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statistikk
2021-05-12T08:00:00.000Z
External economy;External economy
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uhvp, External trade in goods, indices of volume and price, import, export, price trends, volume development, product groups (for example food, raw materials, fuel), areas of application (for example energy goods, building materials, consumables)Balance of payments, External trade , External economy
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External trade in goods, indices of volume and price

Updated

Next update

Key figures

2.7 %

change in export volume on crude materials except fuels from Q4 2020 to Q1 2021

Indices of volume and price for external trade in goods, excl. ships and oil platforms. Change in per cent from previous quarter1
Volume indexPrice index
1st quarter 2021 / 4th quarter 20201st quarter 2021 / 4th quarter 2020
ExportsImportsExportsImports
1Groups according to the Standard International Trade Classification (SITC-Rev. 4).
Goods excl. ships and oil platforms-0.5-8.518.70.7
Food, beverages and tobacco-9.2-7.13.9-1.4
Crude materials except fuels2.7-7.83.65.1
Fuels-1.9-19.436.532.3
Manufactured goods except food, beverages and tobacco5.1-8.0-2.5-1.1

See selected tables from this statistics

Table 1 
Imports and exports. Volume and Price indices. 2000=100

Imports and exports. Volume and Price indices. 2000=1001
201920201st quarter 20202nd quarter 20203rd quarter 20204th quarter 20201st quarter 2021
1Groups according to the Standard International Trade Classification (SITC-Rev. 4).
Commodity group (SITC)
Imports, volume indices
Goods excl. ships and oil platforms179.5174.4173.9161.0176.2183.1167.6
Food, beverages and tobacco180.7195.5181.5183.2201.7207.0192.3
Crude materials except fuels149.6150.9145.5155.1144.1161.0148.4
Fuels178.7150.1173.7135.4135.2163.7132.0
Manufactured goods except food, beverages and tobacco180.8175.1174.3159.8178.8182.7168.1
 
Imports, price indices
Goods excl. ships and oil platforms148.7153.8152.1158.1152.0156.5157.6
Food, beverages and tobacco184.6196.3193.5206.2197.3197.0194.3
Crude materials except fuels163.5172.9167.7176.2172.6172.2180.9
Fuels249.6198.1218.5194.5197.3178.5236.2
Manufactured goods except food, beverages and tobacco141.0147.7145.7151.9145.2152.0150.3
 
Exports, volume indices
Goods excl. ships and oil platforms101.1107.0110.6100.8103.3112.9112.3
Exports excl. crude oil and natural gas151.4151.1154.8138.5146.4159.1161.3
Food, beverages and tobacco184.1188.2178.5165.0182.7227.9207.0
Crude materials except fuels164.4169.2177.4165.7160.4172.5177.2
Fuels79.286.689.983.084.991.089.3
Manufactured goods except food, beverages and tobacco150.0150.8160.3140.5140.7150.8158.5
 
Exports, price indices
Goods excl. ships and oil platforms171.3137.2149.7121.0131.4148.1175.8
Exports excl. crude oil and natural gas144.2135.1142.7138.3130.8134.8141.2
Food, beverages and tobacco184.4177.9201.2188.4164.9161.6167.9
Crude materials except fuels141.4148.5145.4150.5148.3150.7156.2
Fuels191.5129.7151.293.6121.2150.7205.7
Manufactured goods except food, beverages and tobacco121.1117.6115.1123.9119.4122.9119.8

Table 2 
Imports and exports. Price and volume indices. Change from previous year. Per cent.

