OECD-Eurostat Expert Meeting on Trade in
Services Statistics
Eurostat activities in trade in
services and related balance
of payments areas
Item 14c
September 14-15, 2005
OECD-Eurostat Expert Meeting
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1. BoP Regulation and BoP Committee
The regulation of the European Parliament and the Council
was published on 8.02.2005 in the EU Official Journal.
A framework regulation concentrating on output requirements.
The regulation also created a Balance of Payments Committee.
The Committee held its first meeting on 8 July 2005 in
Luxembourg.
Following items were addressed:
• rules of procedure,
• tasks, competences and ways of functioning
• the work programme for 2005-2006,
• format and procedure for data transmission
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2. Balance of payments quality report
• According to the BoP Regulation Member States shall supply
the Commission with a report on the quality of the data
transmitted.
• Eurostat is currently working on a document, which will
define quality standards, content and periodicity of the report.
• The document will propose a general outline for discussion
with the Member States during the next Balance of Payments
Working Group of October 2005.
• Once a general consensus is achieved the proposal will be
presented to the BoP Committee for its approval.
• Apart from the Quality Reports to be submitted by the Member
States, Eurostat is also preparing a draft outline for a general
EU quality report on BoP, ITS and FDI.
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3. National action plans (NAPs)
• The NAP’s are meant for the assessment of the qualitative
changes taking place in the national b.o.p. statistics.
• The NAPs 2004, drafted by the Member States, describe the
compilation systems at the end of 2003 and 2006.
• In March 2005 the BoP WG discussed a first draft document
with the results of the exercise.
• Eurostat will present a revised version at the October
meeting of the BoP WG.
• The revised version will give a detailed description of the
different compilation systems in use.
• In view of the future quality reports, it is useful to make a
breakdown between ITRS systems with and without direct
reporting, survey systems and mixed systems.
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4. Methodological Soundness
 A joint initiative from Eurostat and OECD
 Report presented by OECD in this meeting
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5. Foreign affiliates statistics (FATS)
• On 15th March 2005 the Commission approved a formal
proposal of Regulation on FATS that was presented to the
Council and the Parliament.
• The proposal provides for collection of inward FATS
statistics on a mandatory basis and, for outward FATS
statistics, pilot studies on a voluntary basis.
• The Council Working Group on Statistics discussed twice.
• A first exchange of information between the Presidency, the
Commission and the European Parliament took place on 22
June 2005.
• The draft FATS Regulation is foreseen to be discussed in the
Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European
Parliament on 14 September 2005.
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6. Remittances
• The World Bank hosted in January 2005 meeting on statistics
on remittances, with the objective of clarifying the needs of
data users and agreeing a strategy towards improving the
availability and accuracy of data on remittances.
• Eurostat was actively involved and presented a paper on
measuring migrants´ remittances.
• The UN-TSG on the Movement of Natural Persons has
already developed some new definitions for remittances
within the Balance of Payments framework.
• Since expertise to improve national data collection practices
largely resides within countries, there had been proposals to
create a “city group” for remittance statistics. Organising
and hosting the inaugural meeting of the “city Group” by
Eurostat is now under consideration.
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7. Technical Group Travel
• The activities of the TG Travel are concentrated on the followup/monitoring of the implementation of national collection
systems for travel;
• Also acts as a multilateral forum of experts in order to analyse
bilateral travel figures.
• The June 2005 meeting concentrated on the following issues:
– National Plans to collect Travel Statistics in 2005-2006
– Expenditure related to the use of second homes abroad
– Borderline cases between Travel and Goods
– Contribution to the compilation Guide on Statistics on
International Trade in Services – travel module
– Bilateral comparisons of travel figures
– Analysis of asymmetries between UK and Spain
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8. Technical Group Merchandise Transport
• The Technical Group was created to propose a uniform
method for estimation of merchandise transport on a f.o.b.f.o.b. basis.
• The TG concluded that so called “Modified Invoice Based
Approach (MIBA)” showed the most promising results.
• The best method for each MS depends on the quality and
completeness of information from the available sources
(FTS, surveys, transport statistics etc.).
• MIBA can be seen as a solution only for MS where good
quality foreign trade data are available.
