Statistics Norway

Eurostat, Statistical Office of the European Communities,

Unit G5 International Trade

L-2920 Luxembourg

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EUROPEAN STATISTICAL DATA SUPPORT

2920 Luxembourg

LUXEMBOURG

The purpose of the external trade statistics is to provide information about the commodity flows between Norway and other countries.

Main source of data is customs’ declarations, but also other sources are used to collect export and import data for the statistical area.

Detailed data is collected and disseminated monthly accordning to the national customs tarriff, which is based on the Harmonized system.

Basic information:
- Reference period,
- Trade flow,
- Product,
- Trading partner,
- Mode of transport.

Detailed data are disseminated according to the Customs tariff:
- Trade value (NOK),
- Trade quantity in kg,
- Trade flows in suppl. units.

Dissemination of figures according to major SITC, (on SSB.no also by CPA and BEC groups).

Reference periods are monthly and yearly.

Classification of goods:

The Norwegian customs tariff is based on the HS, but has two more digits, which are national codes. The 7th digit reflects national customs divisions/tariff rates (bound in the WTO - World Trade Organization). The 8th digit is used to cover the national statistical needs. The Norwegian version is published annually on the SSB-website along with a text version of the nomenclature developed by Statistics Norway. The detailed commodity list, which includes all commodity numbers, also provides information about the validity of each commodity number.

When publishing external trade figures, the UN Standard International Trade Classification (SITC) is mainly used. As from 1988 to 2006, the SITC-Rev.3 is used, but as of 2007 the SITC-Rev. 4 is used.

Grouping by country:

The Norwegian list of countries used follows the international standard ISO-3166.

External trade data.

Imports and exports:

Imports comprise mainly foreign manufactured goods entering Norway. This can also include re-importation of originally Norwegian-produced goods and processed goods. Exports comprise domestically produced goods sent out of Norway, i.e. the Norwegian statistical territory as defined under point 3.6 Statistical population. Also included are reexportation of originally foreign-produced goods and processed goods.

Trade in goods is based on the physical movement of goods across borders, but for some items, such as ships, oil platforms and aircraft, trading often takes place without the occurrence of such movement. Whether there has been an import or export of such goods is therefore determined based on whether a change in economic ownership has taken place cf. also described under point 3.6 Statistical  population. Economic ownership is defined as the person entitled to claim the economic benefit and who has the legal responsibility for the risk of the item.

Country:

Country of origin is used for imports. With regard to exports, the country of destination is used.

For raw materials, the country of origin is determined according to where the goods are produced. For manufactured goods (processed and refined goods), this is the country in which the goods have obtained the form they have at the time of import. The country of destination is defined as the country, which, on the date of export, is the last known country for which the goods are intended.

For more specific principles in relation to country of origin, the rule for ships, aircraft and oil platforms is that country of origin is the country that previously owned the goods (economic ownership). For Norwegian-produced goods sold abroad and subsequently bought in Norway, the country from which the goods are imported shall be given as the country of origin (manufacturing country).

Not available.

Statistics area and the economic territory:

The scope of foreign trade statistics is based on international guidelines from the United Nations Statistical Commission.

The general recommendation is that the statistics should include 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. In addition to the geographical dimension, a country's economic territory also includes ships, aircraft and oil platforms owned by national corporations. These are goods that are not necessarily located within the geographic area, but are still viewed as part of the material resources of a country. For these goods external trade is measured by the change of economic ownership.

Statistics Norway follows, with a few exceptions, the general trade system.

The Norwegian economic territory consists of mainland Norway, Svalbard, Jan Mayen, Norwegian dependencies, territorial waters, including the airspace above these, the economic zone, the Norwegian part of the continental shelf, territorial enclaves abroad (embassies, consulates, military bases, research stations) and Norwegian ships, aircraft and oil platforms.

External trade statistics is mainly based on information drawn from customs declarations. However, the responsible area of the customs authorities only covers mainland Norway and its territorial waters. As a supplement, data on important trade in goods to and from the remaining areas of the economic territory are collected directly from respondents and registers.

The monthly statistics of external trade in goods have been published on Eurostat’s web-site from 2003 (HS-data) and according to SITC since 1995.

Monthly statistics of external trade in goods have been published since 1913 (ssb.no).

Reference year 2000.

The value of trade is expressed in NOK. The net mass in kg and the quantity in supplementary unit (e.g. m2, number of items, etc.) as defined in the Statistical commodity list / Customs tarriff are used to measure the volume of the trade.

Monthly figures are released on the 15th of the month after the observation period (the previous month), or the first subsequent working day. These figures are preliminary. With regard to the current year, all the monthly figures are updated in every publication.

