• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.287-300
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• 2005

The globalization of services is closely related to other economic problems facing the world today. These are: 1) the globalization of economic activities, 2) the servicization of economic activities. The world economy is now move interconnected than at any time in its history. Investment decisions, production processes, labor market regulations and even environmental legislation made by one country or company affect other economies, other companies and the lives of individuals. In fact, it is nearly impossible to think of a country that is not connected to the world economy in some form or another and it is no exaggeration to state that globalization is already an unassailable fact. The fabric of our economy and the way we do business are changing. This change is the transformation from a marketplace on goods to one focused on services. That is to say, we live and work in a service-centered, service-sensitive economy. As a result of the globalization an servicization of economic activities, services require the globalization, and services are increasing their international trade, foreign investment, agreements, alliances, mergers and collaboration networks. It is quite obvious that services are affected by globalization ; but raising the question by how much leads us to the paradox of service globalization, services represent 70% of the most advances economies but only account for less than 25% of international trade and almost half of direct investment; mergers and takeovers. These figures create a paradox that can be explained by two reasons. First; the natural(the service relationship) and artificial difficulties(barriers to trade) faced by the service sector that inhibits globalization. Second, the non-inclusion in official statistics of the share of internationalized goods that are due to services, for example intra-firm trade or the service value incorporated into exported goods. If these were taken into account the service trade figures would be extremely different. The first explanation can be subdivided into a number of elements. The OECD identifies six reasons:services cannot be stored; client-supplies interaction requires local presence; most service firms are SEMs; products are highly differentiated; cultural differences are especially important in this field; and, finally, trade barriers and restrictions on local operations exist. However, despite all of this, globalization produces clear advantages to suppliers. Therefore, the objective of this study is to explore the main forms of service globalization and differences between that of goods, and is to identify distinctive aspects of service globalization within the framework of the global economy.