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The international trade in cultural goods is considered as one of the economic dimensions of culture. A specific set of statistics can be built based on international trade data: to make a time series analysis, to estimate the contribution of cultural trade to total international trade of each country or to estimate its contribution to total EU Member States trade. These and many other derived indicators, like the distribution of trade by group of products or by trade partner, enable to measure the relative weight of culture in the whole economy.

The international trade in cultural goods covers the import and export of goods traded among Member States and internationally. Presented values are based on current prices, recorded when the data were captured.

"Goods" in this particular case means all movable property, in other terms products having a physical dimension. So, external trade in licenses and copyrights is not included.

"Cultural goods" refer to the particular set of goods and commodities identified according to criteria set up by ESSnet-Culture framework for culture statistics.

 The classifications used to identify cultural goods are CN (Combined Nomenclature; for EU-27 Member States and Candidate Countries) or HS (Harmonised System; for EFTA countries).

The data presented for the EU concern extra-EU trade. This looks at the EU (27 countries from 2020) as a single entity and excludes intra-EU trade (between the EU Member States). By contrast, trade data at national level for individual Member States concern both intra-EU and extra-EU trade.

Current scope for international trade in cultural goods

In 2016, for the sake of consistency with the international developments and in particular with the UNESCO statistics, the European scope of international trade in cultural goods was revised by the Working Group 'Culture statsitics' to cover more commodities. Compared to the previous scope that was used for the compilation of statistics until 2015, the following changes have been brought:

• extension of the category hand-made fabrics with some hand-made ornamental articles;
• creating a new category with jewellery articles;
• extension of audio-visual categories;
• split of audio-visual categories on recorded media with music on the one side and film, video and video games on the other side.

Two tables on international trade in cultural goods in Eurobase present the data according to the new scope for the period since 2004 onwards (see the Notes at the bottom of this section for data by old and new scope).

Data source

International trade statistics are stored in the administrated by Eurostat database on international trade — Comext. Comext provides statistics on goods traded between the EU Member States (intra-EU trade) and goods traded by the EU Member States with non-EU countries (extra-EU trade). The trade values for other political or geographical entities like EFTA and candidate countries are as well collected. Comext database is built around six main dimensions:

• REPORTER
• PARTNER
• FLOW
• TIME
• INDICATOR
• PRODUCT

The Reporter dimension includes country declaring commercial transactions.

In the Partner dimension the trade partners of declaring country are included. This dimension lists all the countries of the world.

The Flow dimension distinguishes exports and imports.

Concerning Time, both annual and monthly data are available.

The Indicator dimension specifies the value or volume of traded products.

The Product dimension contains the list of goods by one of the standard product classifications: CN or HS, depending on the dataset.

The data in Comext are updated regularly and the CN classification undergoes the revisions every year to ensure it is kept up to date in the light of changes in the technology and international trade patterns. Major revisions take place every 5 years and accompany the revision of HS classification. The latest important revision occured in 2017 and impacted two cultural aggregates (see details in Annex 2 below).

Cultural goods

The frames for establishing the list of cultural goods for the purpose of international trade were set up by ESSnet-Culture and UNESCO in their respective frameworks for cultural statistics. In both frameworks the core criterion of the identification of 'cultural' goods is the 'artistic creation' and what the products are conveying in terms of symbolic, artistic and spiritual or aesthetic values. To build the list, the 10 cultural domains as identified by ESSnet-culture (heritage, books and press, visual arts, art craft, performing arts, audio-visual and multimedia, architecture, archives, libraries and advertising) were analysed from 'product perspective'. This analysis enabled the identification of numerous 'cultural' codes within seven domains (except archives, libraries and advertising).

Current list of cultural goods includes the following product categories:

• Antiques;
• Works of art;
• Craft articles;
• Jewellery;
• Books;
• Newspapers;
• Maps;
• Architecture plans and drawings;
• Photographic plates and films;
• Recorded media (CDs, DVDs, Blu-rays, magnetic tapes, gramophone records);
• Video game consoles;
• Musical instruments.

Detailed list of codes according to CN composing the cultural aggregates can be found in the Annex 2 - International trade in cultural goods by new scope (since 2017) of the present Metadata file.

