Features of international trade in services in modern conditions. Features of global trade in services

IN last years The share of services accounts for approximately a quarter of all world exports. For example, in 1991 it was 25.0%, in 1993 – 28.6, in 1996 – 23.9%. However, these figures reflect the cost only of those services that are recorded in the balance of payments and taken into account by international statistics. According to experts, the real volume of services involved in international turnover is much higher. Such discrepancies are explained by the peculiarities of the exchange of services.

Services are a special type of product, the use value of which appears primarily in intangible form. True, in some cases, the provision of services can be mediated by material media. This applies to services such as software, execution of works of art, design development. Accordingly, tape recordings, films, project documentation, etc. can act as material media.

According to the UN classification, services are divided into 160 types, summarized in 12 sections:

1. Business services, including 46 industry types.

2. Communication services – 25 types.

3. Construction and engineering services – 5 types.

4. Distribution services – 5 types.

5. General educational services – 5 types.

6. Protection services environment– 4 types.

7. Financial services, including insurance – 17 types.

8. Health care and social services – 4 types.

9. Tourism and travel – 4 types.

10. Services in the field of organizing leisure, culture and sports - 5 types.

11. Transport services – 33 types.

12. Other services.

The features of international trade in services are as follows. First, the production and consumption of most services coincide in time. This eliminates their storage and transportation. Therefore, the exchange of services is carried out mainly through direct contacts between their producers and consumers. Secondly, trade in services is closely interrelated with trade in goods. The same applies to the movement across national borders of capital and labor, which is impossible without banking, information, transport and other similar services. Third, trade in services is more controlled and protected by the state from foreign competition than trade in goods. This is explained by the fact that many service sectors (transport and communications, banking and insurance services, education, healthcare, etc.) are directly related to ensuring national security. Fourthly, not all types of services, unlike goods, are suitable for wide involvement in international economic turnover. These are, first of all, utilities and household services.

The structure of world exports of services is dominated by transport services and international tourism. At the same time, many services are not taken into account at all by international statistics, which leads to an underestimation of the real cost of exchange of services. This applies, in particular, to a significant share of information services, service and after-sales services that accompany the movement of goods and are included in their cost.

The largest exporters of services are the leading developed countries. They account for about 2/3 of world exports.

CONCEPT AND STRUCTURE OF THE INTERNATIONAL SERVICES MARKET

Specific features of international trade in services.

International services market - purchase and sale of services on the world market.

A service is a purposeful activity, the result of which is expressed in a useful effect that can satisfy one or another human need, which may initially be the object of supply and demand in the market.

The concept of “service” has a wide range of definitions. IN general view Services are usually understood as various types of activities that do not have an explicit material form.

The differences between services and goods in material form are that,

firstly, they are 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 compared to international trade in goods.

There are two types of services:

1. services that are mediated by property. They are related to consumer goods (material);

2. services not related to material products. Their action is aimed at a person or at the conditions in which he is located, their production is inseparable from consumption (intangible).

3. A specific service industry is international tourism.

TO specific features international trade in services include:

Regulation within the country by relevant legislative provisions;

The absence or presence of the fact that a service crosses the border does not serve as a criterion for its export;

Services are not stored, they are produced and consumed at the same time;

The production and sale of services are under greater state protection (in most countries they are fully or partially state owned) than the sphere of material production;

International trade in services has a major impact on trade in goods;

Not all types of services, unlike goods, can be traded (services for personal consumption).

The main forms of services for entrepreneurship are: management, audit, engineering (engineering and consulting services for the creation of enterprises and facilities), leasing (rent), franchising (a system for transferring or selling licenses for technology and trademark), “know-how” (exchange in the form of knowledge, experience and scientific and technical information), etc.

Features of global trade in services

Trade in services is an important part of world economic relations. The growing demand for services is directly related to scientific and technological progress and increased economic efficiency production. The main volume of production and export of services is concentrated in industrialized countries. The role of the service sector is growing dynamically. The service sector accounts for: in the USA - 73% of jobs, in Germany - 41, in Italy - 35%.

