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“MIRROR” STATISTICS OF RUSSIAN AND NORWEGIAN DATA ON FOREIGN TRADE



Elvira Rizvanova
spbrizvanova@mail.ru
a PhD student at the Department of Statistics and Modelling of Socio-Economic Processes, "Saint-Petersburg State University of Trade and Economics"
Saint-Petersburg

Keywords:

  • Russian-Norwegian relations
  • foreign trade
  • commodity composition
  • export
  • import
  • harmonized system of WCO
  • data compatibility
  • “mirror” statistics
  • The author has analyzed compatibility of official data on export and import operations in trade relations between Russia and Norway in 2001, 2005, 2009 and 2013. The Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System developed by the World Customs Organization (WCO) have been used as a unified classification tool.
    The study has defined significant restrictions and notes for analyzing data compatibility. One may assume that the volumes of the Russian exports to Norway as well as the ones of the Norwegian import from Russia do not affect the degree of trade discrepancy while the volumes of Russian imports from Norway and the exports from Norway to Russia on the contrary might have an effect upon the degree of such discrepancy. Regardless of the number of commodity groups under analysis the divergences in the trade data of the two countries with regard to the volumes of export/import operations valued as per the Common Commodity Nomenclature of Foreign Economic Activity of the Customs Union (FEACN) state that the discrepancy between the exports from Russia to Norway and the imports of Norway from Russia is significant while the mismatch between the Russian imports from Norway and the exports from Norway to Russia remains to be insignificant. Reduction of the number of commodity groups selected for the comparative analysis results in increase in the average difference of one particular data element used by the parties. Thereupon each country considers it imports more goods from than it exports to. The analysis of compatibility of the volumes of imports and exports based on the Harmonized System is considered to be more fair and correct when compared to Standard International Trade Classifications.

    188300 Russia, Leningrad region, Gatchina, st. Roshchinskaya, 5