Services are increasingly embedded across the economy as inputs into agriculture, manufacturing and other services. This process, often referred to as servicification, is being accelerated by digitalization and new technologies, which are changing how firms produce, trade and create value.
Understanding these changes requires more than data on aggregate services trade flows. Policymakers need evidence on how services trade policies and domestic regulation affect firms, workers and sectors across the economy, including impacts on outcomes relevant to policymakers, such as exports, productivity and employment.
Measuring servicification and impacts of services trade and policy focuses on how international sources can be combined with national data, including administrative and firm-level information, to answer concrete policy questions. It complements UNCTAD's 2025 Primer on data for trade in services and development policies which mapped the main international sources of services trade data.
A central message is that developing countries often already possess valuable data that could be used more effectively services trade policy. Business and population censuses, tax records, enterprise and labour surveys, customs data, foreign investment information and other administrative sources can help reveal how services are produced, used and traded, and how trade and policy changes affect firms and workers. Linking such datasets, while protecting confidentiality, can generate more detailed evidence for policy design and evaluation.
The publication also includes an extensive post-2010 bibliography on services trade, productivity and economic development, providing a resource for researchers, policymakers and practitioners seeking to undertake further analysis.
Objective
- Present and discuss the findings of the UNCTAD report Measuring servicification and impacts of services trade and policy
- Foster dialogue among policymakers, experts and researchers on evidence-based approaches to services trade policy
- Identify priorities for international cooperation and capacity-building to strengthen the use of data for trade policymaking in developing economies.
Participation
Participation is in-person.
Mandates
This work responds to the Geneva Consensus in particular paragraph 80.15 which calls on UNCTAD “to improve the collection, accessibility and use of trade in services data to inform policy decisions, to enable all, particularly women and microenterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises, to leverage and benefit from trade in services and support the development of services-led trade export strategies.”
It also follows up on the twelfth session of the MYEM, held on 15-16 April 2026, which encouraged UNCTAD to further strengthen its work on trade in services for development, including by improving the use of services data in trade policymaking.
