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International Trade Market |
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Thursday, 20 November 2008 19:16 |
A historical look at services trade
Services, particularly the financing and transportation of goods, have played an important role in world trade for centuries. Over the years, a number of service hubs emerged -- i.e., the major crossroads for trading by land and the major harbours for trading by sea. The parameters for modern service sectors and services trade were influenced early on by the types of political relationships which evolved. In sovereign countries, physical infrastructure services developed fairly uniformly throughout the nation, and the provision of social services (such as education and health care) gradually expanded. In the colonies however, infrastructure development was distorted to support supply links to the colonial powers rather than internal commerce, and investment in the development of social services was generally kept to a minimum. Helping to address these developmental distortions provides numerous opportunities for service exporters.
In the past 40 years, the focus of services trade has shifted away from facilitating the trade in goods. More recently, the integration of telecommunications and computer technologies has made virtually all services tradable across borders.
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