Types of international services and areas of their implementation

Transport services. Tourism and transport are of the greatest importance in world trade in services. The world’s largest merchant fleet belongs to Japan, followed by the UK, Germany and Norway. The market for freight and passenger transport services is dominated by the United States, followed by the United Kingdom and France.

An important place in foreign trade is occupied by the delivery of goods from the seller (exporter) to the buyer (importer), the so-called commodity movement. The costs of circulation in the system of commodity distribution may include the following costs for services: for the transportation of goods (transportation costs), calculated as paid transport tariffs; for the transportation of goods from the enterprise to the point of transportation (to vehicles or to the warehouse); for the transportation of goods from vehicles to the buyer’s warehouse; for loading the goods from the sender, unloading at the recipient and possible transshipments en route; for storing the goods during transportation, repackaging, re-sorting; for the delivery and maintenance of goods in warehouses before sale; packaging, labeling, documentation, insurance of goods in transit; payment of cargo charges in ports and border stations, payment of taxes, administrative expenses, etc.

In cases where the exporter considers it inappropriate to engage in the process of commodity distribution, he entrusts it to a freight forwarding company for an appropriate fee for all services.

Table 5 Resource requirements by component

Volume and dynamics of transport services

International tourism services. International tourism operations are activities aimed at providing various kinds of tourist services and goods of tourist demand in order to help meet a wide range of cultural and spiritual needs of a foreign tourist. International tourism includes persons traveling abroad who are not engaged in paid activities there.

Tourist services in international trade act as an “invisible” commodity. A characteristic feature and a peculiar advantage of these services as a commodity is that a significant part of these services is produced with minimal costs on the spot and, as a rule, without the use of foreign currency.

Table 6 Resource requirements by component

Main indicators for the main tourist

macro regions

The types of tourist services offered as goods are quite diverse. These include: tourist accommodation services; services for the movement of tourists to the country of destination and around the country by various modes of transport; services for providing tourists with food; services aimed at satisfying the cultural needs and business interests of tourists; documentation services (passports, visas, etc.).

International tourism is an important source of foreign exchange earnings for many developed and developing countries. Tourism employs 8% of the working-age population (203 million people), the contribution to world GDP is 3.3 trillion. Usd. (over 11%), $630 billion. investments, or 9% of all investments in fixed assets. Both tourist arrivals and tourism receipts are increasing rapidly.

But the positive impact of tourism on the economy of the state occurs only when tourism in the country develops comprehensively, i.e. does not turn the country’s economy into a service economy. In other words, the economic efficiency of tourism implies that tourism in the country should develop in parallel and in conjunction with other sectors of the socio-economic complex.

In developed countries, tourism accounts for 3-10% of GDP and up to 40% in developing countries. Tourism is one of the 5 main sources of foreign exchange in 160 countries and the main source in 70.

In the UN system there is a special organization – the World Tourism Organization, established in 1975, it unites governmental organizations for tourism, the purpose of which is
it is to promote the development of tourism.

Leasing. International rental services involve the rental of goods that cross the border of the landlord’s country. Depending on the terms or duration in international practice, there are 3 types of lease: leasing – long-term lease (3-5 years and above); hiring – medium-term lease (1-3 years); renting is a short-term lease (from several hours, days, months to 1 year). Leasing services became the most widespread in international trade, the volume of which was constantly increasing, as well as the range of goods leased.

There are direct foreign leasing – a lease transaction between legal entities of different countries and indirect leasing – leasing through a third party. A transaction in which a leasing company buys equipment from a national firm and then leases it to a foreign lessee is called export leasing. When purchasing equipment from a foreign company and providing it to a domestic lessee, the transaction is called import leasing.

According to the definition of the European Federation of National Leasing Associations, leasing is understood as the lease of fixed assets of production (machinery, equipment, factories, vehicles and communications, office equipment, warehouses, etc.), as well as other goods for their use for production purposes by the lessee, while the lessor retains ownership until the end of the transaction.

