NWX-US DEPT OF COMMERCE (US)
Moderator: Robin Wyvill
07-25-12/12:00 pm CT
Confirmation # 8309564
Page 1
Foreign Trade Webinar Series: The Fundamentals of Exporting
Discovering New Markets — Utilizing USA Trade Online
July25, 2012
1:00pm EDT
Coordinator:Welcome and thank you for standing by. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode until the question and answer session of the call.
If you'd like to ask a question at that time please press (*) then 1. Today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objections you may disconnect at this time.
Now I'd like to turn over the meeting to Michael Cook. You may begin.
Michael Cook:Good morning everyone. This is Michael Cook in the Census Bureau Public Information Office. I’d like to welcome you today to our second installment on the Foreign Trade Webinar Series, the Fundamental of Exporting.
Today's topic is discovering new markets, utilizing USA Trade Online.
We have for you today supervisory survey statistician Fay Johnson from our Data Dissemination Branch here at the Foreign Trade Division.
And we would definitely look forward to continuing this conversation with you and the public about how the Census Bureau measures the nation’s people, places, and economy.
So without further ado we'll go ahead and turn it over to Fay for today's presentation after which we will conduct a Q&A session. So we just ask that you hold your questions and answers till then. Fay?
Fay Johnson:Welcome to the second Webinar in our series, The Fundamentals of Exporting. In this Webinar Discovering New Markets Utilizing USA Trade Online I’ll be explaining how to use this online data product to do market research and find new markets for your product.
As I've stated this Webinar is the second in our eight part series. These Webinars will be taking place every other Wednesday at 1:00 pm.
They are completely free and are a great way to get an overview of what the foreign trade division does and what resources we offer.
The next Webinar All Products Have a Classification Number, Learn How to Find Yours will be on Wednesday, August 8.
You get more information about that Webinar and a recorded copy of the first Webinar in our series Understanding the Basics and Introduction to Foreign Trade Statistics using the link at the bottom of this slide.
First just let me give you a very quick overview of what our division is.
The Foreign Trade Division is the official source for US export and import statistics and is responsible for the reporting of all export shipments from the US.
The Foreign Trade Division is also responsible for writing and interpreting the foreign trade regulations.
So if you're searching for trade statistics, information on expert regulations, commodity classifications or a host of other related trade topics we are the source.
Now just a quick review of some of the stuff that was covered in the first Webinar on what exactly trade statistics are.
Exports measure the total movement of goods and services out of the US to foreign countries.
Imports measure the arrival of goods and services into the US from other countries.
And the balance of trade is exports minus imports.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis is responsible for measuring the services trade and we the US Census Bureau measure the movement of goods.
Together we publish the standard jointly in our monthly US International Trade and Goods and Services Report. But for the rest of this Webinar we’ll be focusing on the goods trade that census provides.
So to give you an idea of exactly what the magnitude of that trade is, in 2011 we reported a record 2.1 trillion in goods and services being exported in 240 markets worldwide and imported 2.7 trillion during that same time period.
This trade accounts for a substantial portion of all US economic activity. So of that 2.1 trillion in exports 1.5 trillion is in goods. So you may ask where are all these goods going?
They're going to the 95% of consumers that are outside of the US. With so many foreign buyers available you may want to consider tapping into the export market if you aren't already or expanding your exports if you are.
Our trade statistics on USATrade Online can help you do that. The statistics can help you analyze marketshare, find emerging markets, and measure the impact of foreign competition.
For example let's say I'm a golf ball manufacturer looking to export my goods to another country. I could use our interactive tool, USA Trade Online to look up the value, quantity and unit price of golf ball exports country specific which is exactly what I am going to show you how to do later in this Webinar.
So now that I explained to you why you would want to use US Trade Online let's go ahead and take a look at what exactly USA Trade Online is and how to use it.
USA Trade Online is the official online source for USmerchandise trade statistics. And you can find it at
It is updated each month shortly after we release our (printable) economic indicator the FT900 US International Trades and Goods and Services Report.
