A study carried out by the European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE) for the German think tank Bertelsmann Stiftung, published on Friday 29 September, highlights the potential of the trade in digital services to Europe and the obstacles to the development of this sector, observing that the three largest economies of the EU - Germany, France and Italy - are lagging a long way behind the European countries best exploiting the potential of this exploding market: Ireland and Belgium.
Bertelsmann Stiftung concludes that the EU member states should do more to exploit the potential of the services sector, which represents a share of 23%, and growing consistently, in international trade and in which many EU countries generate much of their added value.
Recent years have seen major structural changes in this sector and the use of digital tools has been intensive in the fields of telecommunications, IT services, publishing and business services, but there is still room for further improvement, the report states.
For the EU as a whole, there are considerable differences between international borders as regards take-up rates of digital technologies in businesses and fixed and mobile broadband is not as widely available as it is in the international leader country (Ireland), according to the study, which recommends improvements in these areas.
However, the gap between best practices in Europe and internationally is not a major one for most indicators used in the study, Bertelsmann Stiftung stresses, recommending a digital strategy based on rolling out best practice through the EU.
A competitive digital services sector is not only important for the trade in services, but it also promotes the trade in goods: increased productivity of the services sector will help the many manufacturing companies that are increasingly using these services, the study concludes.
The study is available online at https://goo.gl/ovEQyX . (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)