Notice: Upcoming Revisions to Goods and Services

On June 10, 2010, the U.S. Census Bureau (Census) and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) will release two reports: U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services: April 2010 and U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services: Annual Revision for 2009. With these reports, statistics on trade in goods on a Census basis will be revised beginning with 2007, and statistics on trade in goods on a balance of payments (BOP) basis and on trade in services will be revised beginning with 1999. The revised statistics on goods and services will also be included in the annual revision of the U.S. international transactions accounts (ITAs), which BEA will release on June 17, 2010. As in past years, BEA’s annual revision of the ITAs will reflect newly available source data as well as changes in definitions and methodologies.

BEA’s annual revision this June will reflect a new treatment for certain transactions currently recorded in services by reclassifying them to goods on a BOP basis. The reclassifications will result in upward revisions to goods and offsetting downward revisions to services; they will have no effect on total goods and services exports and imports or on the combined goods and services balance. The revisions to goods will be made through the adjustments that BEA applies to goods exports and imports on a Census basis to convert them to a BOP basis. These adjustments are combined and presented as “Net adjustments” in this report. The reclassifications do not affect goods exports and imports on a Census basis, either in the aggregate or by commodity. In the ITAs, the adjustments will be distributed as described below to the appropriate end-use commodities, which BEA presents in a standard table of the ITAs, Table 2. U.S. Trade in Goods.

Beginning with statistics for 1999, BEA will reclassify certain exports and imports by the U.S. military from services to goods. BEA will remove exports of goods related to foreign military sales from the services category Transfers under U.S. military agency sales contracts and, in the ITAs, will place them in the goods category Exports, n.e.c., and it will remove imports of petroleum by the U.S. military from the services category Direct defense expenditures and, in the ITAs, will place them in the goods category Petroleum and products. Also beginning with statistics for 1999, BEA will remove fuel purchases by foreign air and ocean carriers in U.S. ports (exports) and by U.S air and ocean carriers in foreign ports (imports) from Other transportation services and, in the ITAs, will place them in the goods category Petroleum and products.

The changes described above are part of a multi-year effort to align the ITAs with the most recent international guidelines for international economic accounts as released in 2009 in the sixth edition of the International Monetary Fund’s Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual. Additional information on BEA’s 2010 annual revision of the ITAs and plans for implementing the new international standards will appear in the May 2010 issue of the Survey of Current Business, which BEA will release in mid-May.