Quality of INTRASTAT DATA. Comparison Between the ‘Old’ and the ‘New’ EU Member States

Abstract

The Intrastat system is used for gathering statistical data on trade in goods between the EU Member States. Data from all the Member States are aggregated by Eurostat. Specifics of the data collection process are different in different countries and that is why mirror data (regarding by default the same transactions revealed in statistics of both the acquirer and supplier country) often do not match. The goal of the analysis conducted was to assess the quality of data on intra‑Community trade in goods between the ‘old’ fifteen and the ‘new’ EU Member States as well as to point out these directions that influenced the observed differences in mirror data the most. The paper is a follow‑up of previous research on the quality of foreign trade data.

Keywords

• official statistics data quality
• mirror data
• intra-Community trade
• EU