The International Trade in Services by Company Characteristics Survey (STEC) is a structural set of statistics of synthesis and analysis, whose main aim is to characterise companies that engage in international trading of services in contrast to those that limit themselves to the domestic market, based on three main characteristics: Main economic activity of the company (according to the CNAE), size range measured in number of employees and type of control exercised over the company (domestic/foreign).

The STEC can help to improve the allocation of exports and imports of services to the different branches of activity in drawing up the domestic Origin-Destination Tables and Input-Output Tables (ODTs/IOTs). These tables, in turn, are a key input for the development of the global ODTs/IOTs that support the Trade in Value Added (TVA) indicators prepared by the OECD-WTO, as well as for Eurostat's FIGARO (Full International and Global Accounts for Research in Input-Output Analysis) initiative. Moreover, by refining assumptions about the type of firms that trade services, STEC data are essential to account for the heterogeneity of firms participating in Global Value Chains (GVCs), facilitating the scaling up of ODTs. This provides insight into the role of SMEs, but also into how multinational enterprises (MNEs) shape GVCs through trade flows between different countries and industries.