• Summary
• Downloads
• Explanatory Notes
• Related Information
• Past Releases

Trade and Investment Data Review Project

18.22 The Trade and Investment Data Review Working Group, of which the ABS is an active member, was one of a number of projects established by Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) senior officials in 1990. The project’s basic aims are to gather statistics on goods and services trade and international investment between APEC economies, in order to minimise the discrepancies between national statistics and maximise the utility of these data. For example, one member’s exports to a trading partner should in theory equal the latter’s corresponding measure of imports. However, for a variety of reasons, this rarely occurs in practice. Discrepancies in trade and investment data between APEC members, when unresolved, may lead to incorrect analyses of economic conditions and inappropriate policy and commercial responses. As an initial step, the project has attempted to standardise merchandise trade so that partner country data are near-comparable (some differences remain due to insufficient data in APEC economies to make the necessary adjustments). Services and international investment data have proved more problematic as many members do not have comprehensive statistics in this area. A focus has therefore developed on sharing experiences to improve data collection in these areas.

Bilateral comparisons

18.23 Bilateral comparisons can also be used to improve the quality of a country’s balance of payments data. Australia has already carried out bilateral comparisons of merchandise trade data with the United States, Japan and New Zealand and is working on a comparison with Indonesia. So far these studies have shown Australian data to be of a high standard and to not require methodological change. However, some data comparisons have led to countries using another country’s bilateral data rather than redevelop an existing methodology, if the data compilation methods of the latter are superior to a country’s own. As well as improving the quality of data, the use of bilateral data saves resources and, with increasing interest in bilateral data comparisons through APEC projects such as the Trade and Investment Data Review, bilateral data may be more widely used in the future. Currently, some APEC countries use Australian data on education-related travel credits to measure their debits component.

Co-ordinated Portfolio Investment Survey

18.24 The IMF Committee on Balance of Payments Statistics has been co-ordinating arrangements, primarily among the major industrial countries, for the conduct of the Coordinated Portfolio Investment Survey, comprising coordinated national surveys of cross-border portfolio investment assets (and where feasible, liabilities) in respect of 31 December 1997. The objectives of the survey were:

• to collect comprehensive information, with geographical detail, on the stock of cross-border equities and long term bonds and notes for use in the compilation or improvement of international investment position statistics on portfolio investment finance. The international investment position statistics, in turn, can provide information to check the coverage of recorded estimates of portfolio investment flows and associated investment income transactions recorded in the balance of payments; and

• to exchange the bilateral data aggregates. With the results of the survey now becoming available, the participating countries, with the assistance of the IMF, plan to exchange these data among themselves and with other countries. By exchanging comparable data (as far as confidentiality constraints allow), participating countries should be able to improve their estimates of non-resident holdings of their portfolio investment liabilities as well as associated capital flows and investment income data.