Statistics Agency comments on discrepancy in gas export figures

The Statistics Agency under the President of Uzbekistan commented on the questions arising on gas export.

The Uzbek authorities said in December that the export of gas abroad was stopped, and this was also reflected in the official statistics. However, according to the figures announced yesterday by the General Administration of Customs of China, it appears that the country imported $40 million worth of natural gas from Uzbekistan in December.

According to the Statistics Agency, global foreign trade statistics are maintained based on the standards and recommendations generally recognized by countries (registration of customs cargo declarations, accounting, etc.).

Due to the fact that the internal regulations of the countries differ from each other, when the foreign trade statistics of any two or more countries are compared, differences of a certain amount and size are observed.

This situation can be seen in the comparison of any country using the UN Comtrade website, the internationally accepted main source of information on foreign trade statistics.

“This is a normal situation. That is, differences in the system of foreign trade accounting, differences in the evaluation characteristics of the customs value of goods (more precisely, the value of the goods in the contract, which is included in the base price during the crossing of the customs border), differences in the approach to assigning the codes of similar products in the export-import “Nomenclature of goods of external economic activity”, the time of accounting of goods differences and other factors cause it.

Based on this, for example, in one country according to the calendar sign, for example, in November, conditional 10 kg of products left the customs border post for another country and were counted, the receiving country can show these statistics in December, and so on.

So, when comparing one country with another one, situations like the difference between Uzbekistan and China, between Uzbekistan and the Kyrgyz Republic, between Uzbekistan and Poland, or between Kazakhstan and China, between the United States and Canada on any commodity are observed and this is a natural factor that can occur,” the Agency explained.

The statistical authority suggested that users of statistical data should rely on their country’s official statistics rather than making such a difference into too much of a fuss.

Kun.uz compared some statistical data through the UN Comtrade portal and found that indeed, the export-import figures differ between countries.