This was discussed in the previous Webinar Understanding the Basics and Introduction of Foreign Trade Statistics.
Currently the data on USATrade Online are available through May 2012. June 2012 statistics will be available on August 9.
Data is available about 41 days after the calendar month so these are very timely statistics.
There is a calendar on the USA Trade Online homepage to let you know when the statistics will be updated. You can find that on the lefthand side right here.
Also there is a link on this homepage for email updates. We will send you an update as soon as USA Trade Online is updated every month if you sign up for it here.
To explain the power of this tool and what it has to offer first I'm going to go through a series of screenshots then I will take you through a live demo of the site.
Before we get started with that let me just give you a broader understanding of what it is USA Trade Online has.
USA Trade Online has data by harmonized system code which is a ten digit product classification code used to classify all goods entering and leaving the country.
For exports this is referred to as a Schedule B code.There are approximately 9000 export codes used to classify goods.
For imports this is the Harmonized Tariff Schedule or HTS code. There are approximately 17,000 import codes for goods entering the US.
On USA Trade Online we also have the North American Industry Classification Code Series which is a six digit code used by the US, Canada and Mexico to classify economic activity by industry.
These codes you will find with other economic data as well provided by the Manufacturing Construction Division or other Census Bureau statistics.
Although it's helpful to have your product classification number when you enter USA Trade Online you'll see it's not a requirement.
You are able to search by product name directly or browse through their products.And I'll show you how to do that in a few moments.
Further if you'd like to get your product classification number beforehand you can find out more information about that with the next Webinar on August 8.All products have a classification number.Learn how to find yours where you'll learn how to classify your product using Schedule B codes.
In the meantime you can get an early jump by using the Schedule B search at the URL listed on this slide.
The Schedule B search prompts you for characteristics of your product making it easier to find your correct classification number.
From here you'll be able to obtain statistics based on either - so once you get down to NAICS or HS level detail this chart helps you explain those better.
So for district level you can see that we have both the HS and the NAICSdetail. We have anywhere from two to aten digit HScode or a three digit NAICSto a six digitNAICS.
We have annual data all the way back to 1992 to the present for the harmonized system code.
And we have data monthly, 2002 to present for the harmonized system and the NAICSlevel detail. And this monthly data can also be aggregated into annual forNAICS.
And we have port level information as well which is available all the way down to a six digit harmonized system code with annual monthly data going back to 2003 to present.
And we have state level exports and imports. Exports go back to 2002 and imports back to 2008.
Once you log onto USATrade Online this is what the first screen will look like.It's the Data Source Selection Screen.
On the Data Source Selection Screen each option has a standard report which is what's highlighted here.
The HS 6 level data reports offer the standard report along with two custom or quick reports, trade by commodity and country by commodity.
These quick reports offer the same information.However some of the content options such as time are predefined for you.
Using the standard report you are able to customize each aspect of your report as you build it.
With the following screenshotsI will take you through the standard report for HS level exports and then we’ll do a demo for the trade by commodity report.
The first screen you will be brought to is the Commodity Selection Screen. What you're looking at here to the right is the commodity selection tree.
So notice that there is the two digit HS code.And under dairy products here we've broken out to the four digit code.We've done that by clicking on this checkbox that's next to each two digit code.
You'll see another checkbox next to each four digit code. By clicking on that you’ll get the six digit and so forth until you browse down to your ten digit level. Doing this we found our way to honey packaged for retail sale.
Also on this screen is a search box which I will show you in the live demo. And you can also create a custom group.If you want more than one product you'll want to go ahead and create a custom group which I'll show you on the next slide.
So if you're in the Commodity Selection Screen you'll see two tabs at the top, the members and the custom’s group.
To create a custom group you’ll want to move to the Customs Group tab. Once you're there you'll be able to choose a Custom Group name and you’ll be able to use your commodity selection tree or your search box to find your different products that you want to include in that group.
And you can also use custom groups for countries, states, ports or districts. So if you are looking for a particular commodity but maybe you want to look for it beingexported out of a particular section of the US you can group different ports together to do that.
