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Regional Workshop on Statistics of International Trade in Services

11
-
13
January
2011
Location: 
Muscat

The regional workshop is a result of the mutual cooperation between ESCWA, the World Trade Organization (WTO), The League of Arab States, the World Bank Institute and the Ministry of National Economy of Oman. It comes as part of the organizers' global and regional capacity building programs in statistics of international trade in services. It aims at increasing the participants’ knowledge in the area of collecting and compiling SITS. Participants will have an opportunity to learn new skills and knowledge of the relevant statistical systems, international classifications and methodologies used in collect international trade in services data. High on the agenda of this workshop is the introduction of international recommendations pertaining to the balance of payments (ver.6), compiling foreign affiliates statistics (FATS) and the new SITS manual (ver. 2010) in addition to the different trade classifications.


The workshop also aims at improving the quality of SITS in the Arab region to better serve the needs of trade policy makers and negotiators, including those engaged in regional and bilateral free trade agreements. The need for such statistics today is vital and crucial than any time in the past due to the large number of trade agreements that entail extensive commitments in the services trade.


The agenda will cover, among other things, the following items:


(i) GATS agreement and the need to improve SITS;
(ii) International recommendations on balance of payments (BPM 6) and services
trade statistics (MSITS ver. 2010);
(iii) Foreign Affiliates Statistics (FATS) (EU regulation and OECD handbook);
(iv) Statistics of the international supply of services by modes; and
(v) Trade classifications (W/120, CPC Version 2.0, BPM6, EBOPS, ICFA/ISIC)
1. Event Details