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14 April 2008
Distributive Trade Statistics
Methodology
The United Nations Statistical Commission, at its thirty-ninth session held in New York on 26-29 February 2008, adopted the International Recommendations for Distributive Trade Statistics 2008 (IRDTS 2008) as the new standard in this area of statistics.
IRDTS 2008 was prepared in accordance with the decision of the Commission, during its thirty-seventh session in March 2006, to endorse the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) initiative of revising the existing International Recommendations on Statistics of the Distributive Trades and Services (Statistical papers, series M, No.57) and Organization and Conduct of Distributive Trade Surveys (Statistical Papers, Series F, No.19). The Commission advised that the revision should fully reflect the specific needs and circumstances of various groups of countries particularly those with a substantial informal sector.
Preparation of IRDTS 2008 was undertaken by UNSD following the conclusions of the first meeting of the UN Expert Group on Distributive Trade Statistics held on 22-25 August 2005. It incorporates inputs from national statistical offices and international organizations received during global consultations on its contents from November 2006 through December 2007. The provisional draft was reviewed and endorsed by the Expert Group at its second meeting on 16-19 July 2007 and submitted to the Commission at its thirty-ninth session.
IRDTS 2008 is part of UNSD's efforts to strengthen countries' methodological and operational foundations of basic economic statistics in an integrated manner, including enhancement of their coherence across different sectors of an economy, conceptual consistency with macroeconomic statistics and production of official distributive trade statistics in the most cost efficient way.
IRDTS 2008 provides the comprehensive methodological framework for collection and compilation of distributive trade statistics in all countries irrespective of the level of development of their statistical systems. Its primary audience is the staff of national statistical offices involved in the compilation of these statistics. IRDTS 2008 also contains a wealth of information which might be of interest to data users who would like to better understand the nature of distributive trade data.
IRDTS 2008, as adopted by the UN Statistical Commission at its thirty-ninth session but prior to official editing and reproduction, can be viewed and downloaded here.
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