Trade in services

Trade in services

Trade in services

No systematic evidence exists on the factors determining

fragmentation. But data on quality of infrastructure, the institutional

environment and administrative costs indicate that low-income

countries are poorly placed to participate in production networks,

despite their advantage in terms of costs. If it’s hard to get the goods

to international markets on time and to the standard required, low

wages will not persuade companies to invest.

OECD Insights: International Trade 49

(Trade in services)

The term globalisation is commonly used to describe the

interconnectedness of our world since 1945 in terms of trade in goods

and services, migration and other factors. However, as the poem in

Chapter 2 illustrates, there is nothing new in all this. People have

been trading ideas and products for millennia. What is distinctive in

trade terms about the last 60 years is the degree to which technology

now enables us to spread the supply chain of many products among

different countries and the speed with which firms can now locate

and relocate the various country links in the chain. Before the 20th

century (trade) consisted mainly of countries importing a series of raw

materials and manufacturing the entire final product at home.