Imports and exports. Price and volume indices. Change from previous year. Per cent.
2019 / 20182020 / 20191st quarter 2020 / 1st quarter 20192nd quarter 2020 / 2nd quarter 20193rd quarter 2020 / 3rd quarter 20194th quarter 2020 / 4th quarter 20191st quarter 2021 / 1st quarter 2020
Commodity group (SITC)
Imports, volume indices
Goods excl. ships and oil platforms0.5-2.8-4.1-11.5-2.15.0-3.6
Food, beverages and tobacco0.38.24.1-0.113.712.25.9
Crude materials except fuels1.10.90.8-1.0-1.76.21.9
Fuels12.5-16.0-0.4-17.7-28.4-13.0-24.0
Manufactured goods except food, beverages and tobacco-0.6-3.2-5.7-13.2-1.25.9-3.6
 
Imports, price indices
Goods excl. ships and oil platforms5.63.43.37.33.61.83.6
Food, beverages and tobacco5.76.36.413.16.13.20.4
Crude materials except fuels2.35.75.710.03.72.37.9
Fuels-2.0-20.6-7.2-24.6-20.7-29.98.1
Manufactured goods except food, beverages and tobacco6.64.83.78.94.94.03.2
 
Exports, volume indices
Goods excl. ships and oil platforms-0.75.85.34.39.93.11.5
Exports excl. crude oil and natural gas4.0-0.20.3-6.7-0.71.74.2
Food, beverages and tobacco6.22.24.5-1.9-0.96.815.9
Crude materials except fuels2.72.94.2-2.19.80.5-0.1
Fuels-3.99.37.410.918.84.6-0.7
Manufactured goods except food, beverages and tobacco4.70.52.3-5.5-2.7-1.1-1.1
 
Exports, price indices
Goods excl. ships and oil platforms-8.0-20.0-17.0-29.4-17.8-14.017.5
Exports excl. crude oil and natural gas-0.7-6.3-1.3-6.2-6.3-7.2-1.1
Food, beverages and tobacco2.2-3.56.2-2.4-4.6-11.9-16.5
Crude materials except fuels3.55.03.46.53.57.17.4
Fuels-14.2-32.3-26.9-50.6-29.5-22.036.0
Manufactured goods except food, beverages and tobacco1.1-2.9-6.52.30.40.84.1

Table 3 
Imports and exports by groups of end use. BEC. Volume and price indices. 2000 = 100

Imports and exports by groups of end use. BEC. Volume and price indices. 2000 = 1001
201920201st quarter 20202nd quarter 20203rd quarter 20204th quarter 20201st quarter 2021
1Broad Economic Categories
Imports, volume indices
Goods for fixed capital formation, excl. ships and oil platforms204.9193.2186.5179.6196.9195.6166.7
Intermediate comsumption157.9155.3160.5152.6154.3157.4150.2
Building and construction articles226.2213.2197.4224.9217.5211.3200.6
Energy products188.4158.3186.6140.7139.0175.0142.7
Consumer goods168.3172.4165.5156.7176.9179.3171.8
 
Imports, price indices
Goods for fixed capital formation, excl. ships and oil platforms131.2134.8134.3143.6130.9140.0138.2
Intermediate comsumption145.8153.7152.3157.5151.8154.6156.4
Building and construction articles150.3157.3155.8157.3155.5161.2157.4
Energy products247.3196.7216.7192.1197.0177.3235.1
Consumer goods144.0154.5150.1157.1152.0160.7156.6
 
Exports, volume indices
Goods for fixed capital formation, excl. ships and oil platforms203.7225.0245.4186.5190.2222.1233.4
Intermediate comsumption143.8138.1144.7128.2133.7139.6147.0
Building and construction articles157.1182.8197.6197.5163.3166.9175.9
Energy products79.286.790.083.185.091.189.3
Consumer goods171.7175.8169.4158.4169.3211.5193.3
 
Exports, price indices
Goods for fixed capital formation, excl. ships and oil platforms98.888.586.3108.791.693.287.7
Intermediate comsumption130.4130.1127.7135.5129.2134.1134.2
Building and construction articles111.9103.9100.891.8115.0115.2104.3
Energy products191.3129.6151.193.6121.2150.6205.6
Consumer goods172.3168.2187.7178.0157.4154.7160.0

Table 4 
Imports and exports by groups of end use. BEC. Volume and price indices. Change from previous year. Per cent.