The following features of services as an item of trade are distinguished:

Lack of materialized form (some of the services acquire material form in the form computer programs on magnetic media, films, various documentation, etc.);

The presence of all the characteristics of a product (they have social use value);

Services are useful not as a thing, but as an activity in a certain direction;

Inhomogeneous or variable in quality;

Produced and consumed simultaneously;

When exporting and importing, they do not cross the customs border and are not subject to customs clearance;

Not all types are suitable for involvement in foreign trade (utilities, etc.);

Have a close connection with the labor market;

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;

They have a specific legal framework for their regulation both at the national and international levels.

Services can be capital-intensive, labor-intensive or knowledge-intensive, industrial in nature or satisfying personal needs, skilled or unskilled, etc.

Different services differ in their involvement in economic turnover. The least involved are services for personal consumption (with the exception of education and healthcare).

Services may be provided on a commercial or non-commercial basis and may be provided by public or private providers. Public sector - courts, labor exchanges, hospitals, military services, police, fire protection, post office, educational institutions.

Private non-profit sector - museums, charities, churches, hospitals.

Commercial sector - airlines, banks, hotels, Insurance companies, consulting firms, accounting firms, auditing, information, etc.

About 40% of global trade in services is carried out by TNCs.

. Features of international trade in services. Organization of international trade in services

141 The essence and features of international trade in services

One of the characteristic features of international economic relations of the post-industrial era is the rapid development of trade in services compared to trade in goods. Therefore, along with the international markets for goods, capital, and labor, an international services market has also formed, which covers a system of relations for the provision of services from the territory of one country to the territory of another.

. International trade in services - system of international commodity-money relations between entities different countries regarding the purchase and sale of services

Regulates international trade in goods and services, intellectual property. Worldwide trade Organization(WTO). The main international document that is used in this case is. The general agreement on the provision of services has the status of an annex to the agreement. SOT.

Happy creation. The WTO has formed a qualitatively new system legal regulation international trade aimed at developing a dynamic economic environment, an open and predictable system of international trade relations, and creating new opportunities to improve the economic situation of many countries around the world. Agreements. The WTO is the economic and legal basis for international trade transactions. According to them, trade should be free from any discrimination, predictable, open to fair competition, favorable to underdeveloped countries.

Special annexes to this agreement regarding exemptions from obligations under most favored nation treatment, movement individuals, aviation and maritime transport services, financial services, telecommunications.

The General Agreement on Trade in Services provides for the following methods of supplying services to the international market:

1. Cross-border supply(supply of services from one country to another). This category includes the supply of services to individuals and legal entities from one country to another. For this purpose, international transport, telecommunications, and mail can be used. Often, certain services may be contained in exported products (computer floppy disks, disks, engineering drawings, etc.).

2. Consumption abroad(delivery of a service in the territory of one country to a consumer from another country). We are talking, for example, about services for repairing ships of one country on the territory of another or providing medical care citizen from The country is dawning in another hospital.

3 commercial presence(supply of services from one country due to a commercial presence in the territory of any other country). With this delivery method, the service is provided on the territory of the country through a representative office or subsidiary of a foreign supplier company. For example, a banking service can be provided through a branch or branch of a foreign bank.

4. Presence of individuals(delivery of services through the presence of individuals of the supplier country in the territory of any other country). This method involves the actual movement of persons across the state border, for example, a foreign consultant may come to the country to provide consulting services, or some employees of a company may be sent to another country to provide a service that is within the scope of its activities (consulting on establishing, establishing work , technical inspection, repair of equipment purchased from the company).

Sometimes more than one delivery method may be used to provide a service. For example, a consulting service can be provided via telecommunications and directly attended by individuals. If a country allows only cross-border supply, there are restrictions on the presence of individuals, the only way to provide a service is through cross-border supply, for example by telecommunications, the consultant or employees of the consulting firm will not be able to travel into the country to provide it.

