Archive:Trade in business services
Data extracted in December 2019
Planned article update: January 2021
Highlights
In 2017, more than two fifths of EU sales by the software publishing sector were generated from clients residing in other countries.
In 2017, the EU computer programming and consultancy services sector recorded the highest levels of sales generated from clients residing in other EU countries.
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(% of turnover)
Source: Eurostat (bs_bs8bdf_r2)
Globalisation patterns in EU trade and investment is an online Eurostat publication presenting a summary of recent European Union (EU) statistics on economic aspects of globalisation, focusing on patterns of EU trade and investment.
The business services sector can be viewed as providing key inputs in the production of other goods and services. As such, it makes an important contribution to the fortunes of the whole EU-28 economy, promoting competitiveness and growth. The business services sector has expanded in recent years: this growth has been underpinned by the development of new services and more specialised tasks (including the management of supply chains and international production networks), but also reflects increased levels of outsourcing to external suppliers. These changes have provided a stimulus for the business services sector to become increasingly global in nature. Furthermore, technological changes have allowed smaller businesses to enter niche markets where previously they may have lacked the scale to trade internationally.
This article provides an analysis of the turnover (sales) of EU-28 enterprises in the business services sector, according to the residence of their clients — information is presented for clients residing in the reporting country, for clients residing in another EU Member State, and for clients residing in a non-EU member State, in other words, outside the EU. The analysis is based on available data.
Full article
Analysis of turnover for selected business services
In 2017, more than two fifths of EU-28 sales by the software publishing sector were generated from clients residing in other countries
Figure 1 shows the proportion of business services turnover in 2017 that was accounted for by these three different sets of clients. For each of the business services shown, a majority of the EU-28’s turnover was realised by sales to clients from the reporting country (in other words, from clients residing in the domestic economy). This pattern was particularly evident for employment services and some specific professional services, whereas clients resident in other countries accounted for a higher share of total sales for activities such as software publishing services. Such disparities may be linked to the tradability of various services, the different modes for trading services, or barriers to entry which prevent/restrict trade in some business services.
In 2017, 97.29 % of the sales made by EU-28 employment activities were to clients from the reporting country; by contrast, the proportion of total turnover accounted for by domestic clients fell to 59.51 % for software publishing activities. Among the activities recorded in Table 1, the share of turnover that was attributed from other EU member states was generally higher than that from clients residing in non-member states. For example, more than one fifth of the total turnover generated in software publishing (21.32 %) and in data processing (21.02 %) was accounted for by clients residing in other EU Member States. The highest shares of turnover being realised among clients residing outside the EU-28 were recorded for engineering activities and related consultancy (20.71 %) and software publishing (19.18 %).
(% of turnover)
Source: Eurostat (bs_bs8bdf_r2)
Ranking of the turnover generated by selected business services
In 2017,the EU computer programming and consultancy services sector recorded the highest levels of sales generated from clients residing in other EU countries.
Looking in more detail at developments across the individual EU Member States, Table 2 shows a ranking of the turnover generated by selected business services, according to the residence of clients. In 2017, German computer programming and consultancy enterprises recorded the highest value of business services sales to clients residing in another EU Member State (EUR 12.8 billion). The same activity — computer programming and consultancy — also accounted for the second to fourth highest value of sales, as made by British, Dutch and French enterprises.
Concerning sales to clients residing outside the EU, the highest level of turnover was generated once again by German computer programming and consultancy services (EUR 15 billion), while British and Swedish computer programming and consultancy enterprises had the third and fourth highest level of sales to non-member countries, respectively. Aside from these, the other top rankings included engineering activities from British and Spanish enterprises whose turnover was ranked second and fifth, respectively. Regarding the value of turnover, those two sectors (engineering and computer programming and consultancy) are considered dominant in 2017.
While the rankings of overall turnover are dominated by the aforementioned sectors, the pattern of the second half of table is quite different and more diverse. France is the EU member states that contributed most in the sales to other EU members with a percentage of 43.7%. In 2014, more than two thirds (68.7 %) of all sales made in Lithuania by market research and public opinion polling enterprises was derived from clients residing in other EU Member States; an identical share was recorded for Dutch software publishing enterprises.
The share of total turnover that was generated from clients residing in non-member countries peaked at 92.5 % for Cypriot market research and public opinion polling enterprises; the only time a majority of sales were generated from clients residing outside the EU-28. The next highest shares were recorded for accounting, auditing and tax consultancy services in Cyprus (43.3 % of their turnover was generated from clients resident in a non-member country) and architectural activities in Portugal (where clients resident in a non-member country accounted for 41.1 % of sales).
Source: Eurostat (bs_bs8bdf_r2)
Source data for tables and graphs
Direct access to
- Business services statistics (ESMS metadata file — bs_esms)