Notice Regarding the 2003 Annual Revisions

In the "U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services: April 2004" and the accompanying "U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services: Annual Revision for 2003," the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) are jointly publishing revised data on U.S. trade in goods for 1992-2003 and the first three months of 2004 and revised data on services for 1992-2003 and the first three months of 2004.

Goods

The 2003 not seasonally adjusted Census-basis goods data were revised to eliminate monthly data that arrived too late for inclusion in the month of transaction but that were included, initially, in the month in which the data were received. In addition, corrections were made to previously published data. Once the redistributions of data to the proper month of transaction and corrections were completed, factors for seasonal adjustments and trading day adjustments were recomputed and the seasonally adjusted current-dollar series were revised for 2001-2003 and the first three months of 2004. Similar changes were made to the chain-weighted dollar series.

Beginning with this release, the U.S. Census Bureau and BEA are adjusting various import and export petroleum and petroleum products series for seasonal variation. The adjustments begin in 1992. The seasonally adjusted series contribute to a more accurate picture of seasonally adjusted total imports and total exports. The BEA will carry these adjustments through to the International Transactions Accounts and the National Income and Product Accounts.

Services

The services estimates were revised for 1992-2003 and the first three months of 2004. The revisions resulted from the incorporation of results from BEA's annual and quarterly surveys and from other newly available and updated source data. Revisions from these sources have an impact mostly on receipts and payments for other private services for 2002-2003 and the first three months of 2004.

In addition, BEA is introducing a definitional revision in the measure of insurance services, which is a component of the measure of "other private services." The revisions are for 1992-2003. The new measure more comprehensively measures insurance services than the prior measure, by including in the calculation the income on technical reserves (owned by policyholders and held by insurance companies) used to reduce policyholder premiums. That is, it treats the expected investment income on technical reserves of insurance companies as being paid to policyholders, who then pay it to insurance companies as a supplement to their premium payments to cover the full cost of insurance. The change affects both exports and imports, although the change is much larger for imports than exports. This revision accounts for most of the revision to estimates of total services imports and total services exports in each year included in this release.