Estimates of the services sector's contribution to GDP-- including wholesale and retail trade, transport and communications, tourism, and public administration--vary. However, the trend throughout the 1980s was an increasing share, from about 15 percent of GDP in 1982 to about 25 percent in 1991. Employment in the services sector, as a percentage of the labor force, increased from 13 percent in 1960 to 17 percent in 1980, remaining fairly stable through 1989. The sector grew at an average annual rate of between 3 and 6 percent from 1980 to 1989, reaching a growth rate of about 13 percent in 1989 but slowing to about 6 percent the following year.

Data as of July 1994