Country experience: China: compilation of mode 4 person numbers
9.38. According to the Foreign Trade Law of China, qualified enterprises that seek to supply trade in services supplied through the presence of natural persons, or to enter into contractual services with natural persons, need to apply to and receive approval from the Government. The governmental agency responsible for approving the applications of enterprises or service suppliers also collects and aggregates data on outflows and stocks of mode 4 persons in the category of contractual services. A statistical institution has been jointly established by the Ministry of Commerce and the National Bureau of Statistics in China, to which relevant enterprises are obligated to report required information, such as service projects, outflow and stock of persons, occupation or overseas work, length of stay and destination country. The national authority is responsible for the aggregation and annual publication of the data.
9.39. Sometimes basic information, such as occupation, purpose and destination of visit, is compiled separately by different authorities, such as immigration, tourism or labour, each with its own statistical purposes and measurement scope, resulting in statistics that do not always match the requirements for measuring the number of mode 4 persons. As a result, it is difficult to extract useful information from the existing statistical systems. For instance, occupations may be classified by primary category (i.e., manager, technician or professional), and it may be impossible to further break those classifications down by industry details. One potential solution is for compilers to cooperate more closely with the relevant sectors and ask for additional useful information. Alternatively, statistical systems of the authorities, other than the compiling authority, could be redesigned to meet the data needs for compiling the number of mode 4 persons. Another solution is for compilers to establish a new and specific statistical system for the compilation of the number of mode 4 persons. Both solutions require close cooperation among the different agencies involved, such as immigration, labour and tourism. Redesigning the existing system requires more communication and understanding, and increases the daily workload for the agencies involved. Establishment of a new system may improve the coverage and accuracy of the data, but requires a large capital input and more coordination, and could raise the risk of leaking personal and business information.
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Country experience: Philippines: customs data for compiling freight and insurance services
9.40. The compilation of statistics on the resident/non-resident trade in services in the Philippines is heavily based on the administrative records of the Bureau of Customs (BOC). Those records are especially useful for estimating freight and insurance services. The cost of cargo insurance is stated in the attached invoice for import entry internal revenue (IEIRD). If the insurance value is not declared, then the value of insurance is estimated.
9.41. In 2007, a special survey was conducted for the purpose of input-output tables, which also enabled a verification of insurance and freight values generated from administrative sources (see the online version of the guide for the 2007 survey on selected imported commodities (SSIC) questionnaire). Freight and insurance costs are also validated by collecting and comparing data from various government and private entities, including the Insurance Commission; the Bureau of Shippers; Asian Terminals, Incorporated; Cargohaus and FedEx-Philippines. For IEIRD, the freight cost is stated in the customs declaration or in the attached invoice. If the freight value is not declared, then it is estimated. The details of the estimation procedure are given in the online version of the present Guide.
9.42. Computation/estimation: exports, insurance and freight cost For export declarations, insurance and freight costs are not reported on the export document, but rather on the attached invoice. For multiple commodities, freight and insurance costs are computed by prorating, using total insurance/total FOB or total freight/total FOB as the multiplier, and the individual FOB value as the basis, in the computation. Insurance and freight costs are not imputed if not reported.
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Country experience: New Zealand: tax records
9.43. Statistics New Zealand (Statistics NZ) is in the process of establishing a new business register (BR), which will also include microbusinesses that are not currently recorded. Since the 1920s, Statistics NZ has used tax data from Inland Revenue (IRD)[1] on incomes of individuals, self-employed workers and companies, which has been integrated with tax data from the goods and services tax (GST)[2] since the mid-1980s. The integration was made possible by linking the BR enterprise statistical unit to the business tax number of GST-registered businesses
9.44. Increasingly, over the past 20 years, as the use of tax and other administrative data to maintain the BR has been extended, Statistics NZ has observed that BR quality has improved in terms of coverage, timeliness and accuracy, operational costs have been reduced and business compliance costs resulting from BR update surveys have also been reduced. Challenges in transforming administrative data for statistical purposes that Statistics NZ has addressed include a better understanding of the rules and processes that define the administrative data, including coverage, timing, quality and completeness of the administrative data, as well as the differences between the statistical units in the BR versus units defined in the tax system; and developing appropriate methodology and processes to transform the administrative data to the statistical model. Addressing those issues has involved the following:
(a) Relying on tax data for small businesses with a simple structure where the statistical unit directly matches the tax unit structure and supplementing the tax data for large and complex businesses with data collected by Statistics NZ;
(b) Using models to derive the required statistical outputs from tax data. For example, modelling two and six monthly GST tax returns to produce quarterly data;
(c) Using statistical techniques, such as estimation/forecasting, to address timeliness issues;
(d) Using tax data correlated with a required statistical variable (not available in the tax system) to model the required variable;
(e) Making available to users a clear definition of the statistical outputs produced, and providing overlaps between series on the old and new definitions;
(f) Requesting changes to administrative rules so that the administrative data fits better with the statistical requirements.
9.45. Maintenance of the BR is conducted continually, primarily on the basis of tax data, as well as on data from the Companies Office, survey feedback, media reports and company reports, among other sources. Units on the BR are stratified into three tiers on the basis of their structure, GST activity and employment numbers, thereby allowing Statistics NZ to focus its resources on the largest businesses. All units are updated primarily using tax data, as well as an annual update survey and other information that supplement and verify the tax information for the larger enterprises. The BR has a monthly quality monitoring programme that also identifies opportunities for quality improvement and for extending the use of administrative data.
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