/ EUROPEAN COMMISSION
EUROSTAT
Directorate E: Sectoral and regional statistics
Unit E-1: Agriculture and fisheries

Luxembourg, 13February 2014

ESTAT/E.1 PM/VT

DOC. ASA/TE/735 Original EN
available in EN

Working Party on
Animal Production Statistics

13-14 March 2014

Meeting Room Ampère, Bech Building
Kirchberg, Luxembourg

Chaired by: Marcel Ernens

Use of international trade data for feeding the statistics on external trade of chicks

Item 4.4 on the agenda

* Document available on Circabc:

Executive summary

Doc. ASA/TE/725 presented in 2013 the required commitments for Eurostat using external trade statistics instead of the Member States providing them regarding trade of chicks as under Regulation (EC) No 617/2008. Eurostat proposes concrete implementation of this shortcut in the data flow. Imputation of zero instead of empty cells for this data set is also covered by this document.

Dissemination status: public (after agreement by the Working Party on Animal Production Statistics).

In November 2011 the Commission took a number of commitments vis-à-vis the European Parliament and in particular the fact that each DG shall ensure full transparency on activities carried out by expert groups as of 1 April 2012. All relevant documents (such as agendas, minutes and participants' submissions) have to be made available in a website where information can be found by the public. The documents should be disseminated as soon as they are final. Eurostat’s Directors' meeting of 19 June 2012 decided to use CIRCA/CIRCABC for making public all relevant documents, with the exception of the few groups that have a specific website.

Every document for Working Party on Animal Production Statistics will thus be made public after it is finalised, except if its content is not allowed to be disseminated to public.

The members of the Working Group on Animal Production Statistics (APS) are asked to:

  • provide their comments on the current proposal;
  • approve it with eventual amendments if appropriate

1.Background

1.1.History

  1. Doc. ASA/TE/725 presented in 2013 the conditions for substitution of data delivered under Regulation (EC) No 617/2008 by data drawn from Comext, the Eurostat database on international trade statistics, i.e. intra-community exchanges of goods (Intrastat) and international trade (Extrastat).Such a substitution is called here shortcut of data flows because it consists using the same data already transmitted to Eurostat as external trade statistics as if they were first were made available to the national service in charge of agricultural statistics on trade of chicks and then forwarded to Eurostat.
  2. Without any specific mandate from the Member State to access the confidential data in Comext, several commitments have to be taken by the Member State to guarantee a good quality in the use of the Comext data. Especially guarantee on coverage and comparability of the statistics is needed.
  3. In Doc. ASA/TE/722 presented in 2013 about compliance and especially completeness, Eurostat came with a provocative initiative of imputing zero to the empty cells on external trade of chicks to improve completeness. In case the data are drawn from Comext, interpretation of empty cells as zero could be sound, except for confidential cells.But the lack of information on the data source did not enable to interpret such cases. Through a circular note sent after the last meeting (dd. 22 March 2013), Eurostat requested explicitly that the Member States to indicate the data source of statistics on external trade of chicks and to express their position regarding interpretation of empty cells as zero.
  4. Meanwhile technical issues in Eurostat about a data flow from Comext to the process of animal production statistics have been resolved.
  5. The present document intends to finalise the design of the process.

1.2.National situations

  1. Table1 presents the answers collected from the Member States to the above mentioned circular note. Eight Member States draw the agricultural statistics on trade in chicks from international trade statistics. Amongst them,four agree that empty cells can be interpreted as zeros.

Member State / Data source / Acceptance
Fill in zeros / Data flow shortcut
BE / Farm survey / No
CZ / Comext / No
DK / Min. Agri. / No
DE / Comext / Yes / Yes
EE / Comext / Yes
ES / Comext / Yes
IT / Min. Agri. / ?
CY / ? / Not relevant
HU / Comext / No
MT / Veterinary service / Yes
NL / Product Board / Yes
AT / Comext / True zero *
PL / Comext / True zero
PT / Survey / No
RO / Survey / Conditional
SI / Min. Agri. / ?
UK / Comext / No (risks)
IS / Farmer union / Agree

* except for non-separable items
EL, HR, LT, LU, SE no answer to the note
BG, IE, FR, LV, SK, FI no answer to the question

  1. Amongst the five Member States which disagree, CZ provided a detailed analysis of the treatments conducted on the external trade statistics for making them usable as agricultural statistics on trade in chicks. Especially identification of specific categories of chicks (male) based on their unit price could not be conducted anywhere else.
    For two other Member States (CY and UK) the negative answer is rather definitive.
    Finally for the two remaining countries reluctant to give mandate to Eurostat for imputing zero to the missing values (HU and AT), the completeness is rather to be reached from their side.
    Eurostat interprets that these Member States are not interested in shortcutting the data flows.
  2. For the requests forwarded to the Ministry of Agriculture when the respondent was the NSI, as well as for the non-response to this question or to the whole note, Eurostat does not consider, at least in a first time, that these Member States may be interested in shortcutting the data flows. The RO’s answer, requesting a questionnaire adaptation (i.e. Regulation (EC) No 617/2008) does not fit with the current approach for satisfying the existing requirements.
  3. Therefore the potential candidates, further to DE (initiator of the present work), are EE, ES and PL, if they express any interest in this approach and if the methodology can meet the requirements.
  4. Regarding implementation of interpretation of empty cells as zero, seven Member States (DE, EE, ES, MT, NL, AT, PL)and IS answered positively.

2.Implementation

2.1.Shortcut of data flows

  1. After the Member State will have requested it formally, together with its commitment on the comparability and coverage of the statistics on trade of chicks, the request will be communicated to DGAGRI and Eurostat will consider the data collection as suspended. If the request refers to a later deadline or a specific reference period for switching the data flow the date of application will integrate it. This means that compliance for this particular data set is permanently supposed to be met. The collection system will be updated at a given time to be agreed bi-laterally, either soon in order to avoid inappropriate reminders or later in order to allow data revisions. Only if delivery of Intrastat or Extrastat statistics were seriously delayed, the competent national authority (CNA) would be warned and the former data flow would possibly be restored.
  2. The first reference period for the substitution of data flow is to be clearly defined. From this period onwards, the Comext data will overwrite the eventual data received from the CNA and considered as a revision. This period can be prior the request of the Member State, so that it has not to manage eventual revision in Comext. It cannot be earlier than January 2012 in order to overcome the changes between CN2011 and CN2012 (see Doc. ASA/TE/725).
  3. The Eurostat agricultural database will be updated based on the update of the Comext dissemination database.

2.2.Imputation of zeros

  1. For the countries having agreed for the data flow substitution, empty cells will be replaced with zero when receiving the data. Possibly, this imputation can be applied for already delivered datasets. Completeness for this data set will be automatically considered as 100%. Anexplanatorysentence will be introduced in the Eurostat metadata (ESMS) to indicate this to the data users.

3.Conclusion

  1. Eurostat considers having answered the initial request from Germany, raised during the meeting of the Working Party on Animal Production Statistics in March 2012.
  2. Eurostat thanks the Members of the Working Party for their contributions. DGAGRI could understand the benefit of simplifying the data flows and the work of the CNAs regarding compilation and transmission of the statistics from intrastat and extrastat by the national services in charge of agricultural statistics.
  3. The members of the Working Party are requested to
  • Provide their comments on the current proposal;
  • approve it with eventual amendments if appropriate

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