Then the data are compiled for the following trade partners:

• Intra-EU
• Extra-EU
• World
• Individual countries

Notes

The publication "Culture statistics - 2016 edition" (from the "Statistical books" series) was based on the previous scope. The data using the previous scope are still available for the reference years 2002-2015 via the section 'Information on data/International trade in cultural goods of the Culture Dedicated Section. The detailed content of the old scope can be found in the Annex 1 – International trade in cultural goods by old scope to the present document.

In the EU's system of gathering trade statistics, the products are defined according to the Combined Nomenclature (CN) at 8-digit level. First six-digit codes of CN coincide with the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System (HS) managed by the World Customs Organisation (WCO).

The cultural goods are identified at 8 digits of CN. Please refer to Annex 2 - International trade in cultural goods by new scope (since 2017) for the detailed list of cultural goods.

The Geonomenclature is used for classifying reporting countries and trading partners.

For a detailed description of the above mentioned classifications, please check the EU Vocabulaires portal.

External trade in cultural goods

Cultural trade activities are those which involve buying cultural products from a third party in order to sell them with no (or very little) transformation.

The aim of international trade statistics, as stated in the UN 2010 manual, is ‘to record all goods which add to or subtract from the stock of material resources of a country by entering (imports) or leaving (exports) its economic territory’. At the EU level, ‘economic territory’ is the statistical territory of a Member State, which corresponds to its customs territory with one exception — the statistical territory but not the customs territory of Germany, including Heligoland.

In the EU, the external trade of goods is monitored, reported and registered in accordance to EU regulations establishing the legal frames for gathering trade statistics. The use of common definitions, classifications and the respect of common procedures guarantee the high level of quality and harmonisation of the collected data and enable the international comparisons at a very detailed level. For more information about the specificity of data collection, procedures and methodologies applied in Member States, please refer to the following document: User guide on European statistics on international trade in goods - 2020 edition.

Customs declarations are used for statistical purposes as the basic data source which provides detailed information on exports and imports of goods with a geographical breakdown.

Any natural and legal person lodging a customs declaration in a Member State is reporting to the extra-EU trade statistics on the condition that the customs procedure is of statistical relevance.

Within intra-EU trade statistics any taxable person carrying out an intra-EU trade transaction is responsible for providing the information.

However small and medium trade operators are exempted from obligation to provide Intrastat declarations. Member States have implemented a threshold system which allows intra-EU traders not to report on their transaction or provide less detailed information on condition that their total trade value does not exceed a certain amount during the previous or present calendar year. However, Member States assure quality standards when determining the national thresholds.

Trade in cultural goods of the EU and its Member States includes all goods which add or subtract from the stock of material resources of the reporting Member State by entering (imports) or leaving (exports) its economic territory. Information on the goods is provided by legal or natural person.

European Union (as aggregate and for each Member State), EFTA countries, the United Kingdom(*), Candidate Countries. Since 2020 data, the reference area has been expanded to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo.

(*) As a reporting country, the UK is no longer legally obliged to transmit any data to Eurostat since the end of the transition period (31 December 2020). This concerns new reference periods, as well as revisions of data previously transmitted to Eurostat. Currently the ITGS data transmitted by the UK to Eurostat cover the full year 2019, and months January to October 2020. Pending a new agreement on statistical cooperation between the EU and the UK, Eurostat will not publish any new data for reporter UK, whether via the database or other products, such as statistical publications.

Since 2004.

Not applicable. 

• The trade value of cultural goods is expressed in thousands of euro (THS_EUR).

Based on the number of dimensions available in Comext database, the following indicators can be calculated in the respective categories of Flow (import and export) and Partner (intra-EU, extra-EU, world):

• Percentage of total cultural trade (PC) - the trade value of each cultural products is divided by total value of cultural trade. This indicator enables to see the distribution of cultural trade by type of cultural goods.
• Percentage of total national trade (PC_TOT) - the value of cultural trade is divided by total value of national trade. This indicators gives an idea of the weight of cultural trade in total national trade.
• Percentage of of EU28 (2013-2020) total (PC_EU28) - the value of cultural trade of each Member State is divided by the value of the EU-28 (with the UK) total cultural trade. It enables to see the contribution of Member States to the total EU cultural trade for each group of cultural products.
• Percentage of of EU27 (from 2020) total (PC_EU27_2020) - the value of cultural trade of each Member State is divided by the value of the EU-27 (without the UK) total cultural trade. It enables to see the contribution of Member States to the total EU cultural trade for each group of cultural products.

