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This Manual has been developed and published jointly by the WTO, the European Commission, the IMF, the OECD, UNCTAD and the United Nations.

The Manual sets out an internationally agreed framework for the compilation of statistics of international trade in services to meet the need for more comparable and comprehensive statistics on services trade. The recommendations in the Manual, which will be promoted by the six organizations, will enable countries to progressively expand and structure information on trade in services in an internationally comparable way.

The Manual conforms with and explicitly relates to the System of National Accounts 1993 and the fifth edition of the International Monetary Fund's Balance of Payments Manual.

In February 2010 the United Nations Statistical Commission approved the revised version of the Manual on Statistics of International Trade in Services 2010. The final version is currently being edited. In the meantime the unedited version of the Manual is available here.