Foreign Trade

NOTICE TO USERS OF THE CONSTANT DOLLAR (REAL) DATA SERIES

While processing the June 2003 chain-weighted dollar series, we found several deflators used in the compilation of the series for prior periods to be incorrect. The totals, capital goods, and non-petroleum categories for the period January 2001 through May 2003 were affected. Several other categories for data prior to 2001 were also affected. All historical chain-dollar data have been corrected and are available on the Foreign Trade Division Web site at: www.census.gov/foreign-trade/. All chain-weighted dollar data reported in the June release are correct. The revisions do not affect the chained dollar estimates or gross domestic product estimate produced by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

The chain-weighted dollar series are presented in Exhibits 10 and 11 of the FT900 U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services release and Exhibits 9 and 10 of the 2002 Annual Revision release. The Foreign Trade Division introduced the chain-weighted dollar series with the April 2003 release of the U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services report.