. Features of international trade in services:

Services, unlike goods, are produced and consumed mostly simultaneously. Therefore, most of their types are based on direct contacts between producers and consumers, which distinguishes international trade in services from international trade in goods, in which most transactions are based on trade intermediation and the possibility of storing goods. International trade in services increasingly requires the presence of service producers abroad or the presence of foreign consumers in the country where the services are provided. However, the spread of information technology allows for the purchase and sale of services at a distance;

International trade in services is interconnected with trade in goods and significantly affects it. More and more services are used to supply goods abroad (market analysis, transportation of goods, etc.). Trade in knowledge-intensive goods, which requires significant amounts of technical, information and consulting services, is especially dependent on services. Product success on foreign market largely depends on the quality and quantity of services during its production, sale and sale, as well as on warranty or service;

International trade in services interacts with the international movement of capital, the movement of labor, which is impossible without banking, information, transport and other services; while the development of world markets for goods, capital, and labor stimulates the expansion of the international services market, the intensification (strengthening) of processes on it;

The service sector is more protected by the state from foreign competition than the sphere of material production, and transport, communications, financial and insurance services, science, education, and healthcare in many countries are fully or partially owned or strictly controlled by the state. After all, there is an opinion that the import of services on a significant scale can pose a threat to the welfare, sovereignty and security of the state. Therefore, international trade in services has to overcome more barriers than trade in goods;

Not all types of services, unlike goods, are suitable for wide involvement in international economic turnover. First of all, we are talking about utilities and household services for the population. However, the successes of individual countries. Ain in the field of healthcare, education attract foreigners (treatment, training), in the field of culture and art - they increase its income from tours of artists and film rentals abroad in tourism - attracts retail trade to serve foreigners, catering, museums and other cultural institutions;

International trade in services is dominated and dominated by services related to servicing labor activities

Considering the possibility of use in international trade, services are divided into the following categories:

a) if possible, participate in international exchange: services that can be the object of foreign trade (communications, international loans, transportation of passengers and cargo), and services that cannot be the subject of export (all types of individual, social, government, infrastructure services )

b) depending on the means of delivery of services to the consumer: services related to investments (banking, hotel and professional services), services related to trade (transport, insurance), services related to both investment and trade (communications, construction, computer , information, personal, recreational services, etc.).

In the official classification of goods of international trade, services are divided into the following groups:

Utilities and construction;

Wholesale and retail trade, restaurants and hotels, tourist centers and campsites;

Transportation, storage and communications, financial intermediation;

Defense and mandatory social services;

Education, Health and Community Service;

Other utility, social and personal services

Over the past three decades, the service sector has been one of the most dynamically developing sectors of the world economy. Exchange of services plays an important role in international trade. In 2013, exports of services were valued at $4.6 trillion, while global exports of goods approached $18.3 trillion. The term “services” covers several dozen types of activities, the products of which can be defined as “services.” . The services include all types of transport activities, information transmission services, tourism, construction, education, medicine, financial and banking activities, etc.

A distinctive feature of international trade in services from international trade in goods is diversity, heterogeneity and versatility various types services, the complexity of a unified approach to regulating their import and export, and the application of generally accepted international trade standards to trade in services: in particular, most favored nation treatment and national treatment. The herd mentioned above is one of the main reasons that, until the early 1990s. trade in services was not covered by a general multilateral intergovernmental agreement like the GATT. At the same time individual species services were regulated by sectoral interstate multilateral agreements. And only by the mid-1990s. As a result of the Uruguay round of multilateral negotiations, the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) was created, containing common legal norms for all types of services. International exchange of services is developing at a rapid pace.

International transport and international private (tourism) and business (business) travel account for 47% of the value of service exports. About 75% of the value of services is exported by developed countries. According to the WTO, in 2013 the USA accounted for 14.3% of world exports of services, the UK - 6.3%, Germany - 6.2%, France - 5.1%, China - 4.4%, India and The Netherlands - 3.2% each. These countries, with comparable shares, occupy a leading position in the import of services (Table 2.7). Russia's role in international trade in services is small (in world exports of services - 1.4%, in world imports - 2.8%).

Table 2.7

International trade in services in 1970-2013, billion dollars

Source-. WTO International Trade Statistics 1970-2014.

Rapid growth rates of international trade in services and expansion of their positions in the economies of all countries - characteristic feature development of the modern world economy.

