Growing trade in services and investment between EU - MPCs

The EU has been a driving force in trade in services with the Mediterranean Partner Countries (MPCs), which grew between 2000 and 2005 faster than trade in goods - 45% compared to 23% for exports and 77% compared to 37% for imports – according to a new publication from the MEDSTAT II project titled “European Union – Mediterranean countries: growing trade in services and investment”.

Regarding services, Europe is a dominant trading partner of Turkey, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia. However, its importance as a trading partner is clearly lower in the case of Israel and Lebanon.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) flows from Europe have also accounted for a significant share of total FDI in this region for several years now, with Turkey in particular having attracted considerable investment in 2005 and 2006.

The publication, available in English, French and Arabic, is part of the Eurostat collection "Statistics in Focus" (SiF), presenting key data and limited analysis on a specific theme.

MEDSTAT II, funded by EuropeAid's Regional Programme, aims at strengthening the capacity of the Partner Countries' National Statistics Institutes and each country's own National Statistical System in order to provide updated, timely, reliable and relevant high-quality statistical data necessary for political decision-making and to ensure good governance.

MEDSTAT II meeting

General Directors of the Mediterranean Partner Countries' National Statistics Institutes were in Brussels on September 6-7, 2007 at the invitation of EuropeAid and Eurostat for the first Partnership Group Meeting organised within the framework of the MEDSTAT II regional programme.

The aim of the meeting was to bring together all those involved in the project for a frank discussion about the results achieved so far and future challenges, as well as to start a dialogue on future statistical cooperation in the Euro-Mediterranean region.

Euro-Mediterranean statistical cooperation began in 1996 through the regional programme MEDSTAT. Ten years later (January 2006), MEDSTAT II, a three-year, €30 million programme, was launched with ten partner countries (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey). It deals with statistics in nine thematic sectors (Trade, National Accounts, Social Statistics, Energy, Agriculture, Environment, Tourism, transport and Migration) and three horizontal sectors (Training, Information System and Dissemination). The programme’s main objective is to strengthen the capacity of the partner countries’ National Statistics Institutes and each country’s own National Statistical System.