Global Services Forum 2025

Your Excellency, Mr. Rui Minguês de Oliveira, Minister of Industry and Commerce of Angola;

Your Excellency, Mr. Julio Moltó, Minister of Commerce and Industries of Panama;

Your Excellency, Ms. Lattanaphone Vongsouthi, Deputy Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Industry and Commerce of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic;

Your Excellency, Ms. Carla Barnett, Secretary General, Secretariat of the Caribbean Community;

Your Excellency, Ms. Shaikha Nasser Al Nowais, Secretary-General Elect of UN Tourism;

Dear Mr. Kunal Sen, Director of the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research;

Excellencies, distinguished delegates, dear friends,

Welcome to the 6th Global Services Forum.

It is a great pleasure to be with you today as we explore how services drive economic transformation — creating jobs, connecting economies to global markets, and sparking innovation across all sectors.

Allow me to share some key points to frame today’s discussion.

First, services have never been a supporting act — they are at the centre stage of the global economy.

Services now account for about two-thirds of global GDP, over half of foreign direct investment, and more than half of the global workforce.

Trade in services is also growing at a remarkable pace.
According to UNCTAD data, between 2014 and 2024, global services exports grew by an average of 5.3 per cent per year — more than twice the rate of goods exports. And even that likely underestimates the true scale, given persistent gaps in how we measure services trade.

But these figures only hint at the broader picture. Services are embedded in almost every product and transaction: They power mobile banking for smallholder farmers, digital platforms for local artists, and healthcare access for rural communities.

Second, services trade is changing — and changing fast.

Digitalization is transforming what can be traded, how value is created, and how economies connect and compete.
Between 2014 and 2024, digitally deliverable services grew by 6.8 per cent annually. In the same period, exports of financial, ICT, and other business services also expanded by nearly 7 per cent a year.

Services are also increasingly embedded in all sectors, including manufactured goods — a phenomenon we call “servicification.” This trend is reshaping global production and the nature of competitiveness itself.

Third, global progress masks deep disparities.

Many developing economies continue to rely heavily on transport and travel exports, while developed economies dominate digitally deliverable and knowledge-intensive services such as finance, ICT, and business services.

In 2023, digitally deliverable services accounted for 46 per cent of total services exports from developing economies, compared to around 60 per cent in developed countries.
For least developed countries, the share has actually fallen — from 0.26 to 0.17 per cent over the past decade.

These asymmetries matter. They highlight the urgent need for developing countries — and especially LDCs — to build stronger productive capacities in services to seize emerging opportunities.
Our forthcoming UNCTAD report on LDCs will therefore examine these challenges and identify policy options for a more inclusive participation in services trade.

Fourth — and finally — unlocking the full potential of services requires coordinated policy action and high-quality data.

Trade and industrial policies, skills development, strong institutions, and coherent regulation — including competition policy — are all essential to ensure affordable access to quality services.

Equally important is data. Effective policymaking depends on reliable information, yet fewer than 15 developing economies regularly report trade-in-services data by partner country.

To help close this gap, UNCTAD has launched the “Primer on Data for Trade in Services and Development Policies,” a practical guide to navigating services trade data.
This complements our technical cooperation on Trade-in-Services Statistics Information System — TiSSTAT — which strengthens national capacity to collect, analyse, and use such data.

Let me take this opportunity to invite you to join a live demonstration of TiSSTAT by the UNCTAD team, taking place right outside this room immediately after this session.

Excellencies,

The Global Services Forum, launched over a decade ago at UNCTAD XIII, has always been more than a platform for dialogue — it is a call to action.

With stronger cooperation, better data, and smarter policies, we can harness the full power of services to drive economic transformation and help countries realize their development aspirations.

I thank you.