Imports and exports by groups of end use. BEC. Volume and price indices. Change from previous year. Per cent.1
2019 / 20182020 / 20191st quarter 2020 / 1st quarter 20202nd quarter 2020 / 2nd quarter 20193rd quarter 2020 / 3rd quarter 20194th quarter 2020 / 4th quarter 20191st quarter 2021 / 1st quarter 2020
1Broad Economic Categories
Imports, volume indices
Goods for fixed capital formation, excl. ships and oil platforms5.8-5.7-2.8-21.8-6.54.7-10.6
Intermediate comsumption1.7-1.62.1-6.0-4.1-0.3-6.4
Building and construction articles-5.2-5.7-23.42.3-0.10.91.6
Energy products13.4-16.0-1.5-17.2-28.9-12.6-23.5
Consumer goods-0.72.4-1.5-1.95.98.93.8
 
Imports, price indices
Goods for fixed capital formation, excl. ships and oil platforms5.32.72.410.52.62.12.9
Intermediate comsumption3.95.45.89.44.62.52.7
Building and construction articles6.04.73.06.05.84.41.0
Energy products-1.2-20.5-6.6-24.8-19.9-30.28.5
Consumer goods5.37.37.110.96.56.44.3
 
Exports, volume indices
Goods for fixed capital formation, excl. ships and oil platforms15.110.520.2-3.5-1.7-0.6-4.9
Intermediate comsumption3.8-4.0-4.6-9.5-3.6-2.81.6
Building and construction articles1.916.431.112.011.28.9-11.0
Energy products-4.09.57.710.918.94.6-0.8
Consumer goods4.32.43.00.3-0.76.514.1
 
Exports, price indices
Goods for fixed capital formation, excl. ships and oil platforms0.3-10.4-17.3-17.1-2.3-1.11.6
Intermediate comsumption1.4-0.2-2.718.2-0.21.45.1
Building and construction articles1.0-7.1-12.0-55.67.7-0.83.5
Energy products-14.2-32.3-27.0-46.8-29.4-22.036.1
Consumer goods2.2-2.46.6-12.8-3.6-10.0-14.8

About the statistics

Volume and price indices for external trade in goods (UHVP) use the data from external trade to compile volume and price indices. Thus the indices measure the development in volume and price for exported and imported goods over time.

Definitions

Definitions of the main concepts and variables

Definition of the main concepts

Price indices

The price indices are Paasche-indices.

Volume indices

The volume indices are Laspeyres-indices.

Base year and reference year

Base year: the previous year.
Current reference year: 2000.

Computation level

Price indices are estimated for all SITC commodity groups on a three-digit level (SITC- 3) based on price relatives for all representative goods for each commodity group. Goods that are not among the representative goods get the price index of their SITC-3 commodity group as an imputed price relative.

The Terms of Trade

The ratio of the price indices for exports and imports.

Definition of the main variables

Commodity

The Norwegian commodity classification for customs declarations and statistical purposes follows the international customs and statistics nomenclature (Harmonised System, HS).

Partner country

Imports: country of origin.
Exports: country of destination.

Quantity

Net mass in kilogram and, for certain commodities, quantity in supplementary units in accordance with the Norwegian customs nomenclature. To deal with commodity codes where both net mass and supplementary unit are defined, the calculation method uses a common quantity unit.

Standard classifications

Commodity classification

The Norwegian customs' and statistical commodity nomenclature follows the HS down to the sixth digit, mainly determined by the type of material of the goods. The seventh and eighth digits are national ones, determined by customs' and statistical considerations. The nomenclature is published at the beginning of each year in the NOS Commodity List, paper edition and on the Internet: http://www.ssb.no/english/subjects/09/05/nos_com_list/ .

The United Nations' (UN) Standard International Trade Classification (SITC) by level of processing, (SITC-Rev. 4).

The NA (National Accounts) CPA (Classifications of productivity by Activity) that is used in the National accounts statistics classifies goods by sections. The (NA) CPA is based on the central product classification system of the EU (Statistical Classifications of productivity by Activity in the European Community).

