International Flows of Selected Cultural Goods and Services, 1994-2003

Three countries - the United Kingdom, United States and China - produced 40 percent of the world’s cultural trade products in 2002. Latin America and Africa together accounted for less than four percent according to this report published by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. The global market value of cultural and creative industries has been estimated at US$1.3 trillion and is rapidly expanding.

Entitled, International Flows of Selected Cultural Goods and Services, 1994-2003, the report analyzes cross-border trade data from about 120 countries on selected products, such as books, CDs, videogames and sculptures. It presents new methodology to better reflect cultural trade flows, contributing to UNESCO’s effort to collect and analyze data that clearly illustrate the central role of culture in economic, social and human development.

The UNESCO Institute for Statistics provides a useful service to the nations of the world, helping to standardize these statistics, and collecting and publishing comparative data. Cultural trade is of great economic importance to the United States, and these comparative statistics are important tools for our policy makers. U.S. communications media play a major role in this trade.