The Bank of Finland Foreign Trade Survey 1995-1996 : A Quality Evaluation

In order to bridge temporary delays in the dissemination of official foreign trade statistics compiled by the National Board of Customs after the Finland's entry into the EU in 1995, the Bank of Finland decided to introduce a special survey on Finnish foreign trade in merchandise.It was felt necessary that balance of payments statistics should continue to be available without a break.This paper describes the survey employed and the feasibility of the results. It seems evident that Finnish exports and imports can be satisfactorily estimated using a cut-off survey of very modest sample size.The Bank of Finland foreign trade survey provided a timely and accurate description of the underlying developments in the external stability.Because the National Board of Customs now has a functional statistical system for foreign trade, the Bank of Finland trade survey was discontinued in December 1996. Keywords: business surveys, foreign trade, balance of payments statistics