Eurostat The reform of Intrastat Past experiences and future plans Walter Radermacher Chief Statistician of the European Union

Eurostat Walter Radermacher

Eurostat Walter Radermacher

Eurostat Walter Radermacher The total burden before 2009 Measured by the exercise of DG ENTR/SG in 2007 on the administrative burden measurement. For Intrastat the burden is estimated 317 million per year. The Intrastat survey targets enterprises.

Eurostat Walter Radermacher Intrastat accounts for roughly 50% of the burden of all official statistics

Eurostat Walter Radermacher The change of 2009 Coverage of intra-EU imports was lowered from 97% to 95% Theoretically, the burden reduction potential of this measure was estimated at 134 million

Eurostat Walter Radermacher The change of 2009 – the figures From the latest figures Eurostat estimated the realised burden reduction The burden reduction achieved was 61.1 million The full reduction was not achieved because (i) some Member States combine Intrastat with VAT reporting (FR, IT), (ii) for some strategic goods, a higher coverage was chosen

Eurostat Walter Radermacher * Eurostat estimations, missing data for Croatia, Spain and Poland

Eurostat Walter Radermacher The change of 2013 Proposed coverage change of intra-EU imports from 95% to 93%

Eurostat Walter Radermacher Future plans – From Intrastat to Simstat Major reform of the Intrastat system Based on the exchange of micro-data on intra-EU exports

Eurostat Walter Radermacher The situation

Eurostat Walter Radermacher Future plans – From Intrastat to Simstat The main principles of the reform are: 1.strongly simplify the reporting requirements for Member States on the import side. This will enable Member States to design the compilation of their import data according to their needs and opens up the possibility for Member States to use other data sources;

Eurostat Walter Radermacher Future plans – From Intrastat to Simstat 2.Make available already existing data by making the mutual access to micro-data on intra-EU exports among EU Member States compulsory; 3.enhance the quality of statistical information on the export side. In addition, this will work as an enabler for countries to reduce their surveys on the intra-EU import side.

Eurostat Walter Radermacher Future plans – From Intrastat to Simstat Member States may decide to what extent these data are used together with other sources in the compilation of the imports. This proposal allows for an individual and gradual implementation. Some Member States, however, are relunctant to embark, because there is a mistrust with regard to figures from other Member States

Eurostat Walter Radermacher Important issues in this context (1) Currently, there are some differences between reported imports and the corresponding exports, the so-called asymmetries. These asymmetries impact the comparability and coherence of GDP and BoP The availability of micro data from other countries should reduce these inconsistencies substantially

Eurostat Walter Radermacher

Eurostat Walter Radermacher Burden reduction potential In Simstat, we target the intra-EU import side, importers are more numerous and smaller, so we target better SMEs From the figures (see pie-chart), the reduction potential is quite above 50%, but to realise that, some improvements on the intra-EU export side are necessary In total Eurostat estimates the burden reduction potential to be around 50%

Eurostat Walter Radermacher Thank you for your attention