TENTATIVE ESTIMATES ON THE COMMODITY COMPOSITION OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE

Transcription

1 Trade Intellgence Paper No.l 6 July 954- TENTATIVE ESTIMATES ON THE COMMODITY COMPOSITION OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE The present paper s ntended to make avalable estmates on the commodty composton of nternatonal trade whch have been prepared n connecton wth the recent GATT report enttled Internatonal Trade 953. In complng these estmates, certan dffcultes have been encountered whch appeared to be too serous to warrant the ncorporaton of these fgures n a prnted report. They are nevertheless reproduced n the present paper because, however tentatve, they offer nterestng ndcatons on aspects of nternatonal trade, the systematc exploraton of whch has only recently become possble as a result of mprovements n nternatonal trade statstcs. Moreover, t s hoped that a statement of the dffcultes met may contrbute to ther eventual soluton. Recent developments n nternatonal trade statstcs Consderable progress has been made snce the war n the mprovement and avalablty of nternatonal trade statstcs. The greatest sngle advance has been the establshment of the "Standard Internatonal Trade Classfcaton" SITC) by the Statstcal Commsson of the Unted Natons, and ts subsequent adopton by a large and stll ncreasng number of mportant tradng countres. Partly as a result of these developments, several nternatonal statstcal publcatons are now avalable whch together consttute an nvaluable set of sources of nformaton on external trade developments. The most mportant publcatons are the followng: Drecton of Internatonal Trade, ont monthly and quarterly publcaton of the Statstcal Offce of the Unted Natons, the Internatonal Monetary Fund and the Internatonal Bank for Reconstructon and Development; shows monthly and quarterly data on the dollar value of total exports and mports for a large number of ndvdual countres, as well as certan monetary and geographcal areas, by countres of destnaton and provenance. On the bass of these data, the Statstcal Offce publshes annually and sem-annually n the August and February ssues, respectvely, of the Monthly Bulletn of Statstcs) a detaled network of nternatonal trade, derved from f.o.b. export fgures. Yearbook of Internatonal Trade Statstcs, publshed annually by the Statstcal Offce of the Unted Natons; shows nter ala annual fgures on weght and value of prncpal mport and export commodtes for seventy countres or terrtores; for twenty-fve of these, the fgures are based on the SITC. MGT/3/54

2 - 2 - Commodty Trade Statstcs, publshed quarterly by the Statstcal Offce of the Unted Natons; shows quarterly data on quantty and dollar value of the exports and mports of a substantal number of countres ncludng the Unted States, Canada, most of Western Europe, and several countres n the overseas sterlng area) for each of the 50 groups of the SITC, by destnaton and provenance. Foregn Trade, OEEC Statstcal Bulletns, publshed n four seres. by the OEEC; the second seres gves quarterly data on the value of the dollar exports and mports of all member countres, the Unted States and Canada, by commodty classes the ten sectons and selected dvsons of the SITC) accordng to areas and n certan cases, also countres) of destnaton and provenance; the fourth seres gves both quantty and dollar value of the exports and mports of each member country, the Unted States and Canada by commodty classes sectons, dvsons, groups and selected tems of the SITC) by areas and prncpal countres of destnaton and provenance. Analyss of Commodty Composton In Internatonal Trade 953, the analyss of world trade has been conducted n terms of the followng eght areas:^ North Amerca Rest of Latn Amerca Contnental Western Europe Overseas terrtores of.,.. Contnental Western Europe European Sterlng Area Dollar countres of Latn Amerca Overseas Sterlng Area Rest of the World A network of the total f.o.b. dollar value of trade wthn and among these eght areas n 95, 952 and the frst half of 953 has been obtaned from the Unted Natons Monthly Bulletn of Statstcs. If the three areas frst lsted are consdered as "ndustral" and the remanng fve areas as "non-ndustral", the sxty-four trade flows or "boxes") that appear n the network based upon the eght areas can be dvded nto four categores: I II Trade wthn and among the three "ndustral" areas - accountng for nne "boxes" and about 34 per cent of world exports; Exports from the three "ndustral" areas to the fve 'hon-ndustral areas - accountng for ffteen "boxes" and about 26 per cent of world exports; For defntons see the Appendx to Internatonal Trade 953,

