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International Trade in Services and the Creative Industries
Andreas Maurer - International Trade Statistics Section Joceyline Magdeleine - Chief of International Trade Statistics Section World Trade Organisation "…creative industries are among the most dynamic emerging sectors in world trade… the interface among creativity, culture, economics and technology, as expressed in the ability to create and circulate intellectual capital, has the potential to generate income, jobs and export earnings while at the same time contributing to social inclusion, cultural diversity and human development"-UNCTAD 2010. CARICOM trade ministers gathering in a 2011 COTED meeting recognised the importance of creative industries for their economic development and the diversi?cation of their economies, in particular when it comes to international trade. However it was also put forward that lack of data makes it dif?cult to judge the industry's potential. Ministers recognized that their national statistical systems were lacking information enabling an assessment of the importance of the economic contribution of creative industries to their respective economies and for the region as a whole. Against this background, the WTO Secretariat was approached by CARICOM member countries to organize a regional workshop on the measurement of statistics of international trade in services with a special focus on creative industries. This workshop was organised from 13 to 16 March 2012, in Bridgetown, Barbados. The main aim of the workshop was to help raise capacity of the region to improve measurement of trade in services, in particular for creative industries. In this workshop participants improved their knowledge on statistics of international trade in services and the link to the development of statistics of relevance for creativity and culture. In particular they were asked to identify priorities and best practices for compiling relevant international trade in services statistics. The main changes included in the new UN Manual on Statistics of International Trade in Services as well as other international statistical standards were introduced. One of the outcomes of the workshop was to develop a strategy for the implementation of these new guidelines in parallel to the development of statistics relevant for analysing cultural industries (see below). To make the workshop comprehensive, the WTO Secretariat, in cooperation with the CARICOM Secretariat, organized the event as an inter-agency effort involving UNESCO, the United Nations Statistical Division, and WIPO. Involvement of these organizations allowed not only to bene?t from their respective approaches and expertise, but also to involve private consultants to help in the execution of the workshop. These were Marion Libreros as an expert on tourism statistics and Prof Vanus James to report on WIPO's approach on assessing the contribution of copyright-based industries to an economy. The workshop also bene?ted from the input of Keith Nurse from the University of the West Indies (UWI).
continued on page 6 Volume 4: July - September 2012 www.creativeindustriesexchange.com
5
Box 1: Setting up the Statistical Frames Concepts and de?nitions as described in the Balance of Payments 6th Edition (BPM6), the Manual on Statistics of International Trade Services (MSITS 2010), and International recommendations on Tourism Statistics (IRTS 2008) should be adapted in the context of the Caribbean experience for respective sectors of interest (i.e. creative). It is also necessary to investigate what classi?cation should be used to identify creative activities. 1. First, it is advocated to focus on MSITS 2010 recommendations such as the implementation of BPM6 guidelines, in particular for services. Based on the Extended Balance of Payments Classi?cation (EBOPS 2010), detail should be compiled where relevant (using CPC Version 2 as guide), including information on trade ?ows by partner (bilateral, at least for the main ones). This should especially be done for personal, cultural and recreational services. For identifying industries, ISIC, Rev.4 should be implemented. This would also help in developing full-?edged FDI statistics by activity and main partner. Foreign Af?liates Statistics (FATS) should focus on basic variables such as sales/output, number of employees, or number of enterprises; Long-term, EBOPS 2010 should be fully implemented, followed by more detail on FATS, trade between related parties, information on modes of supply and the number of persons moving under the GATS mode IV regimes. Sec ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? =@????????????????????????????????????U9M