• In all other cases a sample survey of external trade flows
combined with survey for collecting information on transport
costs and market shares of residents and non resident
carriers can be recommended as alternative solution.
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9. Reconciliation between BoP and FTS
• The main concern is to explain and reduce the discrepancies
between BoP and FTS.
• In August 2004 Eurostat published a Working Paper
Differences between Balance of Payments and Foreign Trade
Statistics, aimed at helping users to understand the main
reasons of the differences.
• The analysis of the results produced by various studies
allows drawing some best practices on cif/fob adjustment
method and other adjustments introduced by BOP compilers.
• A specific task force with participation of MS, Eurostat and
ECB will be set up in order to produce recommendations and
national action plans.
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10. Steering Group Multinationals
• The purpose was to assess the feasibility of a harmonised
reporting form for MNEs across the EU.
• The final report was presented in July 2005.
• The harmonised reporting scheme appears to be feasible
• Major advantages would be the increased quality of the
b.o.p./i.i.p. reports and the efficiency gains for the MNE.
• IT investment would often be needed.
• The implementation of the harmonised reporting scheme was
not considered a priority by companies that have become
aware of its implications in terms of the adaptation of their
systems.
• the SGM concluded that, while the feasibility has been
demonstrated, actual implementation work would only be
resumed if new developments justify this.
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11. Technical Group Direct reporting
• The Technical Group Direct Reporting (TGDR) in its final
report suggested potential sources and several approaches
that could be used to set up a good quality b.o.p./i.i.p.
register, together with practical aspects on the
implementation of the proposed reporting system by
respondents.
• The TGDR has been dissolved officially.
• A new Network Group for Direct Reporting will be created
• It will be chaired by one Member State assisted by Eurostat
and ECB.
• The aim of this Network is to facilitate, via electronic forum,
exchange of experiences on implementation of direct
reporting procedures and organising workshops.
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12. Technical Group
Asymmetries/Codification/Threshold
• Among several initiatives undertaken to improve the quality
of balance of payments data, special attention was devoted
to the process of possible harmonisation of the codification
used by Member States.
• The Technical Group succeeded to finalize a full set of
nomenclature.
• Further work would be necessary to develop a universal
codification.
• Member States´ interest to continue the work on codification
is not high.
• They stressed that available resources should be allocated
to other tasks with higher priority ranking.
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13. BoP Quarterly data for QSA purposes
• The European Parliament and the Council has adopted a
new regulation on the compilation of quarterly non-financial
accounts by institutional sector.
• The compilation of quarterly accounts by institutional sector
both at EU and national level will greatly benefit from
additional details available from balance of payments
statistics.
• For this reason Eurostat´s BoP quarterly questionnaire has
been thoroughly revised to accommodate the new codes
which are aimed at fulfilling the needs of QSA compilers.
• Two versions of BoP quarterly questionnaire have been
introduced in the BoP Vademecum of April 2005.
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14. Revisions of international standards
• ECB and Eurostat are members of the IMF BoP COM and
participate in Technical Groups.
• Eurostat and the ECB participate in the OECD’s Workshop
on International Investment Statistics and the Benchmark
Advisory Group and are in the process of revising the Third
Benchmark Definition of Foreign Direct Investment.
• In the field of the BOP revision, Eurostat prepared
documents on
– ultimate beneficiary owner and ultimate beneficiary affiliate
(UBO/UBA) statistics,
– the definition of economic unions, the application of the
consignment principle in statistics for (economic) unions,
– the principles for classification by industry and the treatment
of retained earnings of mutual funds.
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15. Phare projects
• The purpose is to assist the Candidate Countries to attain
better quality of data and timeliness.
• Phare FDI project aimed at securing a comprehensive and
harmonised statistics on FDI flows and positions.
• Phare FATS had led to a work plan which would allow these
Countries to comply with the upcoming FATS regulation.
• Future Phare projects:
Production of Outward FATS
Expected starting date: January 2006
Multi-Country Transition Facility Programme (10 new MS)
Phare Multi beneficiary Programme (BG and RO)
Assessment of feasibility of data collection and compilation
according to the forthcoming FATS Regulation
Expected starting date: January 2007
Phare Multi beneficiary Programme (CR and TR)
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Thank you for your attention
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