Country classification

The country classification follows the international standard ISO-3166.

Administrative information

Name and topic

Name: External trade in goods, indices of volume and price
Topic: External economy

Next release

Responsible division

Division for Price Statistics

Regional level

Indices of volume and price at country level, only.

Frequency and timeliness

Statistics for the 1st quarter are released 15 May or the next following working day. Statistics for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th quarter are released on the 15th or the next following working day in the month after the end of the quarter. In April/May figures for all quarters of the preceding year are released and published.

International reporting

None

Microdata

Series available, electronic medium or paper:
From 1880 volume indices for total imports, yearly indices, Historical Statistics
From 1919 indices for price and volume of imports and exports and by commodity groups, Historical Statistics
From 1957 quarterly indices, Monthly Bulletin of External Trade and Monthly Bulletin of Statistics

The period 1943 - 1958: monthly indices for volume in the Monthly Bulletin of Statistics and the Monthly Bulletin of External Trade 1948 - 1958

Electronic time series are available for downloading from an electronic time series reference data base which comprises quarterly series of indices for imports and exports in total except from ship and oil platforms, and commodity groups on one- and two-digit SITC-levels. Some sets of seasonally adjusted series are also available.

Background

Background and purpose

The purpose of the statistics is to decompose the development of the external trade with goods as measured in terms of value, into a price component and a volume component. From 1880 onwards, yearly indices for the volume of total imports were computed. Since 1919 quarterly price and volume indices by commodity group have been compiled for imports and exports.

Users and applications

The statistics are used in the compilation of the quarterly and yearly national accounts, as well as by the government sector, organisations, research institutions and international organisations such as the IMF.

Equal treatment of users

No external users have access to the statistics and analyses before they are published and accessible simultaneously for all users on ssb.no at 8 am. Prior to this, a minimum of three months' advance notice is given inthe Statistics Release Calendar.

Coherence with other statistics

International standard

The UN guidelines in Strategies for Price and Quantity Measurement in External Trade. Statistical Papers Series M No. 69. United Nations.

Applications under other statistical fields

The statistics are used to deflate exports and imports of goods in quarterly and yearly national accounts. The principles of the calculation of price indices for national accounts commodities are fully coordinated with the principles in the calculations of price indices for the SITC commodity groups. The calculations of price indices for national account commodities are thus based on the price relatives for all the representative commodities in the external trade within each national account commodity. The price indices for exports and imports of national account commodities are also computed as Paasche- indices with the previous year as basis. During the compilation of the national accounts the price indices for the national account commodities are being evaluated against other price statistics. As a result some of the price indices for exports and imports may be corrected before use in the national accounts. This is especially the case for national accounts' commodities within groups of machinery and means of transportation which can be weakly covered by representative goods in the external trade.

Legal authority

The Statistics Act §§ 2-2, 2-3 and 3-2.

EEA reference

No regulations in the EEA agreement.

Production

Population

Indices of volume and price for commodity flows between the Norwegian statistical territory and other countries (except from commodity consignments valued at less than NOK 1000 and certain types of commodity flows, for example goods under repair). The Norwegian statistical territory comprises the Norwegian customs' territory and the Norwegian part of the Continental Shelf, Svalbard, Bjørnøya and Jan Mayen.

The indices comprise customs' declared consignments and exports of crude oil and natural gas. Indices are not produced for imports and exports of ships and oil platforms, but are compiled and published by the Division of National Accounts.

Data sources and sampling

The detailed database containing the individual transactions that are included in the external trade statistics, see External trade in commodities.

Use of other price indicators

There are economically important products where the external trade data do not yield any proper price information or have properties that make them unduly vulnerable in standard routines. Those shortcomings are addressed by making use of the following three categories of price information:

For commodity codes with very high value and products that are homogeneous over time, the unit price on the level of commodity code overrules any other information. This is the case for exports of e.g. crude oil and natural gas, iron and steel, certain ferro-metals, aluminium and imports and exports of electricity and some seasonal goods.

