Title: Trade in services: East Asian and Latin American experiences

Authors: Nathalie Aminian; K.C. Fung; Alicia Garcia-Herrero; Francis Ng

Addresses: Faculty of International Affairs, University of Le Havre, 25, rue Philippe Lebon, BP 420 76057, Le Havre Cedex, France. ' Department of Economics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA; School of Economics and Finance, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. ' Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA), Hong Kong Branch, 43/F., Two International Finance Centre, 8 Finance Street, Central, Hong Kong. ' The World Bank, 1818 H Street, NW, Washington DC 20433, USA

Abstract: This paper investigates the trend and characteristics of trade in services in two fertile regions where different forms of trade integration have taken place: East Asia and Latin America. To that end, the World Bank data are utilised to categorise services trade in order to put on view the national and regional positions on dynamic sectors, and to compare East Asia and Latin America in terms of revealed comparative advantages, the weight of service activities in the regional economic activity, the share of services employment. The paper deals also with the issue of internationalisation of services through FDI. Overall, it shows the increasing importance of East Asia as a trading region while the share of North and Latin America is low and declining over time.

Keywords: service liberalisation; commercial service trade; foreign direct investment; FDI;service employment; RCA; revealed comparative advantage; international economics; statistical indices; regional integration; East Asia; China; Japan; South Korea; Taiwan; Indonesia; Malaysia; Philippines; Singapore; Thailand; Brunei; Burma; Myanmar; Cambodia; Laos; Vietnam; Hong Kong; Argentina; Bolivia; Brazil; Chile; Colombia; Ecuador; Mexico; Paraguay; Peru; Uruguay; Venezuela; Canada; USA; United States; Latin America; trade integration; World Bank; trade categories; dynamic sectors; service activities; regional economics; economic activity; internationalisation; trading regions; North America; service sector; global economy; services technology; services management.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSTM.2012.048538

International Journal of Services Technology and Management, 2012 Vol.17 No.2/3/4, pp.109 - 137

Published online: 31 Jul 2014 *

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