The reference period for the information on international trade transaction should be the calendar month of dispatch/export respectively that of arrival/import of the good. However, in practice, the reference period is in general the calendar month during which the customs declaration is accepted by the national authorities on extra-EU trade and for intra-EU trade the calendar month during which VAT becomes chargeable on intra-EU acquisitions. The monthly data are then aggregated to cover round years. For international trade in cultural goods the annual data are presented.

All regulations relevant for the European statistics on international trade in goods can be consulted from the ‘Legislation’ page of the ‘International trade in goods’ section on Eurostat website. All legal texts of the EU are accessible on Eur-Lex.

Not applicable.

Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (recital 24 and Article 20(4)) of 11 March 2009 (OJ L 87, p. 164), stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society.

Please consult the metadata file of the Eurostat database on international trade.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

In line with the EU legal framework and the European Statistics Code of Practice Eurostat disseminates European statistics on Eurostat's website (see item 10 - 'Accessibility and clarity') respecting professional independence and in an objective, professional and transparent manner in which all users are treated equitably. The detailed arrangements are governed by the Eurostat protocol on impartial access to Eurostat data for users.

The data on international trade in cultural goods are updated once a year, 12 months after the end of the reference period in order to allow the majority of revisions to be completed.

News releases on-line.

Culture Statistics - online publication

Culture Statistics - Statistical book, 2019 edition (paperback and pdf)

Culture Statistics - Statistical book, edition 2016 (pdf)

Statistics Explained article - International trade in cultural goods     

All detailed monthly and annual data declared via Custom declarations or via Intrastat system by EU Member States, EFTA, the United Kingdom, Western Balkan, Mediterranean countries are available from Comext database and can be accessed on-line from Eurostat International trade database.

International trade in cultural goods data are available on-line in Eurostat Culture database.

None.

The Bulk download facility allows users to download Eurostat datasets in a format which can easily be imported into a chosen tool for further analysis.

International trade in goods statistics are available in csv format from the Bulk download web page dedicated to Comext domain. They are accompanied by metadata (classifications, data availability, etc.) and methodological notes.

ESSnet-Culture final report 2012

This report is considered as the most important reference document for the design and development of Eurostat statistics on culture. The objective of the ESSnet-culture was to review and update the existing methodology for culture statistics and to propose new developments in order to favour the establishment and production of sound, comparable and sustainable cultural statistics. The report provides the definition of cultural fieldwork, delineating the specific areas of interest like cultural employment, cultural trade or cultural participation. In the European fieldwork the 'cultural creation' is placed in the centre of cultural activities while ancillary activities are not included.

Guide to Eurostat culture statistics — 2018 edition

This publication provides an overview of the methodology used in the different areas of Eurostat culture statistics available from harmonised EU data collections.
These statistics cover areas such as cultural employment, enterprises in cultural sectors, international trade in cultural goods and services, cultural participation, households’ cultural expenditure, etc. They are publicly available in Eurostat’s database (Eurobase) and analysed in several Statistics explained articles.

The methodology used in compiling the statistics is based on the ESSnet-Culture final report, which was published in 2012. Since then, slight adjustments have been made to the statistical scope of ‘culture’ and more EU harmonised surveys have been searched for culture-related data.

The 2009 UNESCO Framework for Cultural Statistics

This framework replaced the 1986 version and its aim is to provide the users with guidelines in order to build statistics to understand how culture can contribute to the economy and well-being of communities and countries at large. The 2009 framework facilitates cross-national comparisons by using standardized definitions and classifications taking into account the most relevant cultural policy priorities that have occurred since the 1986 framework was first introduced.

User guide on European statistics on international trade in goods — 2020 edition

The guide describes the basic methodology and data sources used for the compilation of EU statistics on the trading of goods. It also provides some information on the differences between EU statistics and those published by Member States and international organisations. The publication is aimed at the general user of international trade in goods statistics and does not require a specialist background to be understood.

Not applicable.

