STD/TBS/Trade and Competitiveness Section
Agenda
Item 6 a
Report on the outcome of the 3rd
meeting of the Steering Group on
linking Business and Trade Statistics
(BEST),
12-13 April 2010 at OECD
Andreas Lindner
Head, TACS, OECD
Andreas.lindner@oecd.org
3rd WPTGS meeting 4-6 October 2010, OECD
STD/TBS/Trade and Competitiveness Section
Overview
•
•
•
•
Data development updates
ORBIS
The way forward
The handbook
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3rd WPTGS meeting 4-6 October 2010, OECD
STD/TBS/Trade and Competitiveness Section
Data development updates
• Eurostat, United States, Canada, Norway and Israel had sent
updates according to the OECD questionnaire
• Canada
– The importer and export database is considered a key
area by policy makers and very successful (paying
demand)
– Trade Division is responsible for this in Statistics Canada
– Re-organisation allowed re-design
– Rolling updates, linked with US data
– Large companies are traced over time through tracing of
composing establishments
– Survival rates: 1 million $ CAN during first 2-3 years
considered success
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STD/TBS/Trade and Competitiveness Section
Data development updates - 2
• United States
– Profile created by Trade Division of Census Bureau
through matching the export trade register to the
business register
– Profile Press release created by the Foreign Trade
Division of the Census Bureau is supported by the
US International Trade Administration (the latter
shows considerable interest in this international
database – see agenda item 6 (c) )
– Census recoded classifications according to OECD
questionnaire and breakdowns
– Prototype profile of US importing companies will be
submitted to OECD later
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STD/TBS/Trade and Competitiveness Section
Data development updates - 3
• Israel:
– Central Bureau of Statistics, BoP and Foreign Trade
compiles the data
– Because of accession to OECD, Israel plans to move to
the general trade system (UN recommendation)
– As for Canada and the United States, export and import
register by economic characteristics is considered very
important by policy makers and economists
– Planned developments include
• More matching of trade values with economic activity
and partner country detail
• Number of enterprises by economic activity and
number of partners
• Inclusion of trade in services
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STD/TBS/Trade and Competitiveness Section
Data development updates - 4
• Eurostat:
– Unit G5 - International Trade is compiler
– This “TEC” exercise is now part of the European
“acquis” statistics with a regulation in place since
mid-2009, requiring members states to mandatorily
compile TEC
– Solid exercise, due to census approach, not sample
approach
– Intrastat: VAT data used, exemption threshold
excludes majority of traders, but represents 3%
only of trade value
– Compilation guide under preparation
– TEC is one cluster of MEETS
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STD/TBS/Trade and Competitiveness Section
Data development updates - 5
• Norway:
– SSB Norway is compiler
– Oral update on developments
– Exclusion of oil industry would allow better
comparability
– Confidentiality is a problem (small
economy)
– Need for secure data exchange
mechanisms
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STD/TBS/Trade and Competitiveness Section
Data development updates - 6
• OECD:
– Presented the TEC data compilation and, in particular, the policy context
(see WPTSG meeting documents 17 and 17 Annex)
• Policy and statistics can be mutual drivers (“virtuous cycle”)
• TEC opens up entirely new policy dimension (e.g. comparable data on
international competitiveness of SMEs)
• Challenges remain: global business decisions (= goods and services) ,
MNEs
• More work on statistical units needed, incl. explaining, and on
delineation of international statistical units (example: CNIS, France)
• Include more systematically services trade (reference to WPTGS 2009
meeting with excellent country progress reports)
• Potential future policy needs include
– Infrastructure demand for transportation
– Impact of economic shocks at firm level
– Import contents of exports at firm level
– Characteristics of exporting firms and their role in GVCs
– Policy design for integrative trade (trading of tasks) and role of
company structures
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STD/TBS/Trade and Competitiveness Section
ORBIS
•
•
•
•
OECD has bought this international private database for use by 7 OECD
Directorates
ORBIS presentation (despite obvious advantages for micro-analysis) revealed:
– Bias in definition of statistical units
– Structural bias
– Different variables definitions
– Poor data quality
– Lack of consistency with official data
ORBIS and TEC
–
No fit
– US: Much higher export data, certainly due to the fact that ORBIS
approximates total, while TEC’s starting point are exporting enterprises
– Canada: as for US, ORBIS figures overstate Canadian exports by 40%(!)
Nevertheless, benchmarking TEC with global databases is interesting exercise
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STD/TBS/Trade and Competitiveness Section
Way forward:
• The Steering group concluded:
– Some Non-EU OECD countries expressed
interest in joining and OECD will extend number
of participating countries
– Distinction to be made domestic market
orientation  international market orientation to
get picture of total activities
– Exchange rate fluctuations to be taken into
consideration
– Analysis needed on related questions, such as
“do we tax exports by import duties?”
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STD/TBS/Trade and Competitiveness Section
Way forward (cont’d) :
• TEC Handbook (OECD-Eurostat):
– Agreement that OECD should go ahead, in
close co-operation with Eurostat
– This handbook should provide the
methodological framework and compilation
guidance, as already done for the chapter
11 of the UN IMS Compilation manual
which OECD drafted
– A draft should be presented to the
WPTGGS 2010 meeting
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STD/TBS/Trade and Competitiveness Section
Share TEC with other
constituencies
• The OECD-Eurostat TEC database has been made
known to many other groups/meetings/constituencies:
– BSDG meetings at Eurostat
– ISI meeting 2009
– IMTS 2010 Manual (Chapter 11)
– Wiesbaden Group on BR (incl. the WG meeting
November 2008 hosted by OECD)
– International SME workshop Cairo (January 2008)
– E-commerce workshop Dubai 2009
– Etc. etc.
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STD/TBS/Trade and Competitiveness Section
TEC Handbook
Information for WPTGS Delegates:
2 weeks after this Steering Group meeting, it
has been decided by STD management to
transfer this activity, together with
“Globalisation”, from the Trade and
Globalisation Section to the Business
Section, becoming Business and
Globalisation Section. The Trade Section
received “Competitiveness” in exchange. This
change in responsibilities explains that work
on the Handbook draft could not be started.
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STD/TBS/Trade and Competitiveness Section
Thank you for your attention!
Questions? Comments?
Andreas.lindner@oecd.org
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