Facilitated by the increasing availability of information and communications technologies (ICTs) worldwide, international trade in services has witnessed fast growth over the past decade. Examples of such trade include various business and knowledge processes. They are of strong and growing interest for both developing and developed countries, as they represent a strategic component of the digital economy. Currently these "ICT-enabled" services are not well captured by official statistics.
This meeting of experts takes place in the context of a project developed by UNCTAD in collaboration with the Inter-Agency Task Force on International Trade Statistics (TFITS). The concepts and definitions used were approved by United Nations Statistical Commission at its 47th session in 2016. During 2017, UNCTAD provided technical assistance for draft a model survey questionnaire and for the launch of three pilot enterprise surveys on exports of ICT-enabled services, in Costa Rica, India and Thailand. The surveys were implemented by agencies from the national statistical system, in collaboration with the private sector.
The main objective of the meeting is to draw lessons from the results of these first pilot surveys undertaken in Costa Rica, India, and initiated in Thailand, and to identify and discuss the need for possible revisions to the UNCTAD model questionnaire for measuring exports of ICT-enabled services.
Selected experts from the agencies who conducted the surveys, as well as experts from national and international organizations will attend the meeting and provide comments on findings and recommendations.
More transparent, comparable and comprehensive statistical data in this area are needed to help governments design, implement and monitor ICT-related policies, taking into account the recent growth of ICT-enabled services. It is hoped that the outcome of the meeting will pave the way for more large-scale implementation of similar surveys in more developing countries.
This project is supported financially by the Government of Sweden.
