The completion of a single market for services will further facilitate trade in services. The rate of increase in extraeuro area exports and imports of goods and services even exceeded that in intra-euro area trade, rising from about 32% of GDP in 1998 to almost 44% in 2007.
Extra-euro area trade has, of course, also benefited from a period of strong external demand and increasing integration at a global and European level. All in all, this also proves that we did not build a fortress Europe and that regional integration can go hand in hand with increased openness and globalisation.