With regard to the current year, all the monthly figures are updated in every publication. Final figures for the preceding year are released twice. For the first time in May the following year, while the corrected final figures are published in May one year later.

The Statistics Act §§ 2-1, 2-2 and 3-2.

EU regulations incorporated into the EEA agreement comprise contractual obligations pursuant to EC regulations on data collection and distribution of data to the EU’s statistical office, Eurostat. The current regulations are as follows:

Regulation (EC) No. 471/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 May 2009 on Community statistics relating to external trade with non-member countries and repealing of Council, Regulation (EC) No 1172/95,

Commission Regulation (EU) No. 92/2010 of 2 February 2010 implementing Regulation (EC) No. 471/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council on Community statistics relating to external trade with non-member countries, as regards data exchange between customs authorities and national statistical authorities, compilation of statistics and quality assessment,

Commission Regulation (EU) No. 113/2010 of 9 February 2010 implementing Regulation (EC) No. 471/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council on Community statistics relating to external trade with non-member countries, as regards trade coverage, definition of the data, compilation of statistics on trade by business characteristics and by invoicing currency, and specific goods or movements,

Commission Regulation (EU) No. 1106/2012 of 27 November 2012 implementing Regulation (EC) No. 471/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council on Community statistics relating to external trade with non-member countries, as regards the update of the nomenclature of countries and territories.

Not available.

The requirements for confidentiality in external trade of goods are practised so that data is suppressed only when the establishment/enterprise has a valid reason for confidential treatment and actively asks for it.

This is called "passive confidentiality" and is in line with UN recommendations.

This method is used by most countries.

Exporters/importers can demand suppression when there are 3 or fewer companies that import or export an item type, or when a company has a market share of over 90 per cent, or if two firms have a market share of over 95 per cent.

Since Norway has a number of major manufacturers that are dominant in some product areas, some suppression of information exists on the export side.

Between 5 and 10 per cent of mainland exports are affected by confidentiality.

For imports, it is far less; around 1 per cent. Some commodity areas are more problematic with regard to dissemination, since suppression on highly aggregated levels must be carried out.

Statistics, articles and publications are published on ssb.no at 10am every work day, i.e. all users can access them at the same time. No one, including the press, is given access to the content of publications before anyone else.

Schedule is published on web-site.

http://www.ssb.no/en/kalender?omrade=External+economy

The statistics calendar (SSB.no) specifies when statistics are to be published at least three months in advance. When statistics are due to be published, the next publication date is normally also given in the calendar.

Exceptions:

In a few cases, external users (the authorities, data owners and respondents) have access to official statistics and research prior to publication, but this is only for internal use or as part of a quality assurance measure. Such exceptions are approved by the Director General of Statistics Norway and are announced publicly.

Monthly and annual.

News releases on-line on

SSB.no:

External trade statistics (monthly):

• External trade in goods, http://www.ssb.no/muh_en/
• External trade in commodities. Volume and price index numbers (quarterly) http://www.ssb.no/uhvp_en/
• Export of salmon (weekly): http://www.ssb.no/laks_en/

Press releases contain ready made tables and tables in StatBank are updated.

EUROSTAT:

Monthly tables in Comext.

Press releases contain appurtenant updated tables in Statbank.

Statbank is available by links from the releases or directly, http://statbank.ssb.no/statistikkbanken/?PLanguage=1

Statistics Norway disseminates raw data on persons and enterprises (micro data) to researchers and analysts.

Researchers at recognised research institutions are given access to micro data on the condition that they adhere to data protection legislation.

Public planners can, in some cases, also be given access to such data.

Not available.

Methodology information on SSB’s web-site: http://www.ssb.no/en/utenriksokonomi/statistikker/muh/ about the statistics

Not available.

Information from customs declarations is subject to statistical controls in the Customs declaration system (TVINN). The controls to check the estimated price, quantity and country were developed by the Customs in cooperation with Statistics Norway.

Data controls at Statistics Norway take place at different levels - some as soon as the data is loaded into the system (automatic recoding of variables). The manual part of the editing consists of different types of validity and probability tests. The former are controls of absolute errors, such as missing transport code, while the other type of test may check unlikely country codes or unreasonably high quantities for a specific type of good. The system aims to intercept the most serious errors in the data. Data collected from sources other than the Customs also undergo similar checks.

External trade in goods publishes preliminary figures monthly. However, further revisions of the figures continue until April/May the next year, when the final figures are published. Corrections in data mean that the monthly figures can be changed until publication of the final figures. The difference between the preliminary release of monthly statistics and the final figures is usually small for mainland exports, typically below one per cent. At the detailed level and for individual months, revisions can have greater significance, in relative terms. Oil and gas figures can undergo major revisions, particularly in relation to oil and gas prices. As stated in the section for frequency and timeliness, we make some adjustments in the final figures. These adjustments will normally be of lesser importance, but sometimes relatively large defects or errors are revealed.

