Federal Department of Finance (FDF), Federal Customs Administration (FCA), Directorate General of Customs

G5: International trade in goods

2920 Luxembourg LUXEMBOURG

Monthly quantity and value of imports into and exports from Switzerland of physical commercial goods broken down by several goods nomenclatures, trade partner (as country or group of countries), Swiss region and/or mode of transport. Also available are trade indices and data on customs income, as well as on several special groups of goods.

8 digit tariff sub-headings according to HS (Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System).

- Nature of Goods (national concept), developed in cooperation with industry associations,

- Broad Economic Categories (national concept), as used in the national accounts,

- UN’s SITC System (Rev 4),

- NST (only for statistics broken down by mode of transport),

- Countries and groups of countries,

- Swiss cantons and Swiss sub-regions.

All sectors producing physical commercial goods are covered.

Trade data is broken down by (among other classifications) nature of good into 12 main groups.

The largest export branches are currently: the chemical-and pharmaceuticals industry, the machine and electronics industry and the watches industry.

Value and quantity of imports and exports.

In accordance with EU practice, several goods, namely monetary gold, silver and coinage is excluded.

Switzerland, in addition, excludes non-monetary gold from its trade statistics.

Information is collected from enterprises through custom declarations.

Imported and exported physical commercial goods.

All data relate to Liechtenstein.

International: Imports to / exports from 245 countries.

National: Imports to / Exports from Principality of Liechtenstein.

Data by HS subheadings is electronically available from the online database back to 1988.

Data further back is available (not necessarily free of charge) in other forms, such as files published on the website or a physical archive.

Trade index chain values are based on data for 1997.

 - Kilogram,

- Swiss Francs (CHF),

- additional values available for certain commodities include: Litres (at 15°), Metres, m2, m3 (at 15°), MWh, carat, pieces, pair.

Declarations that are completed late or revised result in aggregated data being revised at the next monthly publication up to May of the year following the period the data refer to.

Foreign trade statistics are collected and published by the Directorate General of Swiss Customs, based on the Ordinance on International Trade Statistics (Ordonnance du Conseil fédéral sur la statistique du commerce extérieur, 01/01/2012/CC SR 632.14).

Trade data is shared monthly with Eurostat, the OECD, the IMF, the UN and the WTO.

The Swiss Foreign Trade statistics apply passive confidentiality. Data are disseminated publically up to 8-digit tariff heading level. Upon request by affected corporations or government agencies, measures to increase confidentiality can be taken.

Upon request by affected corporations or government agencies, data for several tariff-headings is pooled together and only published in aggregated form.

Data is released monthly. Dates are fixed and communicated at least a year in advance. If changes to these dates occur, they are communicated no later than the end of the week prior to the release. The release calendar is publicly accessible.

The release calendar is available on the website of the Foreign trade statistics.

Data is accessible for all users at the same time through the database Swiss-Impex. At the same time a press release is published.

 Monthly.

 Press releases are available to the general public from our website. Monthly reports are published in French and German. Annual reports are also available in English.

The online database Swiss-Impex is updated monthly.

For a fee, clients can opt to receive data-updates of specified data electronically or via CD-ROM.

A media release analyzing the developments mirrored in the most recent data is published along with the data.

The database Swiss-Impex is available in English, French and German. The free content includes data on imports, exports and the trade balance from 1988 onwards broken down:

• by country and country groups;
• by tariff sub-headings ;
• by two national classification systems: nature of goods and broad economic category; and
• by the UN's SITC classification system Rev 4 (only back to 2006).

Additional data available through Swiss-Impex for a fee includes:

• by canton (Swiss region) (from 1995 onwards);
• by mode of transport at border crossing per commodity group defined in the NST nomenclature (from 2007 onwards) and the NST/R nomenclature (1988-2006);
• custom revenue (from 2000 onwards); and
• index data (from 1997 onwards).

Micro-data on the level of custom declarations is confidential and is not accessible.

Annual reports are published as well as occasional special reports. Articles are published in other publications.

General explanations are available on the website in German, French, Italian and English.

Methodology relating to trade indices can be found in the “Swiss foreign trade indices user's guide" under the theme Indices of the foreign trade statistics.

Quality assessment is not generally available to the public. Quality indicators are tracked monthly and analyzed annually.

Currently, quality assessment is not generally available to the public. 

