Services Statistics: International Development Work and Coordination

There has been considerable progress in the measurement of services over the last twenty years with a wide range of current activities and active groups. Given continuing development needs, two key issues are:

• how current coordination mechanisms can be made more efficient to avoid duplication of effort, identify and ensure coverage of essential issues,
• how to communicate conceptual/methodological outputs to all countries that need them.

The UN Statistics Commission in March 2003 invited OECD to assist it by coordinating development work on services statistics, that is being undertaken by international organisations and international expert groups. OECD provided a progress report (PDF) on international developments in services statistics to UNSC 2006.

If you wish to find out more about any aspect of services statistics, these pages provide links to:

• information on international methodological development work in services-related statistics,
• data, and
• definitions of services activity and trade.

Any comments or questions are invited. Our contact  email is:  std.servstat@oecd.org