In some important products, the Norwegian data are too fragmented to yield relevant price information. To compensate for such shortcomings, the cooperation with the system of indices of producer prices has been further developed and strengthened, in that more price indexes based on direct reporting by the exporters and importers are used as indicators in the external trade statistics.

For some capital goods data from Commodity price index of first hand domestic sales (VPPI) are used.

Furthermore, the previously established practice of using price information from international commodity exchanges and foreign statistical agencies has been extended. For internationally traded commodities (refined oil products, nickel etc) price data are collected from London Stock Exchange and London Metal Exchange. For other products (especially export and import of capital goods), international price indicators are in some cases considered to be representative also for the price development of the same product group in the Norwegian trade. Price indices for the import of computers into the US published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics are in some instances used as indicators of the price development of Norwegian exports (e.g. computer equipment).

The calculations of the indices of external trade are based on the detailed database containing the individual transactions that are included in the external trade statistics. These data are supplemented by price surveys with crude oil and natural gas and electric current, in addition to international prices (already mentioned above under 3.2). Commodity codes represented by a total import or export value less than 10 million NOK are deleted from the rest of the data material; this is relevant when the total export or import value increases in year T as well.

The stratification and editing method

In order to identify the commodity codes where the data may be utilised for price statistics, the revised procedure has a first stage of two steps: stratification and control of extreme prices. See Changes in the External Trade Indices.

In the first step, data in each commodity code are stratified below the code level. The aim of the stratification is partly to arrive at more homogeneous strains within the code and, simultaneously, to reduce the overall variation observed on the code level. The stratification levels are three: Enterprise (VAT number), partner country (ISO code) and quantity groups (based on weight or supplementary unit). The choice of the best stratification variable for a commodity code in the reference year is done by means of automated analyses run on the data of the previous year (base year). This means that in the new system, the price information is collected from within the commodity codes themselves.

In the second step, before the estimation of indices, the data are run through an editing procedure controlling for extreme prices. The data are subjected to a HB (Hidrioglou-Berthelot)-based procedure for identifying extremes, both on the stratum level and within the strata. Extremes that are identified are excluded from the further use of the data.

Collection of data, editing and estimations

See About the statistics: External trade in commodities.

General data editing: See About the statistics: External trade in commodities .

Seasonal adjustment

Seasonal adjustment of volume index series for main figures by means of the method X12-ARIMA; direct adjustment; current correction factors.

Confidentiality

The Statistics Act § 2-6 covers the disclosure of information.

Comparability over time and space

The eight-digit, HS-based commodity classification is subject to revisions due to the development of commodities in the world trade of goods. Besides, there are some national changes each year. Detailed information can be found in the annual NOS Commodity List. The most recent, major HS-revision took place at the turn of the year from 1996 to 1997 as well as from 2001 to 2002. Yearly there are also some national changes. The commodity classification by the HS was adopted in 1988 and was an extensive alteration compared to the previous nomenclature.

Accuracy and reliability

Sources of error and uncertainty

Customs declared commodity shipments

Collection errors may occur in the data due to misunderstandings etc., unless discovered and corrected in the customs' controls.

Exports of crude oil and natural gas

Having left the Norwegian statistical area, shipments of crude oil may be the subject of trading, and upon discharge, be redirected to a third country. In the natural gas exports, final settlements may take place at a later point in time than the compilation of the final figures of the external trade statistics.

Not relevant for the detailed custom data containing the individual transactions that are included in the external trade statistics

For the goods that are covered by price indexes based on direct reporting by the exporters and importers from the producer price index see About the statistics.

Non-sampling errors

In the case of customs declared consignments, non-sampling errors may occur by use of wrong commodity code, wrong information on quantity due to a pro-rata distribution rather than direct measurement of net mass, mistaken country codes and lack of proper information on statistical value of goods in processing trade.

Revision

The revision for the previous year is normally finished in April.