Not available.

The external trade statistics are a part of the national and international statistical system, and are used in the compilation of the national accounts and the balance of payment statistics in Statistics Norway. The statistics are aimed at covering the business sector’s need for data in this area for their planning of production, marketing and sales.

The statistics are also intended for prognoses and analyses performed by public authorities, research institutions and private organisations. International organisations such as the UN´s statistical office, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the statistical office of the EU (Eurostat) and others make use of the information provided in the external trade statistics.

Not available.

Not available.

Collection errors can occur from incorrect values, incomplete information or misinterpretation of data on customs declarations. Examples of this are use of wrong commodity number or incorrect quantity.

Other sources of error include late updates, which sometimes occur for the trade with ships and oil platforms. It is also difficult to intercept the transit trade, i.e. the buying and selling of commodities in foreign territory where a Norwegian company is one of the partners. Neither do we have a good data basis to estimate the processing exports for the preparation of goods abroad or imports for processing in Norway.

The rules for customs clearance, which entail exemption from the duty to declare for exports of goods when the value is below NOK 5 000 and exemption for imports of goods when the value is below NOK 200, lead to lower figures than the real trade. This is not the best solution for preparation of the national accounts, where these lacking figures are estimated separately.

The calculation of seasonally-adjusted data beyond the usual seasonal effects is adjusted for the fact that trade is distributed unevenly across the week and taking into account the effect of Easter, as described in the section of estimations. However, beyond this nothing in particular is done. Therefore it would be natural to assume that the seasonally-adjusted December figures should be interpreted more cautiously because of the Christmas holidays.

The export trade statistics is a full count, so there are therefore no non-response errors or sampling errors.

Not available.

Data is published 15 days after the reference month.

Not available.

Statistics Norway follows the general trade system.

The six-digit HS-based commodity classification is subject to revisions due to technological development and also development in the commodity spectres of the international trade. These adjustments are normally made every five years. The most recent HS revision was implemented on 1 January 2012. Furthermore, national adjustments are made every year at the national eight-digit level. These revisions can create breaks in the time series for some commodity numbers. Detailed information about this is available in the yearly Commodity List External Trade. Correspondence tables between the different editions of the HS are available on the UN website.

With regard to the divisions according to the SITC, the current SITC-Rev.4 was introduced in January 2007, when it replaced the previous SITC-Rev.3 (1988-2006). The relation between the figures for the years before and after 2007 can be misleading for some commodity numbers. The degree of influence depends on the value of the commodity numbers that now have a different group affiliation. Correspondence tables between the different editions of the SITC are also available on the UN website.

Other elements influencing the comparability over time: The imports and exports of ships and oil platforms in the statistics were extended in 1991 to include transactions that concern vessels under a foreign flag with a Norwegian-registered holding company. Furthermore, the definition of developing countries was changed in 2007, which affects the figures slightly.

The figures for external trade statistics are an important part of the quarterly balance of payments and national accounts and the annual national accounts.

Not available.

The statistics are mainly financed from State assignments, but also rely to some extent on market income.

Not available.

External trade in goods publishes preliminary figures monthly.

However, further revisions of the figures continue until April/May the next year, when the final figures are published.

Corrections in data mean that the monthly figures can be changed until publication of the final figures.

The difference between the preliminary release of monthly statistics and the final figures is usually small for mainland exports, typically below one per cent. At the detailed level and for individual months, revisions can have greater significance, in relative terms.

Oil and gas figures can undergo major revisions, particularly in relation to oil and gas prices. As stated in the section for frequency and timeliness, we make some adjustments in the final figures. These adjustments will normally be of lesser importance, but sometimes relatively large defects or errors are revealed.

The vast majority of the data is, as mentioned, collected through the Customs’ TVINN register and transmitted electronically to Statistics Norway. However, some additional data, as shown below, is obtained separately.

Exports of crude oil and natural gas:
Preliminary and final figures for exported volumes of crude oil and natural gas are collected through monthly reports from the operators. The prices, however, are obtained via various sources depending on whether they relate to crude oil or natural gas, and whether the data is being collected to compile preliminary or final figures.

From 2013 onwards, the development in the gas prices in the producer price index (PPI) is used to calculate the preliminary gas prices for foreign trade, while the level will be based on the value determined from the last registered price. PPI obtain figures for natural gas from the journal World Gas Intelligence (WGI).

Preliminary oil prices are still based on data from the operators.

For crude oil, the final prices: quarterly surveys from the licensees, as well as information from the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy and the operators.

