Statistical Yearbook of the Czech Republic
External trade - methodology |
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The source of information on external trade is data obtained by the customs authorities. Starting by the processing of data for January 2004, the collection and initial checks of the data are a responsibility of the Directorate General of Customs, while the subsequent processing, checks and publishing of the resulting data are carried out by the Czech Statistical Office.
In compliance with the binding regulations of the EU, the measurement of data on imports and exports is governed by the Customs Act No. 13/1993 Coll., as last amended. On 1 May 2004, two decrees entered into force: (i) Decree No. 199/2004 Coll., on Trade with Third Countries Implementing Certain Provisions of the Customs Act and Repealing Certain Decrees Regulating Exemption from Import Duty and the Non-preferential Origin of Goods (by the Ministry of Finance of the CR) and (ii) Decree No. 200/2004 Coll., on the Statistics on Exported and Imported Goods and the Way of Communicating Data on Trade between the Czech Republic and the Other Member States of the European Community (by the Czech Statistical Office and the Ministry of Finance of the CR).
The accession of the Czech Republic to the EU substantially changed the way of reporting data for external trade statistics, implementing methodology of the statistics and the processing of statistical results. The external trade statistics is now produced by combining data from two systems (Intrastat and Extrastat). The data on the trade with the EU member states (which accounts for about 85% of the external trade turnover) are obtained straight from the companies (consignees and consignors) via Intrastat reports. The remaining part of the external, trade is implemented with third countries, continues to undergo the traditional customs procedure. A source of statistical data for Extrastat is customs declarations (single administrative documents). Mathematical statistical imputations and adjustments, which compensate for the loss of information due to non-response and the application of statistical thresholds, are part of the processing of data for Intrastat, too. The resulting adjusted data are then available at the level of HS 2, SITC 1, SITC 2, and CZ-CPA. The statistical value of dispatched/exported goods is based on invoiced prices of the goods proper. It only includes those direct trade costs (freight and insurance premium in particular) that are incidental to the transport of dispatched/exported goods within the Czech Republic, no matter whether paid by the buyer or the seller. It does not include banking fees or banking compensations linked to the export of goods nor export-related taxes and levies. The statistical value of received/imported goods is based on invoiced prices of the goods proper. It only includes those direct trade costs that are incidental to the transport of received/imported goods outside the Czech Republic, no matter whether paid by the buyer or the seller. It does not include banking compensations linked to the import of goods nor import-related taxes and levies. For these reasons, these values are now published in the CIF/FOB methodology instead of the previous FOB/FOB terms. The external trade is measured in national currency. The foreign-currency-to-CZK conversion uses the exchange rate determined in compliance with the provisions of Articles 169-171 of the Commission Regulation (EEC) No. 2454/1993 of 2 July 1993 and released on the Internet web pages of the Directorate General of Customs (www.cs.mfcr.cz - Exchange rate lists – Exchange rate list for the calculation of duty and Intrastat).
