Errors in reporting

Errors often arise when trying to capture movements of goods or trade activities about which little information is available or which are inherently complex to measure, such as:

• Goods that by their nature are difficult to classify — Errors may arise in the product code allocated due to the complexity of the classification (around 9 400 subheadings in the CN), for instance for chemical or pharmaceutical products.
• Processing trade valuation — Errors arise when the processing costs are reported rather than the trade value corresponding to the total amount which would be invoiced if the goods were sold or bought.
• Product with embedded services — Errors arise when the total amount of the contract (transaction including the supply of goods and services) is reported rather than the value of the goods alone.
• Repairs versus processing — Repairs should be excluded from trade in goods statistics but processing should be included. Errors may arise when the distinction between repairs and processing is difficult to make.
• Quasi transit — Intrastat declarations may be missing for goods imported from a non-EU country for immediate dispatch to another Member State or goods imported from another Member State for immediate dispatch to a non-EU country.
• Triangular trade — trade involving three Member States through sales/purchase contracts but with physical movement of goods between only two of them. A problem arises when the trade is reported according to the sales/purchase contract rather than the physical movement.