Please consult the metadata file of the Eurostat database on international trade.

Please consult the metadata file of the Eurostat database on international trade.

The cultural sectors are considered as drivers of economic growth and job creation. That is why culture is becoming increasingly important at EU level. In accordance with article 167 of the Lisbon Treaty, the EU ‘shall contribute to the flowering of the cultures of the Member States, while respecting their national and regional diversity and at the same time bringing the common heritage to the fore’.

The EU supports these objectives through the Creative Europe programme, as well as a number of policy actions set out in the Work Plan for Culture (2023-2026).

Eurostat compiles culture statistics from several data collections conducted at EU level to provide policy-makers and other users with information on the main trends in employment, business, international trade, participation and consumption patterns in the field of culture.

No information.

The EU trade in cultural goods statistics are based on the EU legislation on trade statistics which is directly applicable in the Member States. In particular, the legislation includes a clear and precise list of all the statistical variables to be provided by the Member States to Eurostat. All the mandatory variables are provided by all Member States.

Please consult the metadata file of the Eurostat database on international trade.

EU trade statistics are based on the Intrastat system for the intra-EU trade and on the customs clearance system for the extra-EU trade. Thus, as international trade in cultural goods statistics are derived from international trade statistics they are not affected by errors specifically applicable to sample surveys.

Please consult the metadata file of the Eurostat database on international trade.

According to the EU legislation, Member States should provide Eurostat with extra and intra-EU aggregated statistics within 40 calendar days after the reference month.

First results (including estimates) on Euro area and EU trade balances are published on line around 46 days after the reference month in the international trade Euro-indicators news release. The latest supplied detailed data (updates and revisions) are published at the date of the monthly press release.

Cultural trade statistics are derived data and therefore are compiled and updated after the compilation of annual data in Comext. Usually, the annual update for cultural trade takes place once a year, 12 months after the end of the reference year in order to cover the majority of revisions that occur in this period.

Punctuality of data on international trade in cultural goods depends on primary data. Please consult the metadata file of the Eurostat database on international trade.

Please consult the metadata file of the Eurostat database on international trade.

Comparability of cultural statistics over time depends on data source used. When data collected fluctuate because of changes in the way of collecting them or due to revisions in classifications, Eurostat identifies these changes by flagging the data as a "break in series".

Please refer to the metadata file of the Eurostat database on international trade.

BREXIT: New EU-27_2020 aggregate

Due to Brexit the EU-27_2020 aggregate has been calculated from February 2020 for the entire time series.

Please consult the metadata file of the Eurostat database on international trade.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Data on international trade are revised frequently according to national needs and practices. They become normally final from six months up to more than one year after the reference year. Revisions to older data are also possible.

Due to that, the annual update of data on cultural trade takes place once a year, 12 months after the end of the reference year in order to cover the majority of revisions that occur in this period. The revisions of source data impacting cultural trade are assessed and analysed.

When an error needs to be corrected in trade in cultural goods domain and not in the primary source, the revised data are uploaded to Eurostat's website ('Culture' domain). In case of more substantial changes, the relevant comment is added in the metadata.

Please refer to the metadata file of the Eurostat database on international trade.

Statistics on international trade in cultural goods are derived data compiled based on data extracted from Comext database.

For more information about this source data, please consult the metadata file of the Eurostat database on international trade.

Monthly - for detailed trade data. For more information, please consult the metadata file of the Eurostat database on international trade.

Annual - for international trade in cultural goods.

For more information, please consult the metadata file of the Eurostat database on international trade.

Detailed primary data are checked and validated according to Comext validation procedures. For more information, please consult the metadata file of the Eurostat database on international trade.

Apart from the validation made on the primary data, the compiled data on international trade in cultural goods are also checked and validated before being uploaded.

The aggregates for international trade in cultural goods are calculated from the harmonised data provided by the Member States to Eurostat, according to the EU framework for cultural statistics.

For more information, please consult the metadata file of the Eurostat database on international trade.

Cultural goods

As ESSnet-Culture report 2012 is considered as an important reference at European level for the design and development of culture statistics. Its list of cultural goods was taken as a starting point for the dissemination of data related to international trade. The list of cultural goods internationally traded was revised in 2016 by the Working Group 'Cultural statistics'.