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Date of release: April 2000
The 2000 edition of the Bilateral Trade database (BTD) shows detailed trade flows by manufacturing industry from one country (or geographical area) to another. BTD 2000 uses an industry list based on ISIC Rev.2. For each declaring country, exports to and imports from corresponding partner countries are supplied for the years 1980-1998. The data have been converted from the OECD's International Trade by Commodity Statistics (ITCS) and are presented in thousands of US dollars, at current prices. Currency conversion tables for US dollar exchange rates are also provided.
The 2000 edition of BTD includes data from 1980-1998 and is available as a set of Excel 97 (XLS) files.
REVISIONS SINCE THE FEBRUARY 1998 EDITION (1970-1995)
There have been some significant revisions since the February 1998 edition of BTD. These are mainly due to changes in the source data used to update OECD's International Trade by Commodities Statistics (ITCS) and mainly concerns data from 1988. Previously, from 1988 to 1995, member countries submitted data according to SITC Revision 3. As part of a major re-development of ITCS, and to provide more detail at the product level, 1988-1995 data based on HS Revision 1 submissions were incorporated with a standard correlation table being implemented to provide data according to SITC Revision 3. The consequences of this new practice, and other changes since BTD 98, are summarised below:
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The standard HS Revision 1 to SITC Revision 3 conversion table may allocate certain goods to SITC in a manner that differs from practices previously used by some member countries;
The use of the HS classification at the more detailed 6-digit level has in some cases led, paradoxically, to a loss of information due to confidentiality problems. Previously, the SITC Revision 3 submissions were at a more aggregate 5-digit level so there was less sensitivity in terms of commercial and/or political confidentiality;
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Not all declaring countries could provide complete sets of HS data for the complete 1988-1995 period. In such cases, data provided by Eurostat were used to fill the gaps in ITCS (for example, Ireland, 1988-1991; Netherlands, 1990 and Spain, 1989). However, while UN recommendations define partner countries as countries of ultimate origin/destination, for EU purposes, country of consignment is preferred;
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The HS data from national statistical offices, may have been compiled using different methodology than that used for the SITC Revision 3 data previously submitted - resulting in some significant revisions (for example, Australian exports);
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Germany as a partner country now covers unified Germany for all years (i.e. the sum of FRG and GDR to 1990, and unified Germany thereafter);
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From 1988, some countries now identify re-imports and (in a few cases) re-exports;
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The OECD partner zone now includes the relatively new OECD members: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Korea, Mexico and Poland. The Non-OECD partner zone now excludes these countries.
Some breaks in series between 1987 and 1988 may now be apparent.
Available versions of BTD are: BTD2006, BTD2005, BTD2004*, BTD2002* and BTD2000*.
* Editions with a star (*) are available for free on simple request, please fill in this form and send it by email to sti.contact@oecd.org, mentioning BTD in the title of your message.
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