GLOBAL SUBSIDIES INITIATIVE

Energy

The energy sector comprises the production, sale and distribution of energy, including fuel extraction, manufacturing, refining, transformation and transportation. Fossil fuels – oil, natural gas and coal – are the leading primary sources of energy. Other sources are nuclear energy, traditional biomass fuels, such as firewood and charcoal, and renewables, including hydroelectric, geothermal, wind and solar power. Primary fuels can be converted into final forms or carriers of energy, such as refined oil products, electricity and hydrogen, or used directly in final uses.

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Agriculture

The agricultural sector refers to the economic activities involved in the production, or simple processing, of crops, livestock and a few other products of living organisms, such as mushrooms and silkworms.

The importance of food to human beings is obvious. But agriculture also accounts for a large share of our fibres, and a small but growing share of the world’s fuel. Agriculture employs typically less than 3% of the working populace in industrialized countries, but more than 50% of the populace in some of the world’s least-developed countries.

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Fisheries

The fisheries sector comprises the wild harvesting of freshwater or marine aquatic life, for food, sport or commercial sale, as well as the cultivation of aquatic life (aquaculture), and the rearing of wild-born fish (ranching).

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Services

The services sector describes activities ranging from banking, transportation, travel, telecommunications, the internet, health, education and environmental services to professional services such as engineering and the law. Services account for more than 70% of production and employment across the OECD, levels that many of the world’s emerging economies are today fast approaching. Moreover, the sector accounts for a rising share of world trade and investment, having grown faster on average than trade and investment in goods-related activities for much of the past decade and a half.

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Transport

The transport sector refers to economic activities related to the provision of transport infra¬structure (e.g. road building and maintenance) the operation of public and private transport services (e.g. running trains, cargo ships, taxis, airplanes). For the purposes of subsidy analysis the sector is sometimes extended to include the production or consumption of vehicles and vessels (e.g. cars and airliners) and transport fuels.

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