Manual on Statistics of International Trade in Services

Box 1.   Services definition 
The term services covers a heterogeneous range of intangible products and activities that are difficult to 
encapsulate within a simple definition. Services are also often difficult to separate from goods with which they may 
be associated in varying degrees.  
The present Manual generally respects the 1993 SNA use of the term services, which is defined as follows: 
“Services are not separate entities over which ownership rights can be established. They cannot be traded 
separately from their production. Services are heterogeneous outputs produced to order and typically consist of 
changes in the condition of the consuming units realised by the activities of the producers at the demand of the 
customers. By the time their production is completed they must have been provided to the consumers.” 
However, the 1993 SNA then qualifies this relatively simple definition as follows: “There is a group of 
industries, generally classified as service industries, that produce outputs that have many of the characteristics of 
goods, i.e., those concerned with the provision, storage, communication and dissemination of information,  advice 

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and entertainment in the broadest sense of those terms––the production of general or specialized information, news, 
consultancy reports, computer programs, movies, music, etc. The outputs of these industries, over which ownership 
rights may be established, are often stored on physical objects––paper, tapes, disks, etc.––that can be traded like 
ordinary goods. Whether characterized as goods or services, these products possess the essential characteristic that 
they can be produced by one unit and supplied to another, thus making possible division of labour and the 
emergence of markets.” 
The 1993 SNA recommends the use of CPC for the classification of products or outputs of industry. Services are 
classified using sections 5 through 9 of CPC, Version 1.0. The 1993 SNA recommends the use of ISIC, Rev.3 for 
the classification of industry. In practice, service industries (or activities) are taken to be those in sections G 
through Q of ISIC, Rev.3. In BPM5, the concept of services is, in principle, essentially that of the 1993 SNA, but 
for practical measurement reasons international trade in services between residents and non-residents includes 
some trade in goods, such as those bought by travellers and those purchased by embassies. On the other hand, 
under certain circumstances international trade in goods may indistinguishably include such service charges as 
insurance, maintenance contracts, transport charges, royalty payments and packaging. 
Examples of service activities are wholesale, retail, certain kinds of repair, hotel, catering, transport, postal, 
telecommunication, financial, insurance, real estate, property rental, computer-related, research, professional, 
marketing and other business support, government, education, health, social, sanitation, community, audiovisual, 
recreational, cultural, personal, and domestic services.