Scientific and technological progress is one of the main circumstances that changes not only the place of services in the economy, but also the traditional understanding of this area of ​​the economy. Services today are knowledge-intensive sectors of the economy that use the latest information Technology. The very concept of “service” is defined today by a group of such knowledge-intensive industries as transport, global telecommunication systems; financial, credit and banking services rich in electronics; computer and information Services; modern healthcare; education.

The development of the structure of the service sector occurs in several directions. First of all, this is the emergence of completely new types of services, such as computer services, information networks, e-commerce, logistics (or commodity flow management), global transport systems, using many types of transport, united in continuous transport chains, etc. Next, there is an active separation and separation into independent industries of a number of types of services that were previously of an intra-company auxiliary nature. This applies to marketing services, advertising, auditing, accounting and legal services and many other types of services as independent areas of business. Finally, a notable phenomenon has been the formation of large integrated companies that provide the consumer with a “package” of services, allowing the use of a single supplier without the burden of dealing with providers of other specific ancillary services.

Over the past three decades, the service sector has been one of the most dynamically developing sectors of the world economy. Exchange of services plays an important role in international trade. In 2010, exports of services were valued at $3.7 trillion, while global exports of goods approached $15 trillion. The term “services” covers several dozen types of activities, the products of which can be defined as “services.” The services include all types of transport activities, information transmission services, tourism, construction, education, medicine, financial and banking activities, etc.

Table 10.4

International trade in finished products in 2005-2010.

Indicators	Billion dollars in 2010			Average annual change, %
Export (FOB)
Import (CIF)
Leading exporters:
European Union
Including re-export
Singapore
Including re-export
Leading importers:
European Union
Singapore
Including imports less re-exports

Note: a significant part of Hong Kong's exports is re-export, i.e. products manufactured outside the territory, mainly in mainland China, and distributed through Hong Kong.

Source: World Commodity Profiles 2010. WTO: International Trade Statistics. October 2011.

A distinctive feature of international trade in services from international trade in goods is the diversity, heterogeneity and versatility of various types of services, the complexity of a unified approach to regulating their import and export, and the application of generally accepted international trade standards to trade in services: in particular, most favored nation treatment and national treatment. The above was one of the main reasons that until the early 1990s. trade in services was not covered by a general multilateral intergovernmental agreement like the GATT. At the same time, certain types of services were regulated by sectoral interstate multilateral agreements. And only by the mid-1990s. As a result of the Uruguay round of multilateral negotiations, the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) was created, containing common legal norms for all types of services. International exchange of services is developing at a rapid pace.

International transport and international private (tourism) and business (business) travel account for 47% of the value of service exports. About 75% of the value of services is exported by developed countries. According to the WTO, in 2010 the USA accounted for 14% of world exports of services, Germany - 6.3%, Great Britain - 6.1%, China - 4.6%, France - 3.9%, Japan - 3.8 %. These countries, with comparable shares, occupy a leading position in the import of services (Table 10.5). Russia's role in international trade in services is small (in world exports of services - 1.2%, in world imports - 2%).

Table 10.5

International trade in services in 1970–2010, billion dollars.

Source : WTO International Trade Statistics 1970–2011.

The rapid growth of international trade in services and the expansion of their positions in the economies of all countries is a characteristic feature of the development of the modern world economy.

Scientific and technological progress is one of the main circumstances that changes not only the place of services in the economy, but also the traditional understanding of this area 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 telecommunication systems; financial, credit and banking services rich in 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 Great Britain and Japan.

The development of the structure of the service sector occurs in several directions. First of all, this is the emergence of completely new types of services, such as computer services, information networks, e-commerce, logistics (or management of commodity flows), global transport systems using many types of transport, united in continuous transport chains, etc. Next, active separation occurs and the separation into independent industries of a number of types of services that were previously of an intra-company auxiliary nature. This applies to marketing services, advertising, auditing, accounting and legal services and many other types of services as independent areas of business. Finally, a notable phenomenon has been the formation of large integrated companies that provide the consumer with a “package” of services, allowing the use of a single supplier without the burden of dealing with providers of other specific ancillary services.