E. Other indicators of interest for the global analysis of service industries

E.  Other indicators of interest for the global analysis of service industries 

16.44.         Other indicators of interest for the global analysis of service industries are listed in MSITS 2010, paragraphs 5.83 to 5.86 and 5.111 to 5.112. The present chapter has already dealt in detail with the compilation of variables related to persons crossing borders and staying temporarily abroad in the context of mode 2 or 4. Beyond the FATS variables directly relevant to the international supply of services (i.e., turnover/sales or output and employment, in particular intracorporate), chapter 15 also extensively describes the compilation of other variables and their breakdowns. Among those variables, the number of enterprises and assets of foreign affiliates are of direct interest for commitments that could be made in trade or investment negotiations. 

16.45.        For the other indicators, MSITS 2010 does not suggest new recommendations for compilation, but rather indicates which statistics could be compiled and with which (additional and reasonable) breakdowns in order to be useful for trade in services policy makers and analysts. It builds upon existing data already compiled by many countries and collected by many regional and international agencies. The set of other indicators detailed below is in no way exhaustive. Rather, it contains the indicators that will most likely be of interest to the majority of users:

(a) Foreign direct investment statistics:

(i) Financial transactions, income and positions;

(ii) By destination and origin of investment (immediate and ultimate);

(iii) By type of service activity (if possible, with a total for services);

(b) National accounts statistics and SBS by industry:

(i) Value added, output, employment and capital formation;

(ii) By type of service activity (if possible, with a total for services);

(c) Employment statistics by type of service activity (if possible, with a total for services);

(d) Sectoral statistics:

(i) Tourism (beyond the number of inbound and outbound visitors, discussed above);

a. Number of establishments, hotels and similar establishments, food and beverage serving activities, travel agencies and other reservation services activities;

b. Number of rooms, number of beds (including occupancy);

c. Number of employees by tourism industry.

(ii) Research and development: gross domestic expenditure on research and development (total, financed by business enterprise, by Government, by higher education);

(iii) Audiovisual services:

a. Number of Internet radio stations, radio channels and television channels;

b. Number of indoor cinemas, including multiplexes;

c. Number of distribution companies, including foreign controlled, and number of film exhibitors,  including foreign controlled;

d. Number of national feature films produced (100 per cent nationally produced and internationally coproduced);

e. Gross box office receipts of feature films exhibited,  including foreign feature films;

f. Number of admissions to feature films;

g. Number of feature films exhibited, both national and foreign;

(iv) Postal and courier services:

a. Number of permanent post offices, including those staffed by administration officials;

b. Income for letter post, parcels and logistics services and  postal financial services;

c. Number of letter-post items, ordinary parcels, including domestic service and international service-dispatch;

(v) Construction:

a. Number of contractors, including  foreign controlled;

b. Construction of new buildings (of which dwellings, non-residential and residential;

c. Cement production;

(vi) Finance and insurance:

a. Domestic credit provided by the banking sector;

b. Insurance density;

c. Insurance penetration;

d. Interest rate spread;

e. Market capitalization;

(vii) Telecommunications: number of fixed (wired) broadband Internet subscriptions, Internet users, secure Internet servers, telephone subscriptions and  mobile-cellular telephone subscriptions;

(viii) Transport: air, sea, road and  rail, etc.:

a. Fleet (by country of ownership, country of registration, etc.);

b. Network;

c. Freight transport, national and international;

d. Passenger transport, national and international;

e. Container port traffic;

(ix) Education services:

a. Number of students (primary, secondary and tertiary education);

b. Outbound and inbound mobile students (students from a given country studying abroad);

c. Public and private current expenditure on education (primary, secondary and tertiary education);

(x) Environmental services:

a. CO2 emissions, NOx emissions;

b. Population connected to wastewater collection system;

c. Population served by municipal waste collection;

d. Hazardous waste generation;

e. Organic water pollutant (BOD) emissions

f. Other greenhouse gas emissions, HFC, PFC and SF6;

g. Water pollution;

(xi) Health related and social services:

a. Number of hospital beds;

b. Number of physicians, dentistry personnel, nurses and midwives;

c. Life expectancy at birth;

d. Health expenditure, public and private;

e. Out-of-pocket health expenditure.

16.46.        The sources and recommendations on the above-mentioned statistics are available from the relevant international manuals and guidelines. Some of those publications are included in the list of references in box 16.1. To respond to information needs, compilers are strongly encouraged to discuss with users what type of information would be necessary, as well as to ask those in charge of the collection and compilation of those statistics to identify what would be used or could be envisaged for compilation (those in charge of collection could cover diverse units of the statistical office as well as various government agencies).

16.47.        In addition to indicators that describe the performance of services industries, indicators to judge services flows on an inflation-adjusted base would be useful.  However, export and import price indices for services are not easy to compile. While the Voorburg Group on Service Statistics focuses on the measurement of producer price indices, the International Monetary Fund’s Export and Import Price Index Manual: Theory and Practice^[1] offers guidance for measuring prices of internationally traded services.

16.48.        Services for which prices can be compiled using existing data collection systems fall into the domain of transport. Among price-related time series, the United States Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS), for example, compiles air freight, air passenger and ocean liner freight rates.  On travel and tourism,  BLS derives price information from a subset of the consumer price index (CPI) for lodging, food, beverages, etc. from foreign visitors by country of residence. However, beyond transport and travel, price information on internationally traded services is scarce and further research is needed to develop the information.^[2]