Transcript Slide 1

CARICOM
Major Regional Initiatives to
Improve the Range and
Coverage of Economic
Statistics:
Key Results Achieved,
Challenges And
Opportunities
CARICOM Economic Statistics Meeting
19 & 20 June 2008
Christ Church, Barbados
ST/ECON/2008/1/4
CARICOM
Merchandise Trade Statistics
CARICOM Economic Statistics Meeting
19 & 20 June 2008
Christ Church, Barbados
Key Results Achieved
CARICOM
1. Compilation and dissemination of annual
and quarterly data on Merchandise data
– Updated data disseminated via
website
– Publication - CARICOM’s Trade in
Agricultural Commodities: 2000-2003
2. Support to the processing of Trade data in
Grenada- post Hurricane Ivan
CARICOM
Key Results Achieved,
cont’d
3. Production of an updated Correlation Table
- HS2007-SITC Rev. 4
4. Enhancement of dissemination of Trade
Data in CARICOM
– Evaluation of Data Submission Systems
in Member States
– Developing of an Online Facility for
Regional Database
CARICOM
Key Results Achieved,
cont’d
5. New Eurotrace software
– Workshop held in Saint Lucia – 2004;
– Selected MS and the Secretariat
participated in workshops held in
Luxembourg in 2006 and 2008
6. A Few Member States have established
good relationship with Customs on data
sharing
Challenges
CARICOM
1. Lack of uniformity in the
implementation of the CET;
2. Lack of timely submission of data
from Customs Departments to CSO in
some Member States;
3. Manual data entry of some records in
CSO since not all transactions are
computerized. For some products
data are collected directly from
companies;
Challenges, cont’d
CARICOM
4. Insufficient collaboration between
Customs, NSOs and Users in some
Member States
5. Lack of timely submission of quality
data to the Secretariat for inclusion
in the Regional Database;
6. Lack of adherence to the common
format for data submission to the
CCS;
Challenges, cont’d
CARICOM
7. Mixing of codes across
classifications (CET93, 96 and 02);
8. Missing codes in data sent to the
Secretariat - supplementary
units/quantities, country codes etc;
9. Inconsistencies in the corresponding
imports and exports figures between
Member States .
CARICOM
Opportunities – the way
forward
1. Improve collaboration between
Customs and NSOs and users of
data
2. Implementation and strict adherence
to the data submission protocol;
3. Timely transmission of data to CCS;
CARICOM
Opportunities – the way
forward cont’d
4. Implementation of Eurotrace for
Windows software in interested
Member States
5. Establishing of Quality Framework
• Reconciliation study of intra and extra
CARICOM trade
6. Data Warehouses/Archives
CARICOM
Thank You for Your Attention