FOREIGN TRADE IN SERVICES IN THE CONTEXT OF POSTINDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT OF UKRAINE

Abstract

The tendencies of development of Ukraine’s foreign trade in services in the period of transition to postindustrial society are researched. The share of exports of Ukraine’s services in 2017 amounted to 0.2% of the world exports and 0.1% of the world imports.
The foreign trade in technologically capacious services is analyzed by criterion of science intensity, according to which the Eurostat allocates 4 groups of high-tech services: the highest level of science intensity, science-intensive market services, science-intensive financial services and other science-intensive services. In foreign trade, the share of high-tech services is 42%; the share of exports is 26%. Thus, Ukraine is a net exporter on the world market of high-tech services and has over US$ 1.6 billion positive balance.
Educational services, which belong to the fourth group of science-intensive services, are characterized by competitive advantages. Ukraine has a high coefficient of the population coverage with higher education. The final consumer spending of households for education in 2016 amounted to 1.3% of total expenditures in actual prices. Despite the fact that the price policy of Ukrainian higher education institutions is quite loyal, the number of students who go abroad to study increases every year. According to the CEDOS Center, the number of Ukrainian students studying in foreign universities amounted to 72 thousand in 2016-2017 academic year. According to the State Migration Service data, in 2016, 13,621 people left abroad and only 1,958 people returned. Moreover, highly qualified specialists are leaving, which negatively affects the quality of education. Ukrainian higher education institutions rank in the second half of the list of the international rankings of universities, with 5.6 out of 289.
A study of the level of total per capita expenditures for health care at purchasing power parity showed that in Ukraine this level is 1.8 times lower than the world one, and 2-3.1 times lower comparing with countries of the post-Soviet space. The state and population health care expenditures increase (in 2017, they amounted to 0.02% of GDP), but are not accompanied by an increase in quality of services. No more than 6% of Ukrainians apply for personal health insurance programs. Therefore, it is necessary to develop regulatory and legal standards in the sphere of services, harmonized with international standards.