CARIBBEAN                       COMMUNITY                            SECRETARIAT

            TWENTY-EIGHTH MEETING OF THE                               RESTRICTED

            STANDING COMMITTEE OF

CARIBBEAN STATISTICIANS                                            SCCS/2003/28/2

            Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands                    

            3-5 November 2003                                                               27 October 2003

STATISTICS ON INTERNATIONAL TRADE IN SERVICES -

ADVANCEMENT OF THE PROCESS

1.         Background

At the Twenty-Seventh Meeting of the Standing Committee of Caribbean  Statisticians (SCCS) held in Grenada in 2002, the Secretariat presented a synopsis of the developmental work conducted in 2001 and 2002.  The objectives of this developmental work was primarily a situational assessment on the capacity of Member States to produce services statistics, to prepare a three-year programme to develop these statistics, to estimate the additional resource requirements of Member States and to make recommendations to activate the process.

2.                  While the Project which was funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) did not focus on direct compilation of services statistics, it sought to stimulate work and build capacity to produce these statistics by sensitising Members States about the conceptual framework, the classification systems.  Users, producers and suppliers were brought together at the national level in two Member States to assess the feasibility of the recommendations of the situational assessment and to advance  the process towards focusing on data collection.

3.                  The Secretariat also produced a report on services utilising information obtained from the Balance of Payments Reports of Member States, accessing detailed information where this was possible.  Member States were encouraged to review the data in that Report in order to gauge the current gaps and deficiencies and to devise an approach to fill these gaps and to further enhance the production of these statistics.

2.         Advancing the process

4.                  The Secretariat continues its search for funding and technical assistance to facilitate the collection and compilation of services statistics.  In addition, terms of reference have been drafted to recruit a Consultant to prepare common guidelines that can inform Member States about the process of implementing the recommendations in the situational assessment.

5.                  The  Secretariat would like to urge Member States to place emphasis on this area of statistics through evaluating the existing data available on Trade in Services from the Balance of Payments and the National Accounts, focussing attention on the classification systems, questionnaire content  and register building as initial steps to the process of enabling the production of these statistics.

ACTION REQUIRED

7.                  The Meeting is invited to:

(i)                             note the efforts of the Secretariat to facilitate the development of services statistics; and

(ii)                           urge Member States to place emphasis on foundation work to enable the production of statistics on Trade in Services. 

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