Compilation of International Trade-inServices Statistics in Spain:
ITRS vs. Enterprise Survey
José A. Isanta
Head of Unit (ITS Survey)
e-mail: jaisanta@ine.es
Business Statistics Directorate
www.ine.es
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Institutional set-up. General description of
the BoP/ITS collection system
-Banco de España (BE) is responsible for compiling
and disseminating BoP statistics in Spain
-BoP statistics are mainly based on ITRS and some
direct reporting
-BoP item Other Services is currently estimated by
ITRS. Future: INE’s ITS Survey??
-The ITS survey was jointly designed by INE and BE
in 2004-2005 as a precaution against ITRS probable
expiration in the future
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Institutional agreement INE-BE to estimate
BoP-Other Services with a survey
-Gentlemen’s agreement to be formalised in near
future when survey reliability is verified
-The survey is included in the National Statistical
Plan and is fully financed by INE
-INE sends survey’s micro and macro data to BE to
be compared to those obtained by ITRS
-Survey results (levels) are not disseminated by
INE, only indices and yearly variation rates
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INE-BE responsibilities for the survey
INE is responsible for,
- Building & maintaining business
registers
- Design, programming & printing all
questionnaires
- Sampling design
- Fieldwork organisation
- Training staff
- Edition and imputation procs.
- Grossing-up
- Final Tabulations
- Methods, studies and analysis (eg:
response comparison, geographic
breakdown)
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BE is responsible for,
- Design questionnaires with INE
- Sending quarterly ITRS
reporters/figures on foreign receipts
& payments (Other Services) to INE
- Design the Survey’s Collection and
Methods Manual with INE
- Participate in training courses to
INE’s fieldwork statisticians
- Methods, studies and analysis (eg:
microdata comparison)
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The Survey
Aim
Value of imports and exports of services by residents
of Spain vis-à-vis non- residents.Travel and
transactions through commercial presence are
outside the scope of the survey
Scope
Population: Resident institutional units (enterprises
or other organisations).
Time scope (fequency of reporting): the calendar
quarter
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Sampling Design
(introduction)
-Lack of an administrative register or another source
to play the role of a single population frame to
select a representative sample.
-The information of reporters on foreign receipts and
payments of Other services (ITRS) is a good starting
point.
- Additionally, it was decided to use other
populations coming from different Spanish
institutions.
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Sampling Design
(Sub-populations SP’s and Frames F’s)
Institution
Banco de
España (BE)
Spanish Tax
Agency (TA)
Sub-population (SP)
SP1: Register of reporters on
foreign receipts and payments
on Other services
(ITRS)
SP2: Register of Large
enterprises’ VAT returns
Source availability/
agreed availability
Monthly/
Quarterly
Frames (F)
F1: Stable units from SP1
F2.1:VAT returns on international
transactions in goods or services?
Monthly/
Monthly
F2.2: VAT returns on domestic
transactions
Instituto
Nacional de
Estadística
(INE)
SP3: Central Business
Register
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Yearly
F3: SP3 – enterprises with NACE:
A, B, L, P, Q - enterprises with
fewer than 10 employees
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Sampling Design
(Sampling procedure)
-Sampling technique: A classical stratified random
sampling procedure on each frame with equal
probability of selection, but selecting more of the
sample in those strata with a higher number of
enterprises trading in services with non-residents
according to BE data.
