Report on the Statistical Discrepancy of Merchandise Trade between the United States and China. Second Phase.

摘要

The Statistics Working Group, under the auspices of the Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade, conducted a second reconciliation study to explain and quantify discrepancies in the official U.S. - China bilateral merchandise trade statistics. This is an update to a previous report prepared by the working group. The goal of the reconciliation studies is to identity the causes of the statistical discrepancies in the official data of the two countries, and to facilitate a common understanding by the data users of why the differences exist. The focus of the working group is to verify and quantify the major causes for the bilateral statistical discrepancies. Adjustments made during the reconciliation of the bilateral statistical data do not implicate errors in the statistical systems of either country. Neither do the adjustments represent revisions or corrections to either country's published trade figures. The research is based on the published bilateral merchandise statistical data in the calendar years 2008, 2009, and 2010, compared to the previous study that used data covering years 2000, 2004 and 2006. This report focuses on the results from analyzing the more recent data and also includes some results from the previous study to show comparisons and trends.