Kiel Working Papers, Kiel Institute for World Economics
No 992:
Developing Countries as Exporters of Services: Looking Beyond Success Episodes
Rolf J. Langhammer
Abstract: The paper departs from the perception that trade in
services in general and developing countries' exports in services in
particular are dynamic segments of world trade. Both total trade data as
well as US import trade figures do not support this perception. Success
episodes such as the recent increase in Indian computer and data processing
services are found to be outliers. Instead, developing countries continue
to rely on relatively slowly growing exports of relatively labour-abundant
consumer services relating to movements of goods and persons. Thus, they
have not yet benefited from innovations in the information technology
sectors providing a growth momentum for producer services. Given the link
between goods production and goods distribution, successful exporters of
manufactures mostly overlap with successful exporters of services. It is
shown that the majority of exemptions from MFN treatment concentrate on
such consumer services thus impeding developing countriesÂ’ export growth.
In view of the vague character of commitments negotiated in the General
Agreement on Trade in Services, the paper argues that for the time being
overproportionate growth of service exports from developing countries will
remain limited to country episodes, but will not have the same wide country
coverage as growth of manufactured exports.
Keywords: International trade in private services; developing countries, trade policies; (follow links to similar papers)
JEL-Codes: F1; (follow links to similar papers)
27 pages, July 2000
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