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9.C.16. Conclusions of the reconciliation study. The trading partners must decide at what point to consider the study completed. They must also decide on how to present the results: whether to compute a “reconciled” value for each direction of trade or simply to present an explanation of why the two data sets differ. The reconciliation study may conclude with a summary statement of its major results and a set of annexes detailing specific findings. It is unlikely that all significant discrepancies can be resolved. Although reconciliations between partner countries are usually unique for each set of countries, common kinds of major adjustments have typically been applied to arrive at reconciled trade flows.
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a See See Legal Instruments Embodying the Results of the Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations, done at Marrakesh on 15 April 1994 (GATT secretariat publication, Sales No. GATT/1994-7).
b There are three broad categories of adjustment: (a) systematic adjustments affecting all products in a detectable way, e.g., inclusion of the cost of freight and insurance, and differences in timing; (b) known adjustments, which may affect only selected commodities in cases where countries record imports of special commodities separately and do not include them in regular official statistics (e.g., for trade in military aircraft); and (c) irregular adjustments, that is, adjustments that may change over time (e.g., coding and processing errors).