The Progressive Policy Institute reports:
As two or three new communications satellites reach their orbits each month, and fiber-optic submarine cables replace old copper wires, long-distance banking, news and entertainment broadcasts, accounting, telemarketing and telemedicine grows cheaper and easier each year. WTO reports reflect this: services trade grew by 81 percent between 2000 and 2005. Manufacturing trailed at 58 percent and agricultural at 52 percent. A natural result is a debate over "globalization" of services industries and "offshoring" of services jobs. Equally naturally, since Internet-based trade is quite new, the debate is often spiced up by hype, single-entry accounting, and big leaps to conclusions. Some general data on services trade, plus looks at two industries often given starring roles in the offshoring debate, provide a bit of context:
General: The United States is more a seller than a buyer of services. As of 2005, the United States supplied about $190 billion of the world's $1160 billion in commercial services exports. (The United Kingdom is second at $60 billion; fast-rising India is eighth at $44 billion.) American statistics, a bit more up-to-date than the WTO's, show exports and royalties rising by $84 billion between 2001 and 2006. (From $156 billion to $240 billion.) Meanwhile, commercial-services imports rose by $66 billion, from $74 billion to $140 billion. Thus a $76 billion commercial-services trade surplus in 2001 grew to $100 billion by 2006.
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