KUALA LUMPUR, March 10 (Bernama) -- The services sector contribution to the country's gross domestic product (GDP) could have been higher than what has been reported due to missing links and figures in the final data compilation. "The sector's actual GDP contribution could have been higher if all transactions went into the main compilation," says Malaysian Industrial Development Authority (MIDA) director-general Datuk Jalilah Baba.

She said some joint ventures and equity acquisitions were not included into the major data compilation as they "stayed" with certain agencies.

However, unlike the manufacturing sector, the services industries are more complex and cover diverse range of intangible products and activities that are difficult to encapsulate within a simple definition.

The measurement of services vis-a-vis the measurement of goods continues to pose a challenge to develop meaningful indicators for analysis, she told a national seminar on "Statistics of International Trade in Services" Wednesday.

Therefore, there are still much more in the services sector statistics compilation awaiting to be tabulated, which MIDA hopes to improve upon on a progressive basis if not in the immediate term, she said.

Last year, it was reported that the services sector contributed 57.4 per cent to the GDP, up from 54 per cent registered in 2008.

The sector's contributions this year is expected to soar further to 60 per cent, she said.

Given the growing importance of the services sector in terms of its potential contributions to the GDP and its expectation to account for a substantial percentage of consumer spending, it is vital to produce the relevant indicators or measurements for the range of service industries, said Jalilah.

Unlike the U.K. Office of National Statistics which took eight years to develop their indices, Malaysia is expected to do it within two years, she said.

"At the end of two years, we expect the country's services sector data compilation to fully conform with international standards such as WTO (World Trade Organisation)," she added.

The seminar is the first phase of the Commonwealth Secretariat Technical Assistance to help Malaysia work out a framework to improve the quality of compiled services statistics that will help fill an important gap in the development of services competitiveness in the country.

In particular, the project with the Commonwealth Secretariat is targeted towards the eventual development of internationally comparable services indices, which among others, will include the Index of Services, Services Producer Price Index and International Trade in Services Indices.

The seminar is also aimed at capacity-building expected to provide fundamental understanding of concepts and definitions at internationally- accepted levels and to bring all stakeholders to a common level of understanding on trade statistics in services in order to derive more meaningful interactions between national data compilers and data users in future discussions on matters related to services statistics.

The seminar will conclude with the drafting of a roadmap that will determine the forward implementation of the Technical Assistance with the Commonwealth Secretariat, added Jalilah.

-- BERNAMA