3 - 3 - III IV Exports from the fve "non-ndustral" areas to the three "ndustral" areas also accountng for ffteen "boxes" and about 26 per cent of world trade; Trade wthn and among the fve "non-ndustral" areas - accountng for twenty-fve "boxes" and the remanng 4 per cent of world exports. The OEEC Statstcal Bulletns contan data, begnnng 95, on the commodty composton, accordng to the SITC, of trade n categores I - III- - whch together represent roughly 86 per cent of world trade. However, only for categores I and II can the commodty composton of each trade current or "box") be ascertaned from export data. For category III t s necessary to rely upon the mport fgures of the ndustral areas. As regards category IV, none of the sources lsted gves systematc nformaton wth regard to commodty composton, but some ndcatons can be derved from the Year Book of Internatonal Trade Statstcs. ~ In complng fgures on commodty composton, the followng categores have been dstngushed:^ stuffs 0; 22) Agrcultural raw materals ; 23; 26; 4) Other raw materals 2 excludng 22; 23; 26) 3) 5-8) Unspecfed 9) trade 0-9) The areas of orgn and destnaton adopted n the OEEC statstcs agree wth those lsted above, except n respect of Latn Amerca whera a dstncton s made between Central and South Amerca, and not between the dollar countres and the rest of Latn Amerca. For ths reason, t has been necessary to transfer the trade of the ndustral areas wth the four dollar countres of South Amerca Bolva, Colomba, Ecuador and Venezuela) from "South Amerca" to "Central Amerca", Ths adustment has been based upon the Unted Katons Commodty Trade Statstcs. However, the results of these adustments are subect to a wder margn of error than other fgures shown n Table I. The fgures n brackets ndcate the SITC sectons and dvsons ncluded.

4 - 4 - Dffcultes encountered In complng data on commodty composton n the way above ndcated a number of dffcultes have been met, some of whch t would have been possble to overcome whle others could not be solved, wth only the publshed materals avalable. Of the latter knd of dffculty, the most serous relates to dscrepances between the data on exports from the non-ndustral areas to the ndustral areas and the correspondng fgures on mports as reported by the latter. The data on total trade taken from the Unted Natons complatons whch are based on export fgures represent f.o.b. values. The data on the commodty composton of exports from the fve non-ndustral areas to the three ndustral areas, beng taken from the mport fgures as reported by the ndustral areas, are cf. values n the case of the European countres and f.o.b. values for North Amerca. In order to brng the data showng the commodty detal to the same valuaton bass as those relatng to total trade values, t has been necessary to adust the mport fgures for the two European areas from a cf, bass to an f.o.b. bass. Ths has been done separately for fuels where transport costs are heavest) and other commodtes. Wth regard to fuels, the cf. values have been reduced by 30 per cent for supples from the Overseas Sterlng Area and the "Rest of the World" to Contnental Western Europe whle for supples from all other sources, and to the European Sterlng Area the cf. values of fuel mports were reduced by 50 per cent. In respect of all other commodtes, the remanng dfference between the cf. value of mports and the correspondng f.o.b. export value was dstrbuted n proporton to the value of trade n each commodty class. Through ths adustment the combned total of the f.o.b. values for the varous commodty groups was made equal to the f.o.b. value of exports from correspondng areas, But whereas the adustment descrbed n respect of supples from the non-ndustral areas to the two European ndustral areas thus leads to an apparently perfect result, the fact that Unted States and Canadan trade statstcs record mports at f.o.b. value precluded ths possblty. A confrontaton of data for the exports from the non-ndustral areas, as compled by the Unted Natons, wth the correspondng data on mports nto North Amerca revealed large dscrepances as shown n the table overleaf. ' It would, of course, have been possble to adust for ths dscrepancy by substtutng the total Unted States and Canadan mport values for the correspondng export fgures shown n the Unted Natons complatons. But ths would have dsrupted the consstency of the network showng trade values as a whole. For ths reason, t has been thought preferable to combne the dscrepances wth fgures relatng to SITC Secton 9. It s manly because of the dscrepances n the case of exports from the non-ndustral areas to North Amerca that the results shown n the attached Table I have not been emboded n Internatonal Trade 953. However, the absence of smlar dscrepances n respect of exports from non-ndustral areas to the two European areas s brought about artfcally by the method

5 - 5 - DISCREPANCIES IN EXPORT AND IMPORT STATISTICS Imports of the Unted States and Canada from Non-Industral, and from all Sources n mllon dollars, f.o.b.) Area of Orgn U.K. Export Data OEEC Import Data Dscrepancy Latn Amerca 95 I 95 II 952 I 952 II 953 I Overseas Sterlng Area 95 I 95 II 952 I 952 II 953 I * * 3 Overseas Terrtores of Contnental Western Europe 95 I 95 II 952 I 952 II 953 I ' f 43 Rest of the World 95 I 95 II 952 I, 952 II 953 I All Sources 95 I 95 II 952 I 952 II 953 I * 360 Sources: Monthly Bulletn of Statstcs, Unted Natons, February and August 953, and February 954. OEEC Statstcal Bulletns, Seres IV, Canada, September and December 953; Unted States, August and December 953. "Rest of the World" n ths table has the same meanng as n the general network shown n Table I of Internatonal Trade 953.

