Manual on Statistics of International Trade in Services

C. EBOPS 
3.24.  In 1996, OECD and Eurostat, in consultation 
with IMF, developed for use by their members a more 
detailed classification than that of BPM5 for 
international trade in services between residents and 
non-residents, by breaking down a number of the BPM5 
service items. The Extended Balance of Payments 
Services Classification of transactions between residents 
and non-residents recommended in the present Manual 
is a further extension of the Joint Classification of 
OECD and Eurostat, and it allows for the provision of 
information required in connection with GATS. A 
number of memorandum items are introduced at the end 
of EBOPS. These memorandum items are not always 
confined to services transactions; they are included to 
provide additional information on the transactions that 
are to be recorded. Some, such as the travel items, are 
alternative breakdowns. In many countries, the 
information to be included in these memorandum items 
(e.g., for transportation, insurance and merchanting) may 
be obtained as part of the process of data collection. The 
item FISIM is already part of the national accounting 
framework. These memorandum items provide useful 
additional information for trade negotiations and other 
analytical purposes, including data quality assessment.  
Often the data necessary for compiling the memorandum 
items are available as part of the data-collection process 
for the related EBOPS components, and in such cases 
the memorandum items should be compiled at the same 
time as the related EBOPS components. However, if the 
data are not available but are deemed to be important for 
the compiling economy, the compiler may choose to set 
up further data-collection systems to obtain appropriate 
data for the memorandum items. 
3.25.  The full EBOPS classification is given in table 2. 
The further detail recommended in EBOPS recognizes 
the detail necessary for trade negotiations, primarily 
those conducted under GATS, as well as the importance 
of services in studies of globalization. In the present 
Manual, it is recognized that not all countries have the 
same needs for data, and that compilers will make 
decisions on the data to be compiled based on individual 
country needs. For the most part, EBOPS is consistent 
with the BPM5 classification; deviations from, and 
elaborations to, this existing international standard are 
identified in the definitions of EBOPS components set 
out in paragraphs 3.52-3.143 below. Annex II shows the 
relationship between EBOPS, on the one hand, and the 
BPM5 classification of services and the Joint 
Classification of OECD and Eurostat, on the other. 

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30 
3.26. 
The consistency between the existing 
classifications and the EBOPS classification is further 
reinforced in the coding system recommended in the 
present Manual for compilation and reporting purposes. 
The codes shown in the table in Annex II are the 
standard codes that are used by IMF, OECD, Eurostat 
and many country compilers when referring to balance 
of payments trade in services statistics.  
3.27.  The various classifications of services (BPM5, 
the Joint Classification of OECD and Eurostat, and 
EBOPS) are all primarily product-based classifications, 
and insofar as they are may be described in terms of the 
international classification of products, CPC. BPM5 
describes the various services components in terms of 
the Provisional CPC, which was published in 1989. A 
similar, but more detailed, approach has been used in the 
present  Manual, and annex III provides a detailed 
correspondence between EBOPS and CPC, Version 1.0, 
which was published in 1998. However, as in BPM5 and 
the Joint Classification, there are a number of EBOPS 
components for which a correspondence with CPC, 
Version 1.0 cannot be established. In these areas, travel, 
construction services and government services, n.i.e., a 
wide range of goods and services may be traded or 
consumed. Those three areas of EBOPS, which are 
discussed further below, emphasize the mode of 
consumption of goods and services rather than the type 
of product consumed. Further, it should be noted that it 
is not possible to establish a one-to-one correspondence 
between EBOPS and CPC, Version 1.0 because in 
places CPC, Version 1.0 calls for more detail than is 
shown in EBOPS, while in a few areas the reverse is 
true. In addition to the correspondence provided in 
annex III, further work that is anticipated after the 
publication of the present Manual on the convergence of 
EBOPS and CPC will potentially increase the 
harmonization of statistics compiled on services that are 
domestically produced and those that are internationally 
negotiated and traded.