Division Current situation

The growing importance of free movement of services and capital leads to increasing demand for high-quality statistics. The challenge is to publish relevant data in a timely manner and to adapt the system to the changing requirements of the policy makers, while keeping a low level of burden on respondents.

From 2006, the implementation of the Balance of Payments Regulation has enhanced the quality of trade in services and direct investments data. In addition, statistics on foreign affiliates will allow the globalisation of production systems to be measured. The statistics produced will continue to cover both extra and intra-EU trade and thus meet the needs of the internal market.

The growing importance of multinational enterprises will require new forms of data collection. The new Regulation on business registers covers the transmission of individual data on multinational enterprise groups to Eurostat and feedback of harmonised information to Member States leading to a Community register of multinational enterprise groups (EuroGroups), which will be fully implemented from 2008 and onwards.

Regular production of high-quality statistics on postal services is essential for European policy makers, national regulators and postal operators, to assist the evolution towards an open postal market and beyond. The modalities of the data collection will be based on the assessment of the 2006 pilot project to ensure high data quality.

The internationalisation of research and development (R & D), and of the human resources linked thereto, is crucial for the performance of the European economy. It is therefore important to collect R & D data within the context of balance of payments, foreign affiliate trade statistics and measures for multi-national enterprises.

Main initiatives for 2008 to 2012:

• the NACE Rev. 2 classification of economic activities, with a more detailed services breakdown, will be applied in all relevant fields,

• implementation and updating of key legislation (balance of payments, international trade in services, foreign direct investment and foreign affiliates) will be ensured,

• improved measurement of the internationalisation of R & D will be pursued,

• work on statistics on residence permits – including both EU and third-country nationals – will continue as long as there are Community policy needs for this type of data.