Risks to the data quality lie in the provision of wrong information by importers and exporters or their representatives. Risk based plausibility checks are run to minimize this risk.

Out of schedule revisions and delayed publication data are rare incidents.

Client satisfaction as observed in client contact is high.

Users, in descending order of importance, are administrations, trade associations, journalists, researchers and consulting companies and individuals.

Customer support is available via phone and e-mail, allowing to meet user needs within the limits of confidentiality.

Demands for company level data remain unmet, as providing such data would breech confidentiality.

Interested parties can contact the Directorate General of Swiss Customs by phone or e-mail if the available data appear insufficient to them. Such requests are taken into account when reviewing the data offering.

A sample of 10 of users that have voiced their opinions are surveyed quarterly (4 questions) on how content they are with the provided solution to their needs and questions.

In addition, a large scale analyses of the benefits that the trade statistics have for its clients is carried out every three to four years.

In accordance to Eurostat practice, data on gold, silver and coinage is excluded from the trade statistics, among limited other types of goods (also in accordance to Eurostat practice).

Trade arising in the exclaves of Samnaun und Sampuoir is not represented in the data.

Data is provisional when first published and may be revised up to May of the following year. Revised data is published along with the monthly updates. Revisions tend to be (but are not exclusively) upwards, as custom declarations relating to the period are completed and processed.

No sampling is done.

Exports and imports of electricity are initially published as estimates using an ARIMA model.

Trade indices use outlier correction and adjustments for number of working days in a month and for seasonal effects.

3 weeks.

• Publications at national level: 100% (2015)
• Data delivery to Eurostat: no delayed data delivery (2015)

Limited symmetry of trade data can arise due to differences in methodology. Switzerland applies the Special Trade System and has its methodology harmonized with that of the EU.

Efforts are made to provide data as much as possible consistent over time.

• The consequences of changes brought by HS revisions are traceable through our database or the documents available on our website in French, German and Italian.
• Changes to geographic classification can be reconstructed by files provided on our website in French, German and Italian.
• Data is available according to SITC rev. 4 after 2006, while data from 1988 to 2005 is only available according to SITC rev. 3.
• For the mode of transport, data is available according to NST/2007 after 2007, while data from 1988 to 2006 is only available according to NST/R. A concordance table can be found on our website in French, German and Italian.
• Index data for chain indices uses 1997 data as base year.
• Since 2012 the imports are published with a breakdown by country of origin (instead of the country of production). This change has caused a level shift in the data for some countries. For details, please refer to these explanations.
• From 2012 onwards, total trade includes non-monetary gold, silver and coinages. The inclusion of those products has caused a major level shift.

A change in the definition of trade in electricity in January 2013 has led to a level shift in the related data. For details, please refer to these explanations.

Data is used in national accounts as well as balance of payment statistics.

For the balance of payment, a change of ownership is required for data to be relevant. According manipulation of foreign trade data takes place; such manipulations are displayed in the balance of payment, thus the data can be directly linked to foreign trade data.

Differences to trade data from other countries results mainly from different definitions and applied systems (General or Special Trade System). 

In 2012 the concept of country of origin replaced the notion of country of production. This change has caused some shifts in the data by partner countries. For details, please refer to these explanations.

Only administrative data collected from custom declarations are used in the statistics.

Efforts are made to keep the burden that the declarations cause as low as possible.

Data is released as provisional data and only becomes definite data at in May of the following year.

Definitive data is only corrected if very severe errors are found in the data.

Major revisions on data that is already definitive are rare.

Administrative data from custom declarations is continuously gathered from importers and exporters or their agents through the electronic system eDec. Primary purpose is the implementation of custom related regulation. Potential deficiencies include wrong information being provided in declarations. Plausibility checks are carried out on micro- and macro data to minimize this risk.

Data is collected continuously as cross-border movements of commercial goods take place.

Importers and exporters are legally obliged to provide the information processed.

Declarations are screened for errors and mistakes as well as for low plausibility.

Estimates of trade in electricity for the three latest periods rely on ARIMA models.

Procedures are in place to carry out risk adjusted checks on declaration data, as well as on aggregates to detect faulty data. Faulty data is corrected.

Index data is correct for outliers, working days per month and seasonal effects.

Relevant to index data only: Adjustments for outliers is based on an ARIMA model, adjustments for seasonal effects are based on an X12-ARIMA model.

Not available.