6 - 6 - of adustment above descrbed. Had genune f.o.b. values been avalable for the European areas as they are avalable for North Amerca, smlar dsagreements mght of course have appeared. Apart from ths maor dffculty, there are other reasons why the data gven n Table I are only approxmate. For nstance, the total value of exports fron North Amerca as taken from the Unted Natons complatons ncludes re-exports, whereas the OEEC total for whch the commodty classfcaton s known covers only exports of domestc products. A smlar dffculty arses n connecton wth the exports from all Contnental European countres whch report only "specal trade" n commodty detal, whereas mports nto these countres, beng taken from the exports returns of the tradng partners concerned, nclude commodtes whch may later have been re-exported. Another nconsstency results from the ncluson of non-monetary gold n the French export returns whch are not accounted for n the total showng exports by commodty categores because the SITC does not provde for the ncluson of gold. Fnally, the dstncton between the dollar countres and the rest of Latn Amerca s approxmate, as has already been mentoned, and could hardly be much mproved upon. Snce only some of these problems could have been solved by means of publshed data, t has not been found useful to do so. Ths s an addtonal, f mnor, reason why the data n the attached tables are to be consdered only as estmates. It s hoped to mprove upon them, and to make full use of them, n next year's GATT report. Statstcal Notes on the Tables The basc fgures on commodty composton, coverng the thrty-nne "boxes" of categores I - III, are shown n Table I. The "unspecfed" commodty class ncludes, n addton to SITC Secton 9 "Mscellaneous Transactons and Commodtes n.e.s."), the dscrepances between a) the totals for whch the OEEC gves the commodty classfcaton and b) the total export values as compled by the Unted Natons Statstcal Offce, For typographcal reasons, the table s presented n two parts. Moreover, no grand total could be shown for the total value of mports of each "ndustral" area from all sources. These totals are gven separately n Table la. As already mentoned, some very approxmate estmates of the commodty composton of trade n category IV - commodty exchanges wthn and among "non-ndustral" areas - have been based upon the annual data shown n the Yearbook of Internatonal Trade Statstcs. These estmates, whch are somewhat less detaled n respect of the commodty classes dstngushed and cannot be extended to cover 953, together wth consoldated totals derved from Table I for categores I - III, are gven n Table II. Fnally, a commodty breakdown s shown also, n Table III, for the "regonal" and "extra-regonal" trade of each "ndustral" area.

7 NETVORK OF INTERNA! -I0NAI TABLE I TRADE. DISTINGUISHING MAJOR COMMODITY CATEGORIES, 95-JS53 In thousand m Ton dol lars at f.o.l ). values),- - Exports from mports nto " " " " " " * '. ' North Amerca European Stet ng Are k 95 ' Contnenta es:< >rn Europe "953 ndus tral : North Amerca Agrcultural Raw Matera-ls, '> é lé 0.47 ' ' ' ' ' O O O ?.54 O.77.2 O ;! ; European Sterl ng _. Agrcultural Raw Materals Fue Is... 0.É O.74-0, J.2 U ?7 ' ù Cont ner.ta Vestern ; Europe Agrcultural Raw Materals Other Raw Matera s.. ' I.50 ' "l -73 ' ' O.92 ' '62 O.32 O.06 U l c O O O.9I O :, Industre Agrcultural Raw Materals! ', O O O I O.60 0.l6.68 O.O7 - *D I.JO O O I bb 25.0 Dollar Countres of Latn Amerca Agrcultural Other Raw Materal s Fue s Raw Materals : O O.O O.O O.'IO. 0-lé O.I O.I '.22 O.06. O O I l O.I? ! 0.6l t 3.05 J Other Latn Amerca! : Agrcultural Fue J s Raw Materals Û O.5.32 O Û.00 O.5 U.09. ' I O0.62 O O Overseas Sterlng Area Overseas Terrtores of Cont nenta Western Europ e Rest of the World Agrcultural Raw Materals! Agrcultural Raw Materals Agrcultural Raw Materals O O.23 -O O O.63 - I O ' ' - Ô O.39 O Û9 O.27 O O.83 >.'6l.02 O O C.2I 0, O.57 O.O7.34' 0.63 O O.85 0, ' l'.l O O.9O C u.oo I./ O.7O O.I I I O.69 -O.06.96".7 O O.I O.67 O o ndustra Agrcultural Raw Materals O.85 [ O.5O I.I? l O O " VJ 5 -O O ] 8.07

