Forest Products Statistical Information Systems of EU and EFTA

Leiden

2003

163 S.

Abb., Tab., zahlr. Lit. Ang.

Bandaufführung

108343

Eurostat initiated a project on the "Improvement of Statistical Information System for Forest Products Production and Trade Statistics of EU and EFTA" and the European Forest Institute (EFI) was contracted to implement the work in 2000-2001. The background to this research lies in the EU regulation relating to forestry information and the concern of international organizations dealing with forestry statistics to co-ordinate their work. The Council Regulation of 1989, (EC) No 1615/89 of the European Commission describes the establishment of a European Forestry Information and Communication System (EFICS). The regulation also clearly states that the purposes of EFICS are to improve the quality of forestry data and to harmonize the data and their definitions. It has been recognised by the European Commission that it is timely to implement a study to analyse various sources of statistics on foreign trade of forest products in the Member States and EFTA countries and to determine the reasons for the differences and incompatibilities between the data sources. An Intersecretariat working group including FAO, ECE, Eurostat and ITTO had been working on the co-ordination of their work on the collection of forest products statistics and this research was seen as a direct contribution to this effort. The aim of this project was to review the quality, reliability, and compatibility of the international forest products production and trade statistics and to prepare proposals for improving their reliability and consistency. At the outset, five particular study problems were proposed. These concernced the comparability of commodity coding systems, comparability of terms and definitions at the national and international levels, conversion factors to convert volume and weight, double counting and the coverage of production, and trade of tropical timber and its products.