The Netherlands importing more business services

The largest and fastest-growing type of service imports are business service imports. In Q1 of this year, business services occupied a share of 36 percent in service imports, up from 30.5 percent in Q1 2014.
Over 62 percent of all business service imports in 2018 consist of marketing and mediation services. These also account for the lion’s share of the growth as seen since 2014 (80 percent).

Service imports mainly from within Europe

Business service imports from within Europe showed the highest absolute growth, from nearly 7 billion euros in Q1 2014 to around 10.5 billion euros in the same period this year. Imports from Asia doubled over this period, but involved much smaller amounts. Asia has overtaken North America as the continent which supplies most services after Europe.

European marketing and mediation services growing in importance

Business service imports from within Europe primarily consist of marketing and mediation services. Expenditure on advertising and market research services nearly tripled from 0.75 billion euros in Q1 2014 to 2.2 billion euros in Q1 2018. In the same period, imports of consultancy and public relations services almost doubled from 1.1 to 2.0 billion euros. At the same time, imports of sales agent services (e.g. agent fees) rose from 2.2 to 3.0 billion euros.

UK largest supplier of marketing and mediation services

The most important supplier of marketing and mediation services to the Netherlands is the United Kingdom, followed by Germany and Ireland. These three countries together account for 59 percent of this type of service imports within the EU. Ireland mainly exports sales agent services to the Netherlands. Imports of advertising services from this country are limited in terms of their value, but do involve tens of thousands of Dutch importers. These pay relatively small amounts as fees for advertising services that help enhance the company’s visibility or findability on websites.