Services and services trade hold the potential to unlock inclusive and sustainable development and to lift living standards in developing countries, Government Ministers and business leaders said at the Global Services Forum.
A series of ministers, vice-ministers and business leaders - including many ministers of trade, industry, and commerce from around the world - spoke on the culminating day of the Forum, or GSF, being staged in Beijing.
The 28-29 May GSF is an UNCTAD conference held in cooperation with the Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China, and with the Beijing Municipality.
The topics of the day's Forum Summit were "visions on the global services economy and trade in services in the 21st Century" and "an enabling environment for services and services trade".
 We should find ways to move together so that developing countries can enhance their competitiveness in services Supachai Panitchpakdi UNCTAD Secretary-General |
Keynote speaker for the event was UNCTAD Secretary-General Supachai Panitchpakdi, who told the meeting that the services sector's size and dynamism has created a tremendous opportunity for trade, growth, and employment in developing countries, which, if supported with good policies and regulations and an enabling environment, could contribute to broader structural transformation and to inclusive and sustainable development.
However, he noted that most developing countries and least developed countries have yet to exploit this potential.
Still, Mr. Supachai went on, the process is under way. "Developing countries are slowly but steadily increasing their services exports".
He added that such nations are focusing on immense opportunities such as information-technology-enabled outsourcing, tourism, and transport. The Secretary-General stressed that services are powerful sources of income and employment for youth and women in developing countries.
The urgency of capitalizing on this potential was then driven home by a long series of Government ministers and vice-ministers representing developing nations around the world.
The development of the services economy has been identified as a major element of growth strategies in China, said Jiang Zengwei, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Commerce of China. Mr. Jiang said a greater services economy and associated domestic services consumption will serve to stabilize China's growth, create jobs, and shift the economy towards a balanced and more sustainable growth path. "In 2012, services employed more people in China than agriculture for the first time," he reported. "We want to create more jobs for high-quality workers."
"In the Caribbean Community, services contribute over two-thirds of GDP. Indeed Jamaica and sister countries in CARICOM (Caribbean Community and Common Market) are some of the most trade-in-services-dependent, and, in many cases, reliant on a single service sector, tourism," said Arnold Nicholson, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade of Jamaica, who chaired the Ministerial plenary session.
"Services indeed hold the future to unlocking the potential for development that would not be possible if we continue along the traditional, well-treaded and documented paths of industrialization based on manufacturing," said Sheikh Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al-Kawari, Minister of Culture, Arts, and Heritage of Qatar, who also served as the President of the UNCTAD XIII quadrennial held in Doha, Qatar, in 2012.
"I think that countries can make the transition from rural into modern services-oriented societies with the right development plans and policies, supportive complementary measures, an enabling global economic environment, and, above all, a steady focus on long term goals," he said.
While enthusiastically committed to harvesting the benefits of increasing services and services trade, speakers at the summit also noted the complexities and challenges of doing so. They said especially that government strategies in such disparate areas as education, technology, infrastructure improvement, regulatory systems, and investment regimes must be well-coordinated with each other and with international efforts to boost services trade. They said many coordinated steps are necessary to link poorer nations into the global services economy.
Various ministers and business leaders said trade in services makes a key contribution in harnessing economic growth so that it leads to broad-based development. They remarked that owing to the continuing stalemate in the latest round of multilateral trade negotiations, many countries are pursuing all other forms of cooperation - plurilateral, regional, and bilateral.
"We now live in a globalized world, with global supply and value-added chains. Hence we need to move forward on trade in services at the global level," said Sir Thomas Harris, Vice Chairman of Standard Chartered Bank and chairman of the European Services Forum. Referring to the ongoing plurilateral negotiations for a Trade in Services Agreement, he added "We are enthusiastic about it, since, for once, trade in services will be centre stage."
Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Talal-Abu-Ghazaleh Organization and co-organizer of the first Global Services Forum held in 2012, said "If we, as policy makers, and policy advocates, wish to promote a global vision of services in the 21st century, then we must focus in large part on the role of Internet-delivered and Internet-created services".
Various Ministers said whatever format they will take, trade agreements should bring balanced benefits to all countries.
Speakers said on numerous occasions that while services account for 66 per cent of global gross domestic product (GDP) and for 44 per cent of employment worldwide, the service sector on average provides 51 per cent of GDP and 37 per cent of employment in developing countries. Given the synergistic effect of services on overall economic performance, they said, it is vital for developing countries to close that gap.
"We should find ways to move together so that developing countries can enhance their competitiveness in services," said UNCTAD Secretary-General Supachai.
