Trade Statistics (Hansard, 23 October 1990)

§ Mr. Maples

With the abolition of most frontier controls on goods at internal Community frontiers by the end of 1992, the present Customs documentation, which is the current source of infra-Community trade statistics, will disappear. However, both the European Commission and the United Kingdom Government will still need accurate and timely statistics on this trade and new methods are being set up to collect the data. The system for recording trade with other countries will continue unchanged.

The European Commission has prepared revised proposals for the framework of systems to operate in all member states. The overall schemes are relatively complex, but the aim is to provide linked systems which control the collection of VAT on goods traded between member states and generate intra-EC trade statistics. By linking the systems it has been possible to reduce the burdens on small and medium-sized traders. The proposals specify the systems for a transitional period to run from 1 January 1993 to 31 December 1996 when the Commission expects the basis of levying VAT to change. and the definitive systems for the period starting on 1 January 1997.

The Commission's amended proposal for an EC Council regulation on the statistics relating to the trading of goods between member states has been published in the Official Journal. The main features of the proposed transitional system to operate from 1 January 1993 are: that detailed monthly trade figures—including value, volume, eight-digit commodity and country—will be collected from larger traders above a threshold yet to be set; that no separate statistical returns will be required from small and medium traders, but estimates will be made using information from two boxes expected to be added to all VAT returns giving value totals of intra-Community imports and exports; that businesses not registered for VAT will be excluded from any collection.

The Council regulation sets out only the framework of the new systems. It has not yet been agreed with member states and amendments are possible before it is adopted by the Council. Many of the details of the new system will be specified later in Commission implementing regulations. One of the most important components of these will set the level of the statistical threshold. In some of its publicity the Commission has suggested that it may propose one which 105W requires the largest 20 per cent. of traders to provide detailed monthly returns. In the United Kingdom these traders account for around 96 per cent. of the value of intra-EC trade. Such a threshold would ensure that adequate data are available for macro-economic statistics. Also with coverage as high as 96 per cent. it would allow the collection of detailed statistics for most industries. This new threshold would almost certainly replace the present, mainly low-value consignment, thresholds which mean that there is currently no commodity detail for over 1 per cent. of trade.