Geneva, 11 June 2001

The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) is holding a two-day Forum on E-services for Trade, Investment and Enterprise on 11 and 12 June 2001 in Geneva, in collaboration with the International Trade Centre (ITC), the European Electronic Messaging Association (EEMA), the World Market Research Centre (WMRC), the Geneva Association – Risk and Insurance Economics (ASEC) and the Geneva-based financial monitoring centre Observatoire de la Finance. Among the over 400 participants attending the Forum are key international business leaders, high-ranking representatives of Governments, and representatives of numerous international organizations.

The principal objectives of the Forum are: (1) to estimate the impact of recent developments in the Internet and electronic commerce for e-enabled services in the region; (2) to consider new ways of promoting service-sector business in the region, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs); (3) to identify the needs for capacity building to enhance the service sector in the region; and (4) to promote awareness of best practice in the service sector, especially regarding electronic commerce for trade, investment, innovation and enterprise development.

Over the last decade trade in commercial services such as transport, travel, finance, communications and construction has been growing much faster than global output. "Average annual growth in trade in commercial services from 1980 to 1993 was 7.7 per cent compared with 4.9 per cent for merchandise trade (in nominal terms) and the share of commercial services in global trade rose from 17 per cent in 1980 to about 22 per cent in 1993." ¹

International trade in goods is a relatively simple idea to grasp: a product is transported from one country to another. Trade in services is much more diverse. It supports or enhances all stages of the economic production processes. Telephone companies, banks, airlines and accountancy firms provide their services in quite different ways, such as cross-border supply, consumption abroad, commercial presence or presence of natural persons. The export of a service requires the establishment of the direct interaction of the producer and the consumer in the simultaneous process of production and consumption. Services had long been considered to offer less potential for trade expansion than goods, given the myriad technical, institutional and regulatory barriers, the traditional perception of services being non-tradable and economic and technical constraints. However, this view has been confounded by dramatic changes - the introduction of new information and communication technologies, the opening in many countries of monopolies (e.g. voice telephony) and gradual liberalization of restricted sectors like banking and insurance.

The Forum will examine the wide-ranging and significant implications of electronic means to foster services’ development in areas such as innovation and enterprise development, trade logistics and distribution, banking and insurance and international regulation. It will examine such practical questions as: What are the new business opportunities in the e-marketplaces? What is the complementarity between investment and trade in the new services economy? What is the role of the insurance sector in e-services? What are the future policy issues to realize the potential of e-services?