-Stratification variables: principal economic
activity at the 2-digit level of NACE rev.1 and
enterprise size measured in number of employees
(size intervals). Geographical dimension has not so far
been used when stratifying
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Sample size and rates: 2005 vs. 2010
2005
N
n
n/N
(%)
2010
N
n
n/N
(%)
# Strata
BE
5,193
5,193
100%
40
BE
4,126
4,126
100
%
TA.1
12,094
1,581
13.07
%
TA.1
14,773
1,453
9.84%
54
TA.2
9,370
1,102
11.76
%
TA.2
13,306
982
7.38%
55
INE
146,402
3,495
2.39
%
INE
161,452
2,987
1.85%
147
TOTAL
171,992
10,304
6%
TOTAL
194,724
10,615
5.45%
296
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Questionnaire
Filter question: Did you export or import services
during the reference quarter ? Yes/No
Two main tables
-
Services Filter Table to help respondents tick the
correct service’s box
Table to register import/export values and
counterpart country for the services previously
ticked
Questionnaire formats
-Paper, electronic (e-questionnaire), website and
XML-web
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Questionnaire (Services filter table)
51 EBOPS
sub-items
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Questionnaire (exports/imports table)
Exchange rate: quarterly average or
Monthly average, last day of the quarter,
last day of the month, transaction day, others
Literal description
of the ITS transaction
according to the respondent
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Service code
according to previous
Table:’ Filter table’
Counterpart
country
Monetary
value in € for
each
transaction
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Other Services’ Exports (ITRS vs. Survey)
Million€
E XP OR T S OT HE R S E R VIC E S :
B oP (blue) VS . IT S S UR VE Y (red)
16000
14000
12000
10000
8000
6000
4000
2000
0
05T1 05T2 05T3 05T4 06T1 06T2 06T3 06T4 07T1 07T2 07T3 07T4 08T1 08T2 08T3 08T4 09T1 09T2 09T3 09T4 10T1 10T2
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Other Services’ Imports (ITRS vs. Survey)
Million€
IMP OR T S : OT HE R S E R VIC E S
B oP (blue) VS . IT S S UR VE Y (red)
16000
14000
12000
10000
8000
6000
4000
2000
0
05T1 05T2 05T3 05T4 06T1 06T2 06T3 06T4 07T1 07T2 07T3 07T4 08T1 08T2 08T3 08T4 09T1 09T2 09T3 09T4 10T1 10T2
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BoP-Other Services (ITRS) vs. ITS (Survey)
(Comparison by type of service)
Imports by Type of Service
(2009)
Exports by Type of Service
(2009)
BoP (ITRS)
15.000
ITS (Survey)
10.000
5.000
Co Tra
mm nsp
ort
un
i
c
a
Co
ns tion s
tru
c
Ins ti on
ura
n
Fin ce
an
Co ci al
mp
u te
Ro
ya r
lt
Pe i es
r
G o s on
ve
a
rnm l
Bu en t
s in
es
s
0
Type of Service
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25.000
20.000
15.000
10.000
5.000
0
BoP (ITRS)
ITS (Survey)
Co Tra n
spo
mm
r
un
ic a t
Co
t
ns ion s
tru
c
Ins ti on
ura
n
Fin ce
an
Co ci al
mp
u te
Ro
r
ya
lti e
s
Pe
G o rs ona
ver
l
nm
e
n
Bu
s in t
ess
mio€
20.000
mio€
25.000
Type of Service
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Strengths and weaknesses of the ITS
collection systems
ITRS strengths:
- Census of foreign receipts and
payments on services transactions
over threshold (50,000 EUR)
Survey strengths:
-Flexibility
-Accrual accounting principle
-Gross values
-Improves services classification
ITRS weaknesses:
Survey weaknesses:
- Threshold increases
- EC and ECB Regulations on
statistics and finance
- Integration of bank settlements
and netting/clearing settlements
-Cash accounting principle
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- Sampling error
- Incomplete reports
-Manuals’ definitions may not be
directly transferred to
questionnaires
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Survey Response Rates
2009
Subpopulations
BE
TA.1
TA.2
INE
TA1+TA2+INE
TOTAL
Survey's Response and non-response rates
Sample
size
5105
1488
1006
3096
5590
10695
Respondents
(questionnaires Response
returned)
rate (%)
4806
94,14%
1427
95,90%
958
95,23%
2841
91,76%
5226
93,49%
10032
93,80%
Nonrespondents Real Nonor null
response
reporters
rate (%)
1408
27,58%
805
54,10%
799
79,42%
2682
86,63%
4286
76,67%
5694
53,24%
Conclusion: More than 50% of surveyed units do not report exports
or imports in the questionnaire. Do all null reporters cheat
or don’t they really trade services at international level ?
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Matching units’ response rates
2009
Response rate for matching units
Matching
NonNonNull
Subunits (ITRS respondents or Response
Null
reporters
populations & Survey) null reporters rate (%) reporters rate (%)
BE
3738
737
19,72%
669
17,90%
TA.1
501
175
34,93%
170
33,93%
TA.2
209
95
45,45%
92
44,02%
INE
188
71
37,77%
71
37,77%
TA1+TA2+INE
898
341
37,97%
333
37,08%
TOTAL
4636
1078
23,25%
1002
21,61%
Conclusion: More than 20% of total matching units are null
reporters under suspicion. This rate for stable units reaches
18% (very high !!)
