MSITS 2026, adopted at the 57th Session of the United Nations (UN) Statistical Commission in March 2026 , is the result of a collaborative effort involving the WTO, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the UN, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Eurostat and national experts. The work was coordinated by the WTO and the OECD and carried out under the auspices of the UN Committee of Experts on Business and Trade Statistics (UNCEBTS), in particular its Task Team on International Trade Statistics (TT-ITS).

To support the implementation of MSITS 2026, the WTO, in cooperation with partner organizations, is setting up the Services Trade Statistics Academy. Announced at the TS4D Conference held at the WTO in December 2025, the Academy will serve as a dedicated inter-agency capacity-building framework to advance the measurement of services trade. It will offer a comprehensive programme covering concepts, compilation guidance and data collection.

The Academy is being developed within the UN Inter-Agency Task Force on Capacity Building in International Trade Statistics. Operational in the second half of 2026, it will provide targeted assistance at regional, subregional, national and economic group levels, tailored to evolving policy priorities and individual country needs. The Academy will combine in-person training on MSITS 2026, interactive e-labs for hands-on compilation of statistics, and modular learning on specific aspects of services trade statistics.

Within this framework, efforts will focus on strengthening services trade data collection. In many developing economies, statistical systems lack the detail and timeliness required for policymaking. Expanding survey-based collection is important to produce internationally comparable statistics on services trade by detailed sector, mode of supply, including digital delivery, trading partner, and other policy-relevant dimensions.

Recent technical assistance and capacity building activities supported by the T4SD initiative

• December 2025: Regional Workshop on Measuring Digital Trade in Services for COMESA Member States. Funded by the WTO. Jointly organized by WTO and UNCTAD in cooperation with the COMESA Secretariat.
• June 2025: Latin American Workshop on Measuring Digital Trade in Goods and Services. Co-funded by the WTO and the Inter-American Development Bank, and jointly organized by the WTO, OECD, UNCTAD, ECLAC, IDB, IMF and UNSD.

Key resources on services trade data

Trade in services statistics

The WTO's Global Services Trade Data Hub is a comprehensive data platform that offers extensive and tailored access to various WTO datasets related to trade in services for over 200 countries. The hub allows users to customize data according to their needs to instantly create dynamic charts and to print reports, making it a highly useful tool for trade negotiators, analysts, researchers and decision-makers.

The Global Services Trade Data Hub encompasses four datasets:

• Trade in commercial services: this dataset contains annual statistics for commercial services trade for over 200 economies and regions on more than 35 services sectors. The visualisations cover eight main services sectors. It is jointly produced by WTO and UNCTAD. The dataset is available here.
• Digitally delivered services: This dataset provides WTO estimates on services traded through computer networks, such as the Internet, apps, emails, voice and video calls, and digital intermediation platforms. Covering over 200 economies and regions across eight sub-sectors. The coverage of digitally delivered services reflects the definition of the IMF-OECD-UNCTAD-WTO Handbook on Measuring Digital Trade. The dataset is available here.
• Trade in services by mode of supply: The dataset provided by the WTO estimates services trade across the four modes of supply of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The dataset covers 200 economies across 55 sectors. It also provides insights into the evolution of services trade by highlighting the impact of digitalization and COVID-19. The dataset is available here.
• WTO-OECD Balanced Trade in Services dataset: The dataset is developed jointly by the WTO and the OECD. It contains a balanced matrix of international trade in services for over 200 economies and their partners by sector. To date, this dataset is the only source of comprehensive bilateral data on trade in services covering 26 sectors as well as total commercial services and other aggregates. The visualizations cover trade in digitally deliverable services. The dataset is available here.

In addition to the datasets featured in the Global Services Trade Data Hub, the WTO statistics portal also includes short-term statistics on trade in services, on quarterly and monthly basis.

Trade in value added and services

The OECD Database on Trade in Value-Added (TiVA) provides another important set of data that considers the value added by each country in the production of goods and services that are consumed worldwide.

TiVA data allows users to see the contribution of services in global value chains, including the services content in exports of manufactured products.

The WTO's "Trade in value-added and global value chains: statistical profiles" show the value-added content in an economy's exports, its participation in global value chains and the contribution of services to the value-added content of exports.