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International Trade Statistics Conference Notes

Friday, September 19, 2008

Morning Session: -- Location: USBC,Conference Room # 3

Dissemination

• Presentation: Data Security, Transfers, and Access - (HMR&C)
  Presentation Powerpoint Slide
  

• Office of National Security (ONS) has data lab and can work and access individual records in data lab and take away at aggregate level.
• Conflict of interests exists between the tax side who wants no disclosure and the statistics side that encourages data sharing.
• (STC) how have you merged customs with statistics regarding their different mandates?
  • (HMR&C) have always been combined. Questions about where the line is between customs data and statistics data? Clean data vs. original data.
  • (STC) "Massage" data so not admissible in court.
  • (HMR&C) drawn up principles dividing queries into customs and statistics domain.
    • Also question of is EU data tax data or kind of like survey data collected by stats.
• (STC) and (HMR&C) “pre-release” data to other government agencies. Need a justifiable reason.
  • (HMR&C) example: regional agencies to publish regional data at the same time.
  • (ABS) disks available to other agencies earlier on publish day, and government ministers if going to be asked questions by media.
    • Lock-up in room for ½ an hour or so before release for questions and not allowed out until data is published.
  • (SNZ) has a similar lock down policy and no other pre-release.
• (SNZ) Would DARTTS study help methods of reconciliation studies?
  • The data from DARTTS is more detailed.
    

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• Presentation: New Commodity Classification System for Data Users - (SNZ)
  Presentation Powerpoint Slide
  
  
  • (HMR&C) Question: Did you back cast?
    • (SNZ) back to 2002, but limited because uses SITC. Could go back further if interest is there.
  • (HMR&C) Question: Main uses?
    • NZ viewed only as a primary exporter (meat, dairy, timber) and there is political interest in letting the country know manufacturing also exists.
  • (SNZ) Will not supersede HS products. Is more of a time series data to identify manufacturing vs. primary export over time
    • Measure if adding value to exports or mainly exporting raw materials
    • First 3 levels give sense of what export structure
    • Only meant to replace ad-hoc stuff
    • (SNZ) Prior to this did not publish SITC v.3, but was available by request. Now SITC v.4 is available but demand is minimal.
      

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Meeting Summary and Conclusions:

• Direction/Mandate of Group and Future Plans
  
  
  • Incorporate the host country into the extra-hours informal social interactions.
  • Consider a more formal recognition in OECD
    • Pluses could increase role and become a player through group effort.
    • Minuses might interfere with less formal structure of current group.
    • Could come up with ideas to bring before OECD by correspondence and then finalize at these meetings.
  • Interest in adding new members, but want to be sure to maintain the conversational size and less strict agenda of current format. (Interpreters, etc could detract from that)
  • Provide annual updates
    • Have initiates discussed in group been implemented and what challenges or results are part of that outcome
    • Pull ideas through larger body; e.g. revisions all have to implement
    • IMTS user group
  • Next meeting in 2 years in the UK.

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