Since 1999, following recommendations by Eurostat, the Czech Statistical Office has been using the territorial (geographical) breakdown as given by the Geonomenclature which differs fundamentally from the nomenclature used before. The new breakdown affected the incorporation of some countries into the groupings of countries: for instance, Turkey and Cyprus are classified to Europe now, while before 1999 they belonged to Asia. This approach also places these countries among the European developed market economies (previously the Asian developing economies). Eurostat updates this international nomenclature every year. EU 25 countries – European Union: Austria; Belgium; Czech Republic; Cyprus; Denmark; Estonia; Germany; Finland; France (incl. Monaco and departments—French Guiana; Guadeloupe; Martinique; and Réunion); Greece; Hungary; Ireland; Italy; Latvia; Lithuania; Luxembourg; Malta; Netherlands; Poland; Portugal; Slovakia; Slovenia; Spain; Sweden; and the United Kingdom (incl. the Isle of Man and islands Guernsey and Jersey). EU 15 countries – European Union: Austria; Belgium; Denmark; Germany; Finland; France (incl. Monaco and departments—French Guiana; Guadeloupe; Martinique; and Réunion); Greece; Ireland; Italy; Luxembourg; Netherlands; Portugal; Spain; Sweden; and the United Kingdom (incl. the Isle of Man and islands Guernsey and Jersey). EFTA countries (European Free Trade Association): Iceland; Liechtenstein; Norway (incl. territories Svalbard and Jan Mayen); Switzerland. Other developed market economies: Andorra; Australia; Canada; the Faroe Islands; Gibraltar; Greenland; Israel; Japan; New Zealand; South Africa; San Marino; Turkey; United States (incl. Puerto Rico) and Holy See. Developing economies: Afghanistan; Algeria; American Samoa; Angola; Anguilla; Antarctica; Antigua and Barbuda; Argentina; Aruba; Bahamas; Bahrain; Bangladesh; Barbados; Belize; Benin; Bermuda; Bhutan; Bolivia; Botswana; Bouvet Island; Brazil; British Indian Ocean Territory; Brunei Darussalam; Burkina Faso; Burundi; Cambodia; Cameroon; Cape Verde; Cayman Islands; Central African Republic; Ceuta; Chad; Chile; Christmas Island; Cocos Islands; Columbia; Comoros; Congo; Congo, Democratic Republic of; Cook Islands; Costa Rica; Cote d’Ivoire; Djibouty; Dominica; Dominican Republic; Ecuador; Egypt; El Salvador; Equatorial Guinea; Eritrea; Ethiopia; Falkland Islands; Fiji; French Polynesia; French Southern Territories; Gabon; Gambia; Ghana; Grenada; Guam; Guatemala; Guinea; Guinea - Bissau; Guyana; Haiti; Heard Island and McDonald Islands; Honduras; Hong Kong; India; Indonesia; Iran, Islamic Republic of; Iraq; Jamaica; Jordan; Kenya; Kiribati; Korea, Republic of; Kuwait; Lesotho; Lebanon; Liberia; Libya; Macao; Madagascar; Malawi; Malaysia; Maldives; Mali; Marshall Islands; Mauritania; Mauritius; Mayotte; Melilla; Mexico; Micronesia, Federated States of; Montserrat; Morocco; Mozambique; Myanmar; Namibia; Nauru; Nepal; Netherlands Antilles; New Caledonia; Nicaragua; Niger; Nigeria; Niue; Norfolk Island; Northern Mariana Islands; Occupied Palestinian Territory; Oman; Pakistan; Palau; Panama; Papua New Guinea; Paraguay; Peru; Philippines; Pitcairn; Qatar; Rwanda; Saint Pierre and Miquelon; Samoa; Saudi Arabia; Sao Tome and Principe; Senegal; Seychelles; Sierra Leone; Singapore; Solomon Islands; Somalia; South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands; Sri Lanka; Saint Helena; Saint Kitts and Nevis; Saint Lucia; St Vincent and the Grenadines; Sudan; Suriname; Swaziland; Syrian Arab Republic; Taiwan; Tanzania, United Republic of; Thailand; Timor-Leste; Togo; Tokelau; Tonga; Trinidad and Tobago; Tunisia; Turks and Caicos Islands; Tuvalu; Uganda; United Arab Emirates; United States Minor Outlying Islands; Uruguay; Virgin Islands (US); Virgin Islands, British; Vanuatu; Venezuela; Wallis and Futuna; Yemen; Zambia; Zimbabwe. European transition economies include Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro. CIS economies (Commonwealth of Independent States): Armenia; Azerbaijan; Belarus; Georgia; Kazakhstan; Kyrgyzstan; Moldova, Republic of; Russian Federation; Tajikistan; Turkmenistan; Ukraine; Uzbekistan. Others: China, Peoples Republic of; Cuba; Korea, Democratic Peoples Republic of; Lao Peoples Democratic Republic; Mongolia; Viet-Nam.
OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development): Austria; Australia; Belgium; Canada; Cocos Islands; Czech Republic; Denmark; Finland; France; Germany; Greece; Heard Island and McDonald Islands; Hungary; Iceland; Ireland; Italy; Japan; Korea, Republic of; Luxembourg; Mexico; Netherlands; New Zealand; Norfolk Islands; Norway; Poland; Portugal; Slovakia; Spain; Sweden; Switzerland; Turkey; United Kingdom; United States (including Puerto Rico); Christmas Island; Virgin Islands (US). Both imports and exports are reported at current prices. External trade at constant prices is calculated from external trade at current prices (according to SITC, Rev. 3, two-digit-codes) and sample indices of nominal prices of imports and exports, with the same period of the previous year taken as the basis. To deflate exports of office machines and automatic data processing machines (SITC 75) price indices of imports of this item were used (identically with the CZSO Department of National Accounts), which influenced the change in deflators of exports. The index of imports or exports in terms of constant prices (index of physical volume) gives relative changes in the volume of the implemented exchange of goods in current period compared to basic period, not affected by price changes. The deflator of imports or exports is the ratio of the index of imports/exports at current prices and the index of imports/exports at constant prices. Terms of trade are the ratio of export prices and import prices.
As far as methodology is concerned, the external trade balance published in this chapter has been the same since 2000 as the one that is part of the balance-of-payments current account, processed for this Yearbook (Chapter 7. Currency and Balance of Payments) by the Czech National Bank. The changes in the methodology used to get data on the CR’s external trade—namely the transition to customs statistics—produced partial methodological incomparability of data for 1991 and later years with those for the previous periods. The data for 1991 and later years only refer to material exports and imports for reported periods. Customs statistics is free of data on direct re-export and industrial plants are not reported according to invoicing, but only in the value of material deliveries crossing the border. By and including the year 1990, the statistics had measured data on external trade by trade country; since 1991, however, the customs statistics has been measuring data by country of origin (imports) or destination (exports), in compliance with recommendations of international organizations. The Directorate General of Customs has converted data for 1986-1990 to bring them to the methodology for customs statistics as close as possible. The conversion also took account of exchange rate changes. All the data on external trade are thus given in terms of the average exchange rate of the Czech ‘koruna’ to foreign currencies valid in the individual years. Since 1996, exports have been reported as at the date of releasing goods for export procedure (unlike the formerly date of goods crossing the Czechoslovak border) and imports as at the date of releasing goods for free circulation in the CR. The transition to customs statistics also included a shift from Czechoslovak national classification to Harmonized system of description and coding of goods contained in the Customs tariff. The conversion of the data to SITC, Rev. 3 (Standard International Trade Classification, which is the classification of goods used by the UN and in this chapter of the Yearbook) has been made according to correspondence tables.
Measure No. 69/1993 Coll., by the CZSO, put in place the Standard Classification of Production (CZ-CPA), and since 1997 exports and imports have been published in the Statistical Yearbook pursuant to two-digit codes of the CZ-CPA. Having consulted the issue of external trade methodology with Eurostat and users of statistical data, the Czech Statistical Office amended the methodology for the statistics on external data during 2000. Now, the statistics do not include any value of the following:
This Statistical Yearbook releases 1996-2000 figures converted to comply with the methodology for 2000 for analytical purposes. Conversions for previous years were not made because there were was no effect from imports for and exports after inward processing before 1996 (neither aircraft nor ships were imported for this purpose).
The data for the years 1995-2003 are final and those for the year 2004 are preliminary.
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Detailed figures on external trade are available in the following CZSO publications brought out according to the CZSO Catalogue of Publications 2005:
In the 2nd quarter of 2005, the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the CR in cooperation with the CZSO brought out the publication “Foreign Trade of the Czech Republic 2004” - preliminary figures according to the February 2005 closing date; the data are broken down by according to territory and commodity by country group, country, SITC Rev. 3 section, and HS subchapter.
Czech Trade (Czech agency for promotion of trade), the CZSO, the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the CR, and the Directorate General of Customs jointly brought out the publication “Facts on Foreign Trade of the Czech Republic” (in English). |
