Ownership Principle in the Foreign Trade Statistics: Czech Approach

Abstract

The Czech Republic is a small open economy, which is vitally dependent on its export performance. In the period after EU accession the intensity of international cooperation grew rapidly in all the Central European countries, which is mostly the result of the huge FDI inflow at the beginning of the decade. In this context onesignificant problem for the Czech Republic and some other countries of the region appeared: the valuation of the trade flows based on the cross-border measuring overestimates the country’s trade balance in comparison with its value added created. This is the case of trade declared by non-resident units, which is more and more common within the European Union. This phenomenon is even enhanced by strategic geographical location of the Czech Republic, which is an important factor explaining why a lot of this “quasi-transit” trade is beingoperated. The revision of the foreign trade data, which aim is to follow more consistently the ownership approach, significantly changes the picture of the Czech economy, specifically the role of external demand to the economic growth.

Keywords

• Globalisation
• foreign trade statistics
• balance of payments
• quasi-transit
• commodity flows