Trade in services: East Asian and Latin American experiences

This paper investigates the trend and characteristics of trade in services in two fertile regions where different forms of trade integration have taken place: East Asia and Latin America. To that end, the World Bank data are utilized to categorize services trade in order to put on view the national and regional positions on dynamic sectors, and to compare East Asia and Latin America in terms of revealed comparative advantages, the weight of service activities in the regional economic activity, the share of services employment. The paper deals also with the issue of internationalization of services through FDI. Overall, it shows the increasing importance of East Asia as a trading region while the share of North & Latin America is low and declining over time.