CHANGES IN THIS AND FORTHCOMING ISSUES


CHANGES IN THIS ISSUE

STATISTICS PRESENTED ON THE OECD COUNTRY GROUP

As advised in the previous issue, new members of the OECD, Chile and Slovenia, have been included in the OECD country group. This impacts the OECD data in table 14 of this publication and time series spreadsheet tables 14a, 14b, 36a to 36j and 37a to 37h. These countries have been included in the OECD country group for the complete merchandise trade time series (ie. date from January 1988).

Historical merchandise trade exports data for the OECD country group (time series spreadsheet tables 14a, 36a to 36j) have been corrected to include the Czech Republic for the period April 1993 to August 2004.

CONFIDENTIAL COMMODITIES LIST

A confidentiality restriction has been applied to imports data for the HTISC commodity code 9999319902 'Aircraft or vessels arriving under their own power which have been entered under section 162 of the Customs Act 1901'. This restriction did not appear in International Merchandise Trade: Confidential Commodities List, Sep 2010 (cat. no. 5372.0.55.001). The restriction that has been applied for September 2010 is:

• No Country Details
• No State Details
• No Duty Details.

All data for this code have been assigned a Mode of transport=U (Unknown). The data have not been added into country or state totals.

This change will not affect merchandise imports or statistics presented on a balance of payments basis. This change will only impact the non-merchandise series.

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED AND TREND ESTIMATES

The seasonally adjusted and trend estimates of goods and services have been revised as a result of the annual seasonal re-analysis. This re-analysis reviews the seasonal and trading day factors in more detail than is possible in the quarterly processing cycle and assesses the appropriateness of any prior corrections.


CHANGES IN FORTHCOMING ISSUES

CHANGES TO EXPORT AND IMPORT STATISTICAL CODES

Statistical codes in the Australian Harmonized Export Commodity Classification (AHECC) and the Customs Tariff classifications will be revised with new codes coming into effect on 1 January 2011. The changes result from the introduction of new statistical codes separately identifying essential oils in Chapter 33, and for identifying substances controlled by the Montreal and Stockholm Conventions in Chapters 29 and 38. The changes will not impact directly on the presentation of statistics in this publication but will impact on detailed import and export statistics provided via ABS Client Services.

The Australian Harmonized Export Commodity Classification (AHECC), Jan 2007 (cat. no. 1233.0) will be updated on the ABS web site on 26 November 2010. Revised pages for the Customs Tariff will be re-issued by the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service. For further information contact the Classification Manager on (02) 6252 5409 or e-mail <international.trade@abs.gov.au>.