A United Nations official hailed the role of the services trade in promoting global growth.

The services sector is growing faster than agriculture and manufacturing, and has been less impacted by the global recession, said Guillermo Valles Galmes, director of the Division in International Trade in Goods, Services and Commodities at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

Services are vital for expanding productive capacity - the ability to produce a broader range of goods as well as products of greater complexity and value.

They contribute to diversifying the economy, creating jobs and generating income and play an essential role in the downstream processing of commodities and in adding value to manufacturing goods, Galmes added.