What’s going on with the OECD?
OECD policy is to put 10% of its data on its website for free. The SourceOECD website is going to be redesigned. The Beta for one statistical database will be available later this year. There was general agreement that the current database is very hard to search and that one has to be familiar with the print in order to effectively use the online version. What is Comtrade? Audience discussion is supplemented with information from the website (http://unstats.un.org/unsd/comtrade/). The United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database (UN Comtrade) contains detailed imports and exports statistics reported by statistical authorities of close to 200 countries or areas. It has annual trade data from 1962 to the most recent year. UN Comtrade is considered the most comprehensive trade database available with more than 1 billion records. A typical record is – for instance – the exports of cars from Germany to the United States in 2004 in terms of value (US dollars), weight and supplementary
