ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) has extended basket of selected items comprising 1,674 for construction of export indices and 3,311 items for import indices in rebasing trade statistics from 1990-91 to 2017-18. The current count was 632 and 1,124 for export and import indices respectively.
PBS in its report “Methodology of Trade Indices Base Year 2017-2018”, released on Wednesday stated that the Governing Council of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics in its 5th meeting in 2014 issued a policy directive to rebase the National Accounts after every 10 years. As a result, the National Accounts base year is changed from 2005-06 to 2015-16, the trade statistics also changed its base year from 1990-91 to 2017-18.
The data collection strategies and computational methodologies of trade indices introduced under the new base will improve the quality of trade statistics and will enhance the scope and effectiveness of policies by providing efficient statistics collected in line with international best practices.
Keeping in view the importance of trade indices, PBS has taken the following steps to finalise the base year for import/export trade indices. a. Formulation of a Technical Committee to guide and review the methodology of rebasing of trade statistics from 1990-91 to 2017-18. b. Collaboration and consultation with several stakeholders such as; FBR and PRAL. c. Technical assistance from UNSD was sought to address the international standards in rebasing of trade statistics.
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The salient features of the new base year 2017-18 include; the revised indices based on 2017-2018 base year are in accordance with UN recommended Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding Systems 2017. This revision enabled PBS to get indices of 21 HS sections consisting of several trade items defined by the latest UN’s Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System (HS) while previously the grouping was done in 9 sections following the Pakistan Standard Trade Classification Rev. 3 (PSTC R3).
An extended basket of goods/commodities. An extended basket of selected items comprising 1,674 has been selected for the construction of export indices and 3,311 items for import indices. Current count was 632 and 1,124 for export and import indices respectively. Inclusion of EPZ data for the compilation of trade statistics is a new addition. This will help to cover wider aspects of trade statistics.
For export indices based on the new base year shows an increase of 4.95 percent, 1.11 percent and 5.26 in quantum index as compared to an increase of 12.62, -5.86 (decrease) and 5.97 in the base year (1990-91) for 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2021-22 respectively. The unit value index of export shows an increase of 17.26, 11.64 and 30.47 for the new base year (2017-18) and an increase of 8.05, 5.88 and 7.33 for the base year (1990-91) for 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21 respectively.
As far as the comparison of Quantum and Unit value indices for import is concerned; Import Quantum index shows an increase of 2.57, -0.14 (decrease) and 6.59 for the base year 2017-18 for 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21 respectively, while a decline of 8.13, -19.10 and increase of 42.74 can be seen for the base year 1990-91 during the years 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21. The unit value index shows an increase of 15.05, 9.35 and 29.97 for the new base year (2017-18) and an increase of 6.43, 2.04 and 5.90 for the previous base year (1990-91) during 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21. Terms of trade for year 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21 on the basis of 2017-18 base period stood at 101.91, 104.05 and 104.45 respectively, whereas the term of trade for the same periods on the basis of 1990-91 base period were 59.21, 61.43 and 62.26 respectively.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022