By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, JAN 10, 2025: THE provisional Quick Estimates (QE) of EXIM data for the month of Nov'24 was released on 16th December, 2024. On noticing unusual surge in imports of precious metals, DGCI&S under Ministry of Commerce and Industry has jointly taken up a detailed examination with DG (Systems), CBIC. During the reconciliation exercise, primarily, it was observed that due to migration of data transmission mechanism from SEZ to ICEGATE, figures of precious metals needed revision as it was noticed as the system was calculating both imports into SEZ and subsequent clearance into DTA as separate transactions after the migration.

DGCI&S receives trade data from approximately 500+ locations and about 2.5 lakh transactions every day from different sea ports, land ports, airport and inland container depots. The EXIM data from more than 100 SEZs was earlier captured by SEZ Online System and EXIM data for all other ports (i.e non-SEZ locations) was captured by ICEGATE system. Both systems (i.e ICEGATE and SEZ Online) were transmitting the EXIM data separately to DGCIS for publishing foreign trade statistics. However, based on a decision to shift EXIM declarations from SEZ Online to ICEGATE system, the EXIM data pertaining to SEZs as well as all other ports is being captured and transmitted by ICEGATE to DGCIS. However, owing to persistence of certain technical glitches, the migration is still not complete. Both SEZ Online and ICEGATE are still capturing and transmitting mutually exclusive EXIM data to DGCIS.

DGCIS does revision and correction of data from time to time. The revision is based on data that's received late, amendments in the respective months and qualitative corrections wherever required. The principal commodity level data, which have been uploaded recently at DGCIS Data Dissemination Portal, incorporates the first phase of reconciliations made till date. Revision has been done for trade figures from April 2024 to November 2024, which are made public in compliance to the regular publication cycle maintained as per international standard data dissemination norms. The revised data can be accessed through the Data Dissemination Portal of DGCIS. A committee has been formed with stakeholders from DGCIS, DG Systems (CBIC) and SEZs for creation of a robust mechanism for publishing consistent data.

Internationally, revision and corrections are an inherent part of any statistical procedure. The quick estimate values are initial estimates and are often systematically amended to reflect more accurate information. Worldwide, official statistics are released and are subject to subsequent corrections and revisions as per available updated and additional information. As a statistical system, the main objective/aim is to maintain a balance between data quality, accuracy and timeliness. Apart from this, the fixed revisions and unscheduled corrections are also obligations of the statistical system as and when more data are available.