Next I'll take you through the country selection. In the country selection you have all countries listed under world total which is right now grouped together.You can’t see it.And you have geographic regions.
Themes are mostly set by continent. Asia and South Central America are broken down into smaller regions. In the example shown there is Asia near East, Asia South and Asia other.
Also we have international organizations and trade agreements including the European Union, Pacific Rim, Organization Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC and more.
Additionally we have countries with which the US has a trade agreement grouped together as well.
You may want to note that this is just a different way to present country data and familiar groupings.
The data returned will not contain any additional information such as when the trade agreement began or any political or economic information associated with the groups.
And also shows these groups as they’re currently in the market for the current statistics. They do not change given time periods such as the EU will always be all of the current members.It won’t go back to the original grouping if you go back into the 90s.
Next I want to talk to you about managing time series.
I'm showing you shortly time series sets.But there’s also a tree that looks much like what we just looked at in the commodity and country selection trees with available years and monthlies.But because these are familiar I want to show you the options for selecting a time series set.
When you choose on the time series dimension it will go from your members tab to time series where you have the option of choosing annual time series, monthly, or cumulative year to date.
These are updated monthly for you.So you always have the most recent time period in here.So they’re a great option to not have to worry about what exactly the most recent data is that's available but to choose one of these.And you know you'll always be getting the most current and up to date information but if you want to modify any of these time series that's also an option.
You can go into them and you can create your own name where you'll be able to choose what you want to appear in your report.
You can change the periodicity from annual to monthly. You'll select monthly if you want year to date aggregation.
It will default to showing you the oldest data first so you’ll want to click on this checkbox if you want to show the newest data first.
And then for year to date aggregation you’ll want to check this if you selected monthly and you really want year to date information.
Your base period is the most recent year or month again depending on what you selected for periodicity that you wish to have in your reports.
In order for saved reports to update automatically with each release this should remain at most recent as you see here.
The number of periods in a time series tell you the number of periods that will be included in this report.The default is five, the current plus four previous period.
To produce a report the value must be at least one. Your step value represents the spacing between periods.
The step value is one (year) so the periods are consecutive. You could put in two to go to every other period. And you can always exclude the ending period to exclude the most current month from this report.
Then you have a few different display options so you can show value, load rate, changes and index data or a combination of those.
So once we have selected everything that we want for our data it’s time to view the report. This is what our report looks like.
We have honey exports which we can see totaled almost 5 million so far to date this year. You can see that the export market is growing with us having exported 10.4 million in 2012 -- up from 7.6 in 2010.
You can also see our top trading partners. You might want to notice if you're already exporting honey to Yemen and Japan for instance that we also have the Philippines or Mexico and Poland which have become new export market areas for us this year.
Some additional features for USA Trade Online are the sort feature. You can sort once you're in your report by clicking on the arrow.
To sort ascending you click on the up arrow.And to sort descending so you get your top markets or top products first you click on the down arrow.
Then there's two ways to save your data. Here we have My Reports which when I bring you to the data selection screen you'll see are right behind main data source selection screen and a My Reports area.
These are automatically updated monthly. So when I showed you before in the times area set that you choose your most recent time period and your monthly time period this is why you're choosing it.So you can then save your report in my report and it'll be updated the next month after the trade statistics are updated for you.
So if you’ve signed up for your gov delivery email all you'll have to do is log into USA Trade Online and you're set to go.
Then MyReports also allows you to save customs group. So if you’ve set up a specific group for a report or a commodity that you want to save you will then save MyReports and it will be saved in there for you to go back to in the future.
These reports are also searchable if you create quite a few for yourself over the time you have USA Trade Online.
Another option for saving your data is just to download it. This is if you're only going to want your report one time.You can download it into Excel or a comma delimited file where you can then use it and manipulate it whenever you want.
I want to show you a quick and easy way to create a comprehensive trade report in three steps.
First what we'll do is we'll select trades by commodity instead of the standard report from the harmonized system district level data.