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The reform of Intrastat

Past experiences and future plans

Walter Radermacher Chief Statistician of the European Union

EurostatEurostatWalter Radermacher

EurostatEurostatWalter Radermacher

EurostatEurostatWalter Radermacher

The total burden before 2009

• Measured by the exercise of DG ENTR/SG in 2007 on the administrative burden measurement.

• For Intrastat the burden is estimated 317 million € per year.

• The Intrastat survey targets 540 000 enterprises.

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Intrastat accounts for roughly 50% of the burden of all official statistics

EurostatEurostatWalter Radermacher

The change of 2009

• Coverage of intra-EU imports was lowered from 97% to 95%

• Theoretically, the burden reduction potential of this measure was estimated at 134 million €

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The change of 2009 – the figures

• From the latest figures Eurostat estimated the realised burden reduction

• The burden reduction achieved was 61.1 million €

• The full reduction was not achieved because (i) some Member States combine Intrastat with VAT reporting (FR, IT), (ii) for some strategic goods, a higher coverage was chosen

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* Eurostat estimations, missing data for Croatia, Spain and Poland

EurostatEurostatWalter Radermacher

The change of 2013

• Proposed coverage change of intra-EU imports from 95% to 93%

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Future plans – From Intrastat to Simstat

• Major reform of the Intrastat system• Based on the exchange of micro-data on intra-EU

exports

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The situation

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Future plans – From Intrastat to Simstat

The main principles of the reform are:

1.strongly simplify the reporting requirements for Member States on the import side. This will enable Member States to design the compilation of their import data according to their needs and opens up the possibility for Member States to use other data sources;

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Future plans – From Intrastat to Simstat

2. Make available already existing data by making the mutual access to micro-data on intra-EU exports among EU Member States compulsory;

3. enhance the quality of statistical information on the export side. In addition, this will work as an enabler for countries to reduce their surveys on the intra-EU import side.

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Future plans – From Intrastat to Simstat

• Member States may decide to what extent these data are used together with other sources in the compilation of the imports.

• This proposal allows for an individual and gradual implementation.

• Some Member States, however, are relunctant to embark, because there is a mistrust with regard to figures from other Member States

EurostatEurostatWalter Radermacher

Important issues in this context (1)

• Currently, there are some differences between reported imports and the corresponding exports, the so-called asymmetries.

• These asymmetries impact the comparability and coherence of GDP and BoP

• The availability of micro data from other countries should reduce these inconsistencies substantially

EurostatEurostatWalter Radermacher

EurostatEurostatWalter Radermacher

Burden reduction potential

• In Simstat, we target the intra-EU import side, importers are more numerous and smaller, so we target better SMEs

• From the figures (see pie-chart), the reduction potential is quite above 50%, but to realise that, some improvements on the intra-EU export side are necessary

• In total Eurostat estimates the burden reduction potential to be around 50%

EurostatEurostatWalter Radermacher

Thank you for your attention