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3. International transport and insurance costs of merchandise trade (ITIC)

International transport and insurance costs of merchandise trade (ITIC)

<p>Transport and insurance costs, usually referred to as CIF/FOB margins, are important determinants of the volume and geography of international trade. The OECD ITIC dataset combines the largest and most detailed cross-country sample of official national statistics on observed CIF-FOB margins with model estimates, providing information on CIF/FOB margins for more than 200 reporters and 240 partners and over 1200 products (HS 2017 at 4 digits), covering the period 1995 to 2022.</p> <p>The OECD ITIC dataset is built in four steps. First, a gravity model is estimated based on the reported CIF/FOB margins at HS 6-digit product level (available for 34 countries). Second, the gravity-model coefficients are used to derive estimates for countries which do not explicitly report CIF/FOB margins. Third, the observations that could not be estimated by the model are derived from the estimated margins using standard statistical techniques. Finally, estimates are calibrated to explicitly reported data for countries that provide incomplete time series of observed margins. The final ITIC dataset consists of a combination of reported data and different types of estimates and includes specific codes which identify the methodology behind each observation.</p> <p>ITIC constitutes an important tool to further the understanding of global value chains and forms a crucial input to the development of coherent and balanced bilateral trade statistics.</p> <p>Note:</p> <li>In ITIC, the reference area corresponds to the importer, while the counterpart area is the exporter.</li> <li> The margin is calculated as (CIF-FOB)/CIF and is the percentage of the CIF value of imports that correspond to the international transport and insurance costs.</li> <li>CIF = Cost, Insurance and Freight</li> <li>FOB = Free on Board</li> </ul> <p> For more information on the methodology, please refer to the working paper accompanying this dataset <a href=" https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/economics/recent-trends-in-transport-and-insurance-costs-and-estimates-at-disaggregated-product-level_b5dbab02-en?crawler=true" >Recent trends in transport and insurance costs and estimates at disaggregated product level</a></p> <p>Users are encouraged to send their questions, or to signal any apparent errors, regarding this database to <a href="mailto:STAT.Contact@oecd.org">STAT.Contact@oecd.org</a></p> <div><a href="http://www.oecd.org/sdd">http://www.oecd.org/sdd</a></div>