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BoP-Other Services (ITRS) vs. ITS (Survey)
(Matching units analysis)
2009
Total
SubExports
populations BoP
BE
33684
TA.1
TA.2
INE
TA1+TA2+INE 11317
TOTAL
45001
Matching units exports (mio€)
Exports Exports
Matching Matching
units
units
(Survey) (ITRS)
31130
33684
943
803
175
351
118
115
1236
1269
32366
34953
Matching units imports (mio€)
Exports NonImports Nonrespondents
Imports Imports respondents
or null
Total Matching Matching
or null
reporters
%/
Imports units
units
reporters
%/
(ITRS)
BoP
BoP (Survey) (ITRS)
(ITRS)
BoP
3522 10,46%
32109
27749
32109
3246 10,11%
165
1212
1489
268
67
275
251
74
26
101
261
133
259 2,29%
10633
1588
2001
475 4,47%
3781 8,40%
42742
29337
34109
3721 8,71%
Conclusions:
Due to ‘cheats’ or ‘lack of understanding’ the survey
supposedly misses more than 8% of total BoP-Other services
exports and imports. In the case of stable units it reaches 10%
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BoP-Other Services (ITRS) vs. ITS (Survey)
(Non-matching units analysis)
2009
BoP data from ITRS
BoP
Total
# Reporters
Exports (mio€)
Imports (mio€)
21396
45001
42742
ITRS
reporters
not
included in
the Survey
2009
%
# Sampled
16760 78,33% Units
10047 22,33% Exports (mio€)
8632 20,20% Imports (mio€)
Data from ITS Survey
Survey
units not
Survey reporting
Total in ITRS
10695
40496
40310
Survey
units not
reporting in
% / BoP
ITRS
% / BoP
Total (expanded) Total
5829 27,24%
1294 2,88%
1220 2,85%
-
3612 8,03%
4624 10,82%
Conclusions:
1.Survey should include more ITRS reporters in the sample
and
2. ITRS is missing some reporters captured randomly by the
survey
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Economic crisis and threshold raise effects
on ITRS
BoP-Other Services reporters (ITRS), receipts and payments
Reporters
Year
2002
------------2007
2008
2009
# BopOther
Services
Yearly
reporters
variation
(ITRS)
rate (%)
49130
Receipts
Payments
OtherServices Yearly
Receipts variation
(mio€)
rate (%)
OtherServices Yearly
Payments variation
(mio€)
rate (%)
--------------- --------------- --------------- --------------- --------------- --------------59229
52863
53698
24811
-58,11%
52903
0,08%
51061
-4,91%
21396
-13,76%
45001 -14,94%
42742 -16,29%
Note: Reporting threshold up to 50,000 EUR came into effect in
2008 (Spain). In 2007, around 60% of reporters reported
transaction values below 50,000 EUR
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High degree of concentration
2009
Coverage
degree
70%
80%
90%
100%
# BoP-Other Services reporters (ITRS)
Receipts
Payments
497
435
1022
869
2416
2042
14522
11850
Both
591
1245
3080
21396
Conclusion: On average, more than 3000 reporters were
necessary in 1999-2002 to cover 80% of both exports and
imports of services. In 2009 only 1245 reporters. Problem:
Reporters volatility (10% decrease of receipts + payments
between 2008 and 2009)
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What’s next….
- Regulation
EC 924/2009 related to border
payments in the Community and SEPA (ITRS
expiration by law ??).
-Joint decision BE-INE about the survey’s future:
* Sampling re-design, incorporating most of
ITRS reporters into the sample?
* Due to the high degree of concentration just
have an Annual ITS Survey and a Quarterly ITS
Survey able to capture 80% of total exports
and
imports (UK model).
*Study: Directives 2008/8/CE and 2008/9/CE
related to the place of services provision and
VAT returns
-Adoption of NACE 2009, 6BPM, MSITS and
EBOPS 2010.
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Do we have the right numbers?
No, we probably don’t, but we are
getting closer and closer
Thank you for your attention
For further contact:
jaisanta@ine.es
Global Forum on Trade Statistics: Measuring
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