THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION,
Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,
Having regard to Regulation (EC) No 471/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 May 2009 on Community statistics relating to external trade with non-member countries and repealing Council Regulation (EC) No 1172/95, and in particular Article 3(2), (3) and (4), Article 4(5), Article 5(2) and (4), Article 6(2) and (3) and Article 8(1) and (2) thereof,
Whereas:
(1)
Regulation (EC) No 471/2009 establishes a common framework for the systematic production of European statistics relating to the trading of goods with non-member countries.
(2)
It is necessary to align the scope of external trade statistics with specific customs procedures in order to avoid double counting of trade flows, and to specify the goods or movements exempted from external trade statistics for methodological reasons.
(3)
For the purpose of harmonised compilation of external trade statistics, the data from records on imports and exports, including the codes to be used, should be specified.
(4)
Provisions applicable to specific goods or movements should be established for methodological reasons.
(5)
In order to ensure harmonised compilation of statistics on trade by business characteristics and aggregated statistics on trade broken down by invoicing currency, the methodology for production of these statistics should be defined.
(6)
Provisions relating to the transmission of data by Member States to the Commission (Eurostat) and to the revision of statistics should be laid down in order to ensure comparable and accurate figures.
(7)
The codes of nature of transaction should be amended in order to identify goods for processing under contract returning to the initial country of exports.
(8)
Measures should be adopted which ensure the provision of statistical data when further simplifications of customs formalities and controls would lead to non-availability of customs data, in particular simplifications pursuant to Article 116 of Regulation (EC) No 450/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2008 laying down the Community Customs Code (Modernised Customs Code).
(9)
Commission Regulation (EC) No 1917/2000 of 7 September 2000 laying down certain provisions for the implementation of Council Regulation (EC) No 1172/95 as regards statistics on external trade should consequently be repealed.
(10)
The measures provided for in this Regulation are in accordance with the opinion of the Committee on statistics relating to the trading of goods with non-member countries,
HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION: