Imports and exports of goods (P.61 and P.71)

3.132 Imports and exports of goods occur when there are changes of ownership of goods between residents and non-residents (whether or not there are also corresponding physical movements of goods across frontiers).

3.133 However, in four instances the change of ownership principle is modified in recording imports and exports of goods:

  1. financial leasing: a change of ownership from lessor to lessee is to be imputed for goods under a financial lease; it is to be recorded when the lessee takes possession of the good (see Annex II 'Leasing and hire purchase of durable goods');
  2. deliveries between affiliated enterprises (branch or subsidiary, or foreign affiliate): a change of ownership is to be imputed whenever goods are delivered between affiliated enterprises;
  3. goods for significant processing to order or repair are recorded both in imports and exports although no change of ownership occurs;
  4. merchanting: no import or export is recorded when merchants or commodity dealers buy from non-residents and then sell again to non-residents within the same accounting period. A similar treatment is to be employed for merchanting by non-residents.

3.134 In the following cases exports of goods occur without the goods ever crossing the country's frontier.

  1. Goods produced by resident units operating in international waters are sold directly to non-residents in foreign countries (oil, natural gas, fishery products, maritime salvage, etc.);
  2. transportation equipment or other movable equipment not tied to a fixed location need not cross the frontier of the exporting country as a result of being sold by a resident to a non-resident;
  3. goods are lost or destroyed after changing ownership before they have crossed the frontier of the exporting country.

Analogous cases pertain to imports of goods.

3.135 Imports and exports of goods include transactions between residents and non-residents in:

  1. non-monetary gold, i.e. gold not used for the purposes of monetary policy;
  2. silver bullion, diamonds and other precious metals and stones;
  3. paper money and coins not in circulation and unissued securities (valued as goods, not at face value);
  4. electricity, gas and water;
  5. livestock driven across frontiers;
  6. parcel post;
  7. government exports including goods financed by grants and loans;
  8. goods transferred to or from the ownership of a buffer stock organisation;
  9. goods delivered by a resident enterprise to its non-resident affiliates;
  10. goods received by a resident enterprise from its non-resident affiliates;
  11. smuggled goods;
  12. other unrecorded shipments, such as gifts and those of less than a stated minimum value;
  13. goods processed to order abroad when a substantial physical change in the goods is involved. Similar goods processed on the domestic territory on behalf of non-residents;
  14. investment goods repaired abroad when a substantial amount of reconstruction work or manufacturing is involved. Similar goods repaired on the domestic territory on behalf of non-residents.
3.136 Imports and exports of goods exclude the following goods which nevertheless may cross the national frontier:
  1. goods in transit through a country;
  2. goods shipped to or from a country's own embassies, military bases or other enclaves inside the national frontiers of another country;
  3. transportation equipment and other movable kinds of equipment which leave a country temporarily, without any change of ownership (e.g. construction equipment for installation or construction purposes abroad);
  4. equipment and other goods which are sent abroad for minor processing, maintenance, servicing or repair;
  5. other goods which leave a country temporarily, being generally returned within a year in their original state and without change of ownership (e.g. goods sent abroad for exhibition and entertainment purposes, goods under an operating lease, including leases for several years, goods returned because expected sales did not materialise);
  6. goods on consignment lost or destroyed after crossing a frontier before change of ownership occurs.
3.137 In principle, imports and exports of goods should be recorded when the ownership of the goods is transferred. In practice, a change of ownership is considered to occur at the time the parties to the transaction record it in their books or accounts. This may not coincide with the various stages of the contractual process, like:
  1. the time of commitment (contract date);
  2. the time of provision of goods and services and acquisition of a claim for payment (transfer date);
  3. the time of settlement of that claim (payment date).
3.138 Imports and exports of goods are to be valued free on board at the border of the exporting country (f.o.b.). This value consists of:
  1. the value of the goods at basic prices;
  2. plus the related transport and distributive services up to that point of the border, including the cost of loading on to a carrier for onward transportation (where appropriate) (see Table 3.4, second column in the second part of the table);
  3. plus any taxes less subsidies on the goods exported; for intra-EU deliveries this includes VAT and other taxes on the goods paid in the exporting country.

In the supply and use and symmetric input-output tables, imports of goods for individual product groups have to be valued differently: at the cost-insurance-freight (c.i.f.) price at the border of the importing country.

Definition:

The c.i.f. price is the price of a good delivered at the frontier of the importing country, or the price of a service delivered to a resident, before the payment of any import duties or other taxes on imports or trade and transport margins within the country .

3.139 Proxies or substitute measures for the f.o.b. value may be necessary under certain circumstances, such as:

  1. barter of goods should be valued at the basic prices that would have been received if the goods had been sold for cash;
  2. transactions between affiliated enterprises: as a rule, actual transfer values should be used. However, if they largely differ from market prices, they should be replaced by an estimated market price equivalent, or at least be separately identified for analytical purposes;
  3. goods transferred under a financial lease: the goods should be valued on the basis of the purchasers' price paid by the lessor (not by the cumulative value of the rental payments);
  4. imports of goods to be estimated on the basis of customs data (for extra-EU trade) or INTRASTAT-information (for intra-EU trade). Both data sources do not apply f.o.b. valuation, they use respectively the c.i.f. value at the EU border and c.i.f. values at the national border. As f.o.b.-values are only used at the most aggregate level and c.i.f.-values are used at the product group level, these modifications have only to be applied at the most aggregate level, i.e. the c.i.f./f.o.b. adjustment;
  5. imports and exports of goods to be estimated on the basis of survey information or various types of ad hoc information. In such instances, usually only the total value of sales split out by product can be obtained. As a consequence, the estimate will be based on purchasers' prices and not on f.o.b. values.