Welcome to the United Nations. It's Your World.

Friends of the Chair Group on
International Trade and Economic Globalization

United Nations Statistical Commission

Expert Meeting
New York, USA
6-8 November 2013

Introduction

At the most recent session of the Statistical Commission in 2013, the United Nations Statistics Division presented an overview report International Trade Statistics (Report of the Secretary-General, E/CN.3/2013/7) of the work undertaken in the field of international trade statistics on topics such as integrated economic statistics, linking trade and business statistics, trade and global production, trade in value added, statistics of multinational enterprises and foreign direct investment. The report described the policy questions regarding international trade in a world in which production processes are spread among many countries creating not only economic and financial interdependencies but also social and environmental ones. The report then highlighted the growing concerns regarding the limitations of current trade statistics to inform the policy debate. Some phenomena, which are difficult to measure and for which adequate data are lacking, include intra-firm trade, foreign control, manufacturing services performed on inputs owned by others, and transfers of intellectual property products.

While there are many international task teams working on these measurement problems in various areas of international trade and economic globalization (see annex 3), an overarching framework and systematic coordination are lacking. The Commission recognized See Decision 44/106 in E/2013/24 the need for such framework and coordination and agreed to the creation of a “friends of the chair” group tasked with preparing a concept paper on the scope and content of the framework, and on the appropriate mechanism for coordination.


Agenda

Wednesday, 6 November 2013

09:00 - 09:30
Registration for participants - UNHQ, Secretariat Building Room 2726/2727
Opening session at UNHQ
09:30 - 10:00
Welcome by Mr. Ivo Havinga, Chief Economic Statistics, UNSD/DESA on behalf of Ms. Akhtar, Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development
10:15 - 12:30
Setting the stage – views from UN and other international agencies
Eurostat Axel Behrens - Economic Globalization - Activities in the European Statistical System  
OECD Nadim Ahmad - Measuring Trade in Value added  
WTO Hubert Escaith - Mapping Supply Chains  
UNCTAD Ralf Peters - World Investment Report 2013 and Global Value Chains  
UNSD Ronald Jansen - Linking Trade and Business Statistics  
Evening Session
20:00 – 21:30
Lecture by Prof. Gary Gereffi (Duke University)
Global value chains and the analysis of international business operations  


Thursday, 7 November 2013

Morning Session
08:30 - 12:30
Concept paper on measuring economic internationalization and globalization
- Structure, scope, content
Afternoon Session
14:00 - 18:00
Concept paper – an organizing framework for measuring global production, trade and investment
Evening Session
20:00 – 21:30
Lecture by Aaron Sydor, Deputy Chief Economist, Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, Canada
Global value chains – Policy questions and informed decision making  


Friday, 8 November 2013

Morning Session
08:30 - 12:30
Concept paper – Coordinating mechanism and Report to the Statistical Commission - General discussion
Afternoon Session
14:00 - 15:15
Wrap-up session




Updates

Background Documents updated
17 April 2014

International Recommendations documents added to Background Documents section.


Presentations added to Agenda
15 November 2013

Presentations for agenda items are now available for download.


Event page launched
8 October 2013

Event page launched with agenda and downloadable background documents.