For natural gas, final prices: a quarterly average price based on information from a selection of licensees and operators.

Imports and exports of ships and oil platforms:
The data collection for vessels is based on current information from the Norwegian ship registers the Norwegian Ordinary Ship Register (NOR) and the Norwegian International Ship Register (NIS).

When it comes to oil platforms, information is collected from the Norwegian ship registers, the Customs’ TVINN register and importer/exporter.

Imports and exports of electricity:
Monthly information is obtained from the Nordic power exchange Nord Pool.

Imports and exports of aircraft:
For some aircrafts, monthly reports are received from Statistics Sweden, while the rest are obtained through regular declarations in the TVINN system.

Exports of coal from Svalbard:
Reports on the export of coal from Svalbard are received monthly from the exporter.

Exports of fish caught by Norwegian vessels outside the Norwegian customs border:
Since July 2010, the figures have been obtained from the Directorate of Fisheries (FDIR). Prior to that, the information was gathered through TVINN.

Daily transmissions from Custom’s database TVINN.

For more information, see point 20.1 Source data.

The statistics are mainly based on administrative information obtained from TVINN, which is the Norwegian Customs’ electronic information system for the exchange of customs declarations between businesses and Norwegian Customs.

Some data is, however, obtained from other sources, and more information on this can be found in the paragraph on point 20.1 Source data.

Sampling is not not relevant as external trade is a total count of the goods defined in the population.

Not available.

Statistical value:
Statistical value is the value when crossing the Norwegian border. Duties, VAT and other taxes are not included in the statistical value.

Upon import, the value should be set to the CIF (Cost Insurance Freight) value, i.e. the value of the goods at the Norwegian border, including the costs associated with the delivery of goods to the border, transport costs and insurance. Similarly, for exports it is the value at the Norwegian border, including the costs associated with transporting it there, called FOB  (Free On Board) value. CIF and FOB are two types of delivery terms called Incoterms. The delivery terms are an agreement between buyer and seller as to who bears the risk, responsibility and cost of transportation of the goods to the agreed place. In the Database for Standard Classifications there is an overview of the different delivery terms.

For crude oil exported by ship directly from installations on the Norwegian continental shelf, the value upon departure from the installation is used. In the case of crude oil and natural gas that is piped abroad, this value is determined based on when it leaves the Norwegian continental shelf. The value of transport in international waters and into a terminal abroad is regarded as export of services.

Quantity:
For most goods, the quantity is expressed in kilograms (weight excluding packaging), except for ships and electricity, which are measured by gross tonnes and kWh respectively. However, for many goods, the quantity is also available in a different unit of measurement, such as pieces, barrels, cubic metres, carat, litres, pairs etc.

In accordance with the UN recommendations the following trade in goods are not included in the statistics:

• Goods in transit, ie goods attending the Norwegian economic territory to be directly transported to a recipient outside this area.
• Goods traded through intermediate trade, ie goods transported between two foreign countries without entering the Norwegian economic territory.
• Goods physically crossing the country border, but defined as a service (including newspaper subscriptions, accompanied baggage, household goods).
• Content delivered electronically (including e-books, downloadable games, etc.), defined purely as a service.
• Issued banknotes, securities and monetary gold.
• Samples, gifts and promotional material etc. with a low value.
• Goods for repair or return after repair.
• Goods in unaltered condition in return to vendor (claims etc.) and waste containers, replacement deliveries and free repairs (warranty).
• Items for temporary use, that are returned within 12 months (exhibition, demonstration, scientific research, loan, professional equipment, transport vehicles in international traffic, containers, equipment in use for the press, radio and television equipment, etc).
• Change in ownership of non-financial assets.
• Goods that are damaged on the journey to and from the Norwegian economic territory.
• Satellites equipment moved to and launched in other countries without any change of ownership.
• Goods functioning as means of transport (ship, aircraft, packaging, etc).
• Waste and scrap without any commercial value. 

Furthermore exported goods totalling less than NOK 5 000 and imported goods under NOK 200 are omitted, these goods amounts to less than one per cent of the import and about 0.04 per cent of the export. Imports of goods for less than NOK 200 and exports of goods less than NOK 5.000 (except from goods that are subject to taxes and restrictions) are not subject to declaration by the Customs.

The calculation of seasonally-adjusted data beyond the usual seasonal effects is adjusted for the fact that trade is distributed unevenly across the week and taking into account the effect of Easter.

However, beyond this nothing in particular is done.

Therefore it would be natural to assume that the seasonally-adjusted December figures should be interpreted more cautiously because of the Christmas holidays.

More metadata and statistics can be consulted from https://www.ssb.no/en/muh