is dominated by the United States, followed by Great Britain and France. They also hold the palm in the field of foreign tourism. A large volume of tourism services is provided by France, Italy, Canada, Switzerland, where tourism brings 40-50% of export earnings.
For Turkey, Spain and a number of Mediterranean states, the export of labor power in the form of unskilled workers leaving to work is of great importance.
Defining international trade in services as a specific form of global economic relations for the exchange of services between sellers and buyers of different countries, experts pay attention to its features:
International trade in services is closely linked and (or) interconnected with trade in physical goods. As a rule, the purchase and sale of material goods entails a whole range of services: marketing, transport, financial, insurance, service (maintenance). And the technically more difficult and expensive material good, the wider the range of services associated with its movement. At the same time, trade in services is increasingly promoting physical goods in the foreign market: marketing research and market analysis, financial and information support, improved transportation and other services "pave the way" for tangible goods and increase the efficiency of trade in them. Thus, if traditionally physical goods "pulled" services, then at present, with very fierce competition in the world market for physical goods, they are "pushed" to other countries with the help and thanks to services.
Due to their specificity, not all services can be an object foreign trade. According to the criterion of possible participation in international trade, all services are divided into three groups:
services that can be the object of foreign trade. These include, for example, transport services: more international tourism, financial, insurance, banking services;
services that, due to their characteristics, cannot be offered on the world market. They are usually referred to utilities, part of household services. Note that the range of such services is gradually narrowing;
services that may or may not be subject to foreign trade. These include most of the services; their range is expanding as scientific and technological progress. Thus, the services of the system fast food, institutions of culture, healthcare, sports, etc.
International trade in services to a greater extent than trade in physical goods:
protected by the state from foreign competition. Many governments believe that large-scale imports of services can pose a threat to sovereignty and security. Therefore, international trade in services is more strictly regulated by the state;
monopolized. "The foreign share in the banking total of the French bank Credit Lyon, which occupies the ninth place in the world rating list, is 46.4%. In the secondary insurance market, 32 largest insurance companies have concentrated more than 70% of its volume in their hands. Each of the six largest audit companies of the world have their offices in more than 110 countries of the world, and their total share in the industry's income is estimated at 30%, 60% of the global consulting services market is concentrated in the hands of 40 companies";
The international exchange of services is developing rapidly. According to the WTO Secretariat, the capacity of the world market of services in 1998 was more than 3 trillion. dollars However, the statistics of international trade in services registered the value of world exports of services at 1.8 trillion. dollars. This is due to the imperfection of the systems of statistical accounting of all four ways of selling services. According to available estimates, in 2020, world exports of services may be equal to world exports of goods.
The outstripping growth rates of international trade in services and the expansion of their positions in the economies of all countries are a characteristic feature of the development of the modern world economy.
The dynamics of service industries is determined by a number of long-term factors of economic development.
Scientific and technical progress- this is one of the main circumstances that change not only the place of services in the economy, but also the traditional idea of this sector of the economy. Services today are knowledge-intensive sectors of the economy that use the latest information technologies.
The very concept of "service" is defined today by a group of such knowledge-intensive industries as transport, global telecommunications systems, financial, credit and banking services, saturated with electronics, computer and information Services, modern healthcare, education. In the mid-1990s, 80% of information technology was sent to the service sector in the United States, about 75% in the UK and Japan.
In the service sector, the formation of large and largest transnational corporations has intensified. Here are typical figures illustrating this process. In 1997, out of the 100 largest TNCs in the world, according to Fortune magazine, 48 were in the service sector, and 52 were in industry.
In the 80s and 90s, the service sector (their production and international exchange) has become a major sector of business operations. The share of production of services is 55-68% in the gross domestic product of most countries of the world. 55-70% of workers in the economy are employed in the production of services. The share of services in international trade in goods and services exceeded 20% of their total value.
The development of the structure of the service sector takes place in several directions.
First of all, this is the emergence of completely new types of services, such as computer services, information networks, electronic commerce, logistics (or commodity flow management), global transport systems using many modes of transport, combined into continuous transport chains, etc.
Further, this is the active isolation and allocation into independent industries of a number of types of services that previously had an intra-company auxiliary character. This applies to marketing services, advertising, auditing, accounting and legal services and many other types of services that have become independent business areas.
Finally, a notable development has been the formation of large integrated companies that provide the consumer with a "package" of services that makes it possible to use one service provider without the burden of doing business with providers of other specific ancillary services. This principle is used by large transport companies, taking over all the supply of services related to the transport chain and included in it and providing the consumer of the transport service with the possibility of delivering cargo "from door to door" and "exactly at the appointed time".
As a result, a multifaceted, multifunctional world market for services has developed and there is an urgent need to create an adequate system of multilateral regulation of international trade in services. So, in the mid-80s, for the first time, international exchange of services became the subject of complex international negotiations, and since January 1995 it began to operate as part of the World trade organization(WTO) the first ever General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).
Products and services in international trade are closely interconnected and interact with each other, and this is one of the reasons for the inclusion of services in the terms of reference of the WTO. Many types of services emerged as independent sectors of international trade at a certain stage in the development of the exchange of goods. Thus, international transport, banking and insurance, logistics and many other service industries arose. However, they retained a close connection with the trade in goods. Any foreign trade operation with goods would be impossible without the use of transport, telecommunications, banking services, insurance, electronic systems storage and processing of information and many others. On the one hand, many types of services are in demand because they serve trade. Therefore, when servicing international trade in goods, the international exchange of services depends on the growth rate, structure and geographical distribution of commodity flows in international trade. On the other hand, it would be a serious mistake not to note that the development of international trade in goods and services depends on a number of common deep, global processes taking place in the world. This determined the structure of the present work. the main objective which is to give the reader a fairly complete and systematic understanding of international trade in services and the multilateral system of its regulation operating within the framework of the WTO against the backdrop of growing internationalization and globalization of the economy.