The growth in the volume of leasing services provided on the world market is more than $ 500 billion. The most popular is the leasing of machinery – 32.3%. This is followed by leasing of machinery and equipment – the share in the volume of world leasing is 25.6%, the share of this type of assets is also very different by country: in Canada – 40.2%, in Holland – 0%. Industrial buildings have an advantage in the global real estate leasing market, which occupy about 30% of the market.

According to the European Federal Association of Equipment Leasing Companies (Leaseurope), 178449 million euros were invested in the European economy through leasing, the share of leasing is an average of 9.7% of all investments.

The largest volume of investment through leasing was achieved by England – 39255 million euros, followed by Germany with a small margin – 38200 million euros, and Italy closes the top three with a volume of operations of 26742 million euros.

Financial services. The global financial services market includes banking, insurance and securities transactions. The volume of this market is estimated at more than 1.5 trillion. Usd.

Financial activity is a relatively young, but developing branch of international economic relations. Its most important sector is the international movement of capital, which is growing faster than trade in goods. Currently, there are several main centers in the world that compete with each other in the international movement of capital. For a long time, the United States acted as the main exporter of capital in the world. In recent years, western European countries have surpassed the United States in terms of the scale of their foreign investments. Great is the role in the export of capital of Great Britain, Germany, France. The third financial center is Japan. Along with them, in recent years, new financial bases have developed in the developing world.
(Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE).

A type of international financial activity is insurance. This is a form of economic relations that involves the formation of trust funds at the expense of contributions from participants in this activity to compensate for losses associated with spontaneous and accidental actions of nature and man. The object of insurance is all factors of production, each of which is subject to different risks. In foreign economic relations, transactions concluded by foreign counterparties are insured. The insurance business is characterized by a constant expansion of the number of types of services provided. They include various types of insurance, reinsurance, after-sales, trust services, etc.

Engineering services are the provision by one party (consultant) to another party (customer) of a complex or certain types of engineering and technical services related to the design, construction and commissioning of the facility, with the development of new and improvement of existing technological processes at the customer’s enterprise, the introduction of the product into production, and the sale of products.

Engineering services are provided by specialized firms, construction and industrial companies on a commercial basis. The usual price of engineering services when providing the customer with a full range of services for the construction of a turnkey facility ranges from 5 to 10% of the total cost of the project, in the case of original projects, the cost increases to 25%, with the repetition of existing standardized projects it decreases to 1-3%. Sometimes the payment is calculated based on the hourly payment of the specialist’s work. A high-class specialist receives $60-70 per year. per hour, middle class –
USD 30-35 per hour, the lowest – 20-25 dollars. per hour. The average company has a staff of at least 3-4 highly qualified specialists, 1-2 secretaries, the rest are invited as necessary.

Consulting is a special type of consulting services that are provided to firms and enterprises in the form of advice on economic issues on a commercial basis. These consultations are provided by specialized firms on a wide range of problems – they make analytical reviews of the economic activities of enterprises for a certain period, give forecasts of the functioning of markets, develop feasibility studies of various projects, etc. Consulting firms also develop an export-import strategy for enterprises and companies. At the same time, they operate both in the national territory and abroad, opening their own branches there or participating in mixed companies of a similar direction.

This market is estimated at almost $ 90 billion. with an annual growth potential of about 15-20 percent over the past few years. There are about 1720 firms in the world specializing in the field of management consulting.

An analysis of the structure of services produced by the 40 largest management consulting firms showed the following results:

31% – consulting services on operations and process management, including business reorganization and total quality management (TQM); 17% – advising on corporate strategy; 17% – consulting on information technology strategy; 16% – consulting on business development; 11% – consulting on organizational design; 6% – financial consulting; 2% – marketing and sales services.

It should be noted that the United States accounts for about 49% of the entire global market for management consulting services. Over the past three years, sales of consulting services have grown at least 10% annually.