ABSTRACT
Geographers have long been interested in the tendency of firms to (re)locate low valueadded or mature manufacturing activities in less developed regions of advanced countries in order to take advantage of lower input costs. More recently, interest has grown in the trend toward locating such activities ‘offshore’, often in less economically developed countries. By contrast it has generally been felt that few service activities could be located in this way, because of the need for the co-presence of the producer and the customer during service transactions. Over the past few years, however, it has become clear that developments in information and communications technologies have the potential to alter this position. Freeman and Soete, for example, suggest that:
Information technology, almost by definition, will allow for the increased tradability of service activities, particularly those which have been most constrained by the geographical or time proximity of production and consumption. By bringing in a space or time/ storage dimension, information technology will make possible the separation of production and consumption in an increasing number of such activities.
