C. Main types of institutional arrangements
5.10. Different institutional arrangements. The kinds of institutional arrangements in countries, and their governance and mechanism of cooperation, depend on many factors. The designation of the national statistical office as the agency responsible for the dissemination of official statistics and, the coordination of data collection and processing, is the most common practice in countries. Responding to the UNSD questionnaire in 2006, 78 per cent of countries confirmed that the compilation and dissemination of IMTS are normally the responsibility of national statistical offices.[4] However, in the remaining countries, the official international merchandise trade statistics are compiled and disseminated by other governmental agencies, such as statistical departments of the customs administrations, central banks or a dedicated unit in a ministry.
1. The statistical office as the responsible agency
5.11. Typical arrangements. The statistical office bears the overall responsibility for a country’s official trade statistics, including issuance of methodological guidelines, raw data editing and processing, database maintenance and dissemination of official statistics. The customs administration bears responsibility for the collection of the basic records and for supplying the statistical office with these records on a regular basis: normally, customs would carry out some editing of records before passing them to the statistical office. Central banks and other governmental agencies provide additional information on trade flows not covered by customs records. The statistical office further edits all input data and merges them into a consistent data set.
5.12. Cooperation with other involved agencies. The reliance by the statistical office on data from sources external to itself requires close cooperative relationships with all governmental departments and agencies that provide data. The statistical office and the statistical unit of customs - the largest data supplier - along with other source agencies, should establish memorandums of understanding so that the roles and responsibilities of each party with regard to all aspects of the production and distribution of official statistics are clearly defined and elaborated in sufficient detail. It is good practice to periodically review the memorandums of understanding and update them as needed.
2. The customs administration as the responsible agency
5.13. Typical arrangements. In this case, customs is responsible for all activities ranging from the collection of basic records to the dissemination of the official international merchandise trade statistics. The statistical office and the central bank may provide supplementary data and would normally make the adjustments necessary to publish aggregated trade data in accordance with the SNA/BOP requirements. It is good practice for customs to use additional data sources as required, and to implement an appropriate quality assurance programme in order to ensure that the detailed trade statistics disseminated by customs are of the necessary quality.
5.14. Cooperation with other involved agencies. Two conflicting requirements that customs usually face are: (a) the need to diminish barriers to the flow of trade, which leads to the simplification and reduction of reporting requirements imposed on traders; and (b) increased the need of users (both government agencies and the business community) for the availability of trade data of enhanced quality and detail within a shorter time frame. To meet these requirements and to ensure that any necessary additional sources of data are being used and that compilation procedures comply with the recommended methodology, customs should closely cooperate with other agencies, particularly the statistical office.
3. Central bank as the responsible agency
5.15. In a small number of countries, the central bank is responsible for the compilation and dissemination of official international merchandise trade statistics. Under this arrangement, the bank receives the customs records on a regular basis, and compiles and disseminates the trade statistics with an approach similar to that used in the statistical office-led compilation described above. Central banks functioning as the government agency responsible for trade statistics should ensure that these statistics are compiled and disseminated in accordance with the international recommendations for merchandise trade statistics. It is good practice for recompilation and dissemination of trade statistics on the BOP basis to be undertaken as a separate activity so as to allow a proper focus to be placed on the respective purposes and characteristics of IMTS and BOP statistics.
4. Other governmental bodies as the responsible agency
5.16. Other governmental bodies such as ministries of economy and ministries of trade can also be designated as the agencies responsible for official international merchandise trade statistics. Such arrangements may result in the production of high-quality trade statistics if the designated body follows the recommendations in IMTS 2010 and the good practices described in the present Manual.