8 - 8 - TABLE column CO) Exports from Imports nto Dol lar n 95 Countres Latn Amerca Jther Lat n 95 Amerca l? Overses St î r ng Area l?53 Overseas Terrtores of ContnentaI '-.'estern Europe *I953 Rest 35 of the l 52 'or d 953 non-r dustra I95I To ta I Wor Id I953 North Amerca Agrcultural Raw vlaterla I s Other Raw Matera Is Fue s 0.37 O.ûé I O I.IS -Ù O.56 -O.O e C C.34 O O.09 O O.él 0.3e l O.9O 2.04 l.3é ' l -57 " O.él O O.3 é.4é ' l.l 3.2 O.26 lé O e 5-73 European SterlIng Area Contnenta lestern Europe Agrcultural Raw Materals Other Raw flatera Is Fue I s Agrcultural Raw Materals Other Raw Matera Is Fue Is ' o.! o'.o5 Û.47 O.uO vj.oo.02 - I.I 0,00 0.2é O.O3 O.OO -O.O3-0,03 O.éO ! O.92 -C o.oe n.65 - I ). J , ,00.4 I.38 0,0 O.O3 O.49 O O.O7 2.4 Û.53 0, C é l.éé -O.O3 2.2É e ' D l O O.65 O.32 O O , I e é Industral Agrcultural Raw Materals Other Raw Matera Is Fue Is C ? ac d.y c C CO? O e O.55 O.23 4.é0-5-7 f 0,47 O.O r 2.-5 Û ] 0.82 O C é O.95 O lé é O ,.

9 TA8LE >* TOTAL IMPORTS OF INDUSTRIAL AREAS FROM ALL SOURCES BY COMMODITY CATEfORIES. J55l-l t S')3» n thousand mllon dollars at f.o.b. values) Nor th Amerca European St er ng Area Cont nental xestern Europe Ind ustra > Agrcultural Rav Materals l.6l I l.ll É e O É e lé.4 I6.8É Unspecfed and Resdual -O.I5 -O.35 -O.35 O.O7 O.O9 O.O9 TOTAL K I I9' Note Mnor dscrepances ere due to roundng Frst half at annual rate

10 0 - TA6LE_M. TRADE HITHINAND BETWEEN INDUSTRIAL ANO NQN T )NOUSTRIAl AREAS, 6Y COMMODITY CATEGORIES, Ç5-I953* n thousand mllon dollars at f.o.b. values) ^_^^ Imports nto Industre I Non-Industral A [ Exports fro» """" -^^^ 95 J IW*»?53 Industral Agrcultural Raw Materals Unspecfed and Resdual J4-35 O '2«2.42 M K » 3-3* O.76 * O Mon-Industral. Agrcultural Raw Materals Unspecfed and Resdual O.27 I9.? O I J II O All Agrcultural Raw Materals Unspecfed and Resdual , O Notet Mnor dscrepances are due to roundng. * Frst half at annual rate

11 - Il - TABLE III REGIONAL AND EXTRA-REGIONAL TRADE OF THE INDUSTRIAL AREAS, DISTINGUISHING MAJOR COMMODITY CATEGORIES, I35l-I 53* n thousand mllon dollars at f.o.b. values) Trade wthn Trade wth Industral Assocated Regonal Trade Extra-regonal Trade l?53 North Amerca Exports Agrcultural Raw Materals Other Raw Matera Is ' O.57! 0 ' c ; o.j O I O Fue s! O.72 Unspecfed and Resdual! I S' Imports Agrcultural Raw Materals Fue Is Unspecfed and Resdual 0-57 I O o.) I.83 l É O O O European Sterlng Area Exports Agrcultural Raw materals Û.I O.46 Fue I s Unspecfed and Resdual O.03 O.23 O.52 3.O ^5 2.3O o.oe 3-5« O.O Imports Agrcultural Raw Materals danufactures Unspecfed and Resdual 0-.9 O.52 I.J5 I l.6l.02 O.32 0, I.06 O I ].6o o.6l Contnental estern Europe Exports Agrcultural Raw Materals Fue Is Unspecfed and Resdual O.27 O.O.4 I I O O O c.5 50 O.3O O.O Imports Agrcultural Raw Materals Other Raw slater a Is Unspecfed and Resdual l É J I Jl 8.62 O.57.3* l6.4 ot68 O.O7 0.l6.46 I O O Note: Mnor dscrepances are due to roundng Frst half at annual rate