A strong and better economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic requires governments to make the services sector a key element in their policy mix.
Services play a key role in increasing productivity, efficiency and effectiveness in the whole economy.
Globally, services represent two-thirds of economic output, more than half of the world’s jobs and about a quarter of direct exports.
But direct exports of services are just the tip of the iceberg. Services provide significant inputs to all economic sectors.
With their indirect contributions, including those produced in-house by non-services firms, services can account for almost two-thirds of the value-added of total exports.
Further, services make up two-thirds of total productivity growth in developing countries, making them a key element of these countries’ strategies for industrialization.
At the eighth session of UNCTAD’s multi-year expert meeting on trade, services and development, held in September, experts and policymakers underlined that services can help countries recover better from the COVID-19 crisis, and keep them on track towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
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