1. QUALITY ASPECTS WHEN MODERNIZING INTRASTAT Ales Capek Eurostat

2. HISTORY INTRASTAT was a simplification and was further simplified …but still perceived burdensome – more than 500 000 EU companies are reporting Political framework: Lisbon process, Commission Communication on the Reduction of the response burden, simplification and priority setting in the field of Community statistics, Ecofin Councils INTRASTAT became priority for reduction of statistical response burden

3. THE SOLUTION 2 main simplification options: single flow and decrease in trade coverage 3 criteria: - potential for burden reduction - impact on timeliness - impact on quality Trade coverage as short term solution Single flow to be further studied New Intrastat legislation adopted by the Commission

4. IMPACT ON QUALITY How is the commodity structure of trade affected by simplification? Only approximate comparison of the two options possible Threshold option: how many commodity codes disappear or their volume of trade is reduced Single flow: how many commodity codes disappear, new codes are created or the value within remaining codes is affected

5. RESULTS – THRESHOLD OPTION Up to trade coverage of 95 % majority of codes lose less than 5 % of initial value At coverage of 90 % majority of codes strongly affected losing at least 10 % of initial value Codes losing more than 50 % of initial value less important in terms of trade value

6. RESULTS – SINGLE FLOW The impact in terms of values of lost codes, new codes and changed values within remaining codes reaches double digit figures for most Member States The impact is bigger in general for small Member States The impact is bigger in case of single flow based on arrivals. In some Member States the impact on trade values reaches tripple digit figures

7. SURVEY OF THE USERS AND SUPPLIERS OF THE STATISTICS ■ USERS ▪ 1885 replies from questionnaire 19 NSIs + Eurostat + 100 telephone interviews with ‘key users’ 36 % - companies 17 % - public administration 10 % - business federations 9 % - academic 6 % - EU institution ■ PSIs ▪ 3350 replies from questionnaire * 14 Member States 39 % - wholesale/retail trade 37 % - manufacturing, construction, mining Questionnaires were accessible on a web-server from May 25th - August 8 th Respondents were invited by Eurostat and/or NSIs to participate in the survey directly by email or by “pop-ups”.

8. USERS - SOURCES OF TRADE DATA

9. USERS - PURPOSES OF TRADE DATA USE

10. USERS - AREAS AND TRADE FLOWS Relevance of reported areas -Individual EU MS90 % -EU as a whole87 % -Euro area54 % Relevance of trade flows - Imports from non EU86 % - Exports to non EU83 % - Imports from EU to EU 81 % - Exports from EU to EU 79 %

11. USERS - OVERALL SATISFACTION

12. USERS - INTEREST IN ADDITIONAL CHARACTERISTICS Trade acc. to sector of activity of the trader (NACE)60 % Intragroup trade51 % Trade acc. to size of trader52 % Trade acc. to product by activity53 % Goods for processing49 %

13. USERS - ASSESSMENT OF PROPOSED REFORMS Q18 Companies in the European Union have to report their trade regularly using the INTRASTAT system. Some measures are currently being evaluated with a view to lightening the administrative burden for companies reporting on 'Intra EU trade'. For each of the measures below, please indicate how you assess its potential impact on the trade statistics you use for your work.

14. PROVIDERS - MODE OF SUBMISSION OF DATA

15. PROVIDERS - REPORTING BURDEN Intrastat forms are easy to fill in 80 % Time spent on filling in and submitting forms is reasonable74 %

16. PROVIDERS - EASE/DIFFICULTY OF VARIOUS REPORTING ELEMENTS

17. SUMMARY The quality aspects played important role when deciding about how to simplify Intrastat Due to the asymmetries in mirror trade flows the impact of the single flow on the quality of data would be more significant compared with the threshold option The survey of the users and providers of statistical data served as an additional source of information The survey has shown general satisfaction with statistics on intra-community trade