Vol. 453 No. 4
60 Mr. Andrews asked the Taoiseach the intentions, if any, he has to give more up-to-date external trade statistics; when the provisional external trade figures will be available; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9555/95]
Following the completion of the EU Single Market in January 1993 customs declarations, the traditional source of almost all trade statistics, are no longer required for most movements of goods within the EU. A new EU-wide system for collecting intra-EU trade statistics, Intrastat, was introduced on 1 January 1993. This Intrastat survey is conducted by the Revenue Commissioners, while estimation, data analysis and publication is the responsibility of the Central Statistics Office. Trade with non-EU countries continues to be based on customs documents.
Prior to 1993, trade statistics were far more timely than most other economic statistics because traders had to complete customs documentation in order to ensure the speedy movement of goods, and this documentation provided the basis for compiling the trade statistics. The new Intrastat data collection system for EU trade has lost this advantage, and is subject to the non-response and timeliness difficulties normally encountered in direct statistical inquiries. This is a problem which is common to all EU member states.
Throughout 1992, the CSO ensured that the many users of trade statistics were fully forewarned of the inevitability that timeliness would be adversely affected at least for some time after the introduction of the new system.
The delays experienced in the production of the monthly statistics in 1993 were particularly severe, with an average lag of over 30 weeks. A joint SCO-Revenue review group examined the new survey system after the first full year of its operation and made recommendations to improve the timeliness. As a result, an improvement of over six weeks has been achieved in the first half of this year and a further improvement of this order is anticipated before the end of the year. Further improvements in timeliness will be dependent on trader response. Currently it takes about four months to achieve a response covering 90 per cent of the value of trade, which is the minimum required to produce reliable results.
The provisional results for December 1994 and for the year 1994 will be published in the second half of next month.
