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Correction to the 2010 foreign trade statistics

Publication date 30.12.2011 9.00 | Published in English on 24.1.2017 at 9.43
Press release

The final foreign trade statistics for 2010 were published on 31 August 2011. However, the National Board of Customs detected an error in the foreign trade statistics which affected the trade balance for 2010 to such an extent that a decision to correct it was taken. The corrected figures have been published in the Uljas service on 30 December 2011. The error only concerned exports. It has not, however, affected the overall picture of the development of Finnish foreign trade that the foreign trade statistics provide.

The detected error concerns such goods items that have been transported through Finland as transit goods and are not included in Finland’s foreign trade. Items like these have, however, been incorrectly registered as exports from Finland. Similar errors also occurred in 2011, but these errors were detected at an earlier stage and corrected in conjunction with the customary statistics revision, and thus the present correction will not affect the values of the 2011 exports. The percentage changes for exports, however, will change in 2011 when the export figures for the year of comparison decrease. The biggest changes are found among basic chemical industry products.

The value of total exports in 2010 will after the revision amount to 52.4 billion euros, whereas the statistics published in August 2011 put this value at 52.9 billion euros. The trade surplus is reduced from the little over one billion euros reported in August to 539 million euros. The table below shows the previously published and the corrected figures for each month. The corrected data according to country and goods category can be found in Customs’ statistics database on foreign trade (http://uljas.tulli.fi/).

2010 Imports, MEUR Exports, MEUR Trade balance, MEUR
Month Previously published Revision in December 2011 Previously published Revision in December 2011 Previously published Revision in December 2011
January 3 389 3 389 3 284 3 243 -105 -146
February 3 714 3 714 3 519 3 479 -195 -235
March 4 158 4 158 3 763 3 717 -395 -441
April 4 164 4 164 4 362 4 314 198 150
May 4 090 4 090 4 265 4 228 175 137
June 4 533 4 533 4 855 4 821 322 288
July 4 211 4 211 4 127 4 097 -84 -114
August 4 329 4 329 4 280 4 248 -50 -82
September 4 933 4 933 4 790 4 759 -142 -174
October 4 677 4 677 5 919 5 881 1 241 1 204
November 5 032 5 032 4 893 4 836 -139 -196
December 4 668 4 668 4 857 4 815 189 147
Total 51 899 51 899 52 915 52 439 1 015 539
Difference   0   -476   -476
Difference %   0 %   -1 %   -47 %
Finnish Customs, Statistics
Further information:
Timo Koskimäki, Statistics Director, tel. +358 40 332 1851
Changes in statistics Statistics bulletin