【正文】 ited States, this surplus too has been shrinking in recent years. In recent decades, countries with a traditional industrial base have increasingly focused on the services economy, enabling them to apply their services account surplus to varying degrees to pensate for their visible trade balance deficits. This is true of typical mature economies,such as the United Kingdom, and the BelgiumLuxembourg Economic Union (BLEU). Countries with a more modern industrial base are also beginning to expand their international services activities. Japan is making no secret of its intention to turn its services balance deficit into a surplus in the short term. All of this makes the study of the international trade in services a vital factor in the analysis of intemational transactions on a worldwide scale. This article is an attempt to provide an overview of the availability of information on intemational services in their various aspects, and to point to the gaps in that information. Wherever possible, the basic method will be intemational parisons. Where intemationally parable data are too scarce, or too general, the specific situation in Belgium and Luxembourg will be studied. The first section defines the concept of 39。 and 39。transported39。base39。base39。 for the very reason that services cannot be transported or stored, services transactions performed through foreign investment far outnumber straightforward exports on services. (ii) The role of information technology in the international services trade All services based primarily on the transmittal of information, whether by word of mouth, in writing, or with the printed word, are merchantable. More than anything else, the expanding capabilities and efficiency of the information works have fostered the growth in the volume of internationally merchantable services. Information of all kinds can be transmitted, stored and retrieved through these works,with the help of existing information technology. A number of service industries have made use of these expanding capabilities to generate increasing amounts of their added value internationally. However, a major share of these international services remains invisible in intemational statistics, because the added value of a service is usually included in the price of the good or service to the pletion of which it has contributed. The service itself does not lead an independent existence, except in a minority of cases. Problems with the systematic collection of intemational services data Official statistics on foreign trade in services display serious shortings not only because of the difficulty in defining and evaluating services,but also because of insufficient attention paid to services in collecting statistical services, but also because of insufficient attention paid to services in collecting statistical data. 4 The various national accounting systems used around the world are one of the basic causes of the difficulties, in that they use different methods of pilation and analysis of services data. While this situation is not confined to services, it is more extreme in this sector, for the very reason that, up to now, lack of interest has meant that far less effort has been made to coordinate and improve statistical material on services than on goods. The consequence is that there is no agreement on the classification of services, certain activities being assigned to industry in some countries, and to services in others (., construction and transport). All of the above is true of all services data, including domestic regard to specifically international services data, pilation is undoubtedly inadequate, which means that there is a lack of relevant services data. The principal causes are to be found in the above mentioned property of intangibility of services, which makes it impossible to record physically services as they cross a border, so that volumes and unit prices have no meaning. The result is that the data finally obtained are much too constitutes a particular problem for the more recent, fastgrowing services, such as advertising, accounting, legal consulting, management consulting, puter and munication services, data bank consuhation,etc. As stated earlier, the existing statistics also suffer from a total absence of figures concerning the sales of services panies through their offices abroad. These figures are nowhere to be found in the balance of payments, and elsewhere there is little or no systematic collection of data in this area, except in the United States. Moreover,the tracking down of this information is highly plicated, especially if subsidiaries are obliged to take on the nationality and legal organization of their country of adoption, or if they are bound to alter their ownership structure to favour that country39。 ? sales of services by processing industries (crossborder or via foreign investment)。 accepting the model39。s coding hst, under the Eurostat model39。Statistics39。 ?insurance of goods transport。 ? transferred ine from investment in the goods and services sector。ownership39。ownership39。s facility。 of services (subsection(i)). In delimiting our field of investigation,however, we must take into account the availability of information (subsection (ii)). (i) Concepts and properties of international services A substantial number of publications have already been devoted to the meaning of 39。, with an examination of the practicability of (international) trade in problems involved in collecting data on intemational services are also dealt with. Subsequent sections will take a closer look at three of the forms of intemational services flow that emerged in the first section:crossborder service flows as recorded in the balance of payments。COMPETITION international INTRODUCTION The disparities in the current account balance of industrialis