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This page is directly accessible at www.oecd.org/sti/offshoring
The OECD's Working Party on the Information Economy (WPIE) is undertaking analysis of various aspects of restructuring global value chains underpinned by the use of ICT. A major part of this work focuses on ICT-enabled international sourcing of services in recognition of the potential for international services sourcing to transform OECD economies.
The WPIE's work includes a number of reports and workshops analysing ICT-enabled trade in services, offshoring of ICT-enabled services, and the potential impacts on employment.
Rapid technological developments in ICTs are having a profound impact on the way economic activity is organised in general, and in particular on how the ICT sector and ICT-related activities are organised. The shift of more high value-added research, development and design activities to new locations, and increasing cross-border investment and mergers and acquisitions are a major force driving these changing patterns, as countries such as China and India shift into activities situated higher up the value chain.
Many ICT-enabled services are increasingly tradable as a result of these technological advances in ICTs, combined with ongoing liberalisation of trade and investment in services, and services activities are globalising rapdily as a result as certain types of services can now be produced from remote locations. These increasingly globalised service activities not only contribute to the development of the ICT sector but also more broadly to other business and service activities. India in particular is receiving much attention in the context of the ICT-enabled offshoring of services, especially since there appears to be a movement up the value chain, but other countries are also emerging as new players.
Chapter 3, "ICT-enabled globalisation of services and offshoring" and Chapter 6, "ICT skills and employment" of the OECD Information Technology Outlook 2006 describe ICT offshoring issues. The publication is browsable for free on our online bookshop and at www.oecd.org/sti/ito.
Related work:
Contacts: Graham Vickery, Desirée van Welsum
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