Foreign trade

Foreign trade statistics concern the movement of goods between Estonia and other countries. The concepts of exports and imports are used to indicate commodity flows. The foreign trade statistical data compiled by Statistics Estonia include only the movement of physical goods. Data on the movement of services and capital are compiled by the Bank of Estonia. National foreign trade statistics exclude transit. Data on trade in goods are presented at current prices.

Data on foreign trade statistics are available since 1993. Until the accession of Estonia to the European Union (EU), all foreign trade statistics were based on customs declarations and data were published by a special trade system (1995–2003) and a general trade system (1993–2003). With the accession of Estonia to the EU, the compiling system of the whole foreign trade statistics was changed as the EU is a customs union and there are no customs frontiers between Member States. Starting from 2004 foreign trade statistics are based on two data collection systems: Intrastat and Extrastat. And these data are methodologically closer to the former special trade system.

Intrastat (Intra-EC Trade Statistics) is a special data system for collecting statistics on the trade in goods between the Member States of the European Union (EU). Statistics Estonia collects data directly from enterprises with the statistical survey Intrastat, which replaces customs declarations used in the intra-EC trade. The Intrastat reports for dispatches and arrivals should be submitted by enterprises registered in the Estonian national VAT register whose foreign trade turnover has exceeded the statistical threshold set for the reporting year. The Intrastat report has to be submitted to Statistics Estonia by the 14th calendar day following the reporting month and each enterprise can check its answerability on Statistics Estonia website (www.stat.ee) on link Andmete esitamine/Andmete esitamise kohustus (only in Estonian). Additional information concerning what fields in the Intrastat report have to be filled in (all fields or only mandatory fields) can be obtained from the column "Märkused“ (notes). Turnovers of the enterprises remaining below the statistical threshold and other missing data are replaced by estimations in statistics.

Extrastat (Extra-EC trade statistics) is a data system for collecting statistics on the trade in goods with non-Member States. Data are collected by the Estonian Tax and Customs Board with customs declarations. The collected data are transmitted to Statistics Estonia for compiling national foreign trade statistics.