What do different data sources reveal about the EU’s export performance?

Different trade data reveal diverging trends for EU goods exports and trade performance. According to international trade in goods statistics, EU export volumes were nearly 8% lower in 2024 compared to 2019 (see Graph 1b), and the EU lost nearly 15% of its market share in the world, underscoring a long-term downward trend (see Graph 1c). Instead, national accounts data indicate an 8% increase of goods export volumes over the same period, resulting in an only 3% decrease of market share since 2019, following a decade of stability. These figures include both extra- and intra-EU trade for comparability, because national accounts only report total exports for the EU27 aggregate. 

Graph 1:        The evolution of EU goods exports

Sources: Eurostat, WTO (world trade based on ITGS), European Commission (world trade based on national accounts).

International trade in goods statistics (ITGS) and national accounts diverge due to methodological differences in how trade is defined and measured. ^([1]) ITGS records goods crossing borders, while national accounts focus on ownership changes. For instance, ITGS excludes merchanting (goods bought from and resold to non-residents without the good actually crossing the territory of the merchant), while national accounts record merchanting as exports on a net basis (i.e., revenue less the purchase value of goods sold). ^([2]) Additionally, ITGS does not record any transactions when a resident company buys inputs within a foreign territory, hires a foreign company to process them on its behalf, and sells the finished goods abroad (contract manufacturing). In contrast, national accounts record these transactions as imports (acquisition of inputs) and exports (sales of outputs) of goods, while also booking the value of processing as an import of manufacturing services. ^([3]) National accounts also include in goods trade transactions such as products purchased by tourists, low-value trade and illegal trade activities, which ITGS misses as it is traditionally based on customs declarations. ^([4]) Valuation methods differ as well: ITGS record exports ‘free on board’ (FOB) and imports including ‘cost, insurance and freight’ (CIF), while national accounts record both exports and imports on a FOB basis. These methodological differences result in a steady gap between the two statistics: national accounts systematically record 7-9% less goods exports in the EU27 than the ITGS (see Graph 1a). A common feature of the two datasets is that neither record tariffs levied by the importing country in the value of imports. In national accounts, import tariffs are recorded as indirect taxes on goods.

The two datasets also use different price indicators to compute trade volumes. The ITGS uses unit values based on physical quantities (typically, the weight or the number of units), which do not capture the effect of composition and quality changes. Therefore, if there are changes in the quality of goods being traded, these will not necessarily be reflected in unit values. Conversely, an increase in the unit value of car exports can reflect either a growing share of luxury cars within exports (composition), or improvements in comfort and safety features, performance or range (quality). Comparisons of unit value indices and price indices show that the two methods can give significantly different results. ^([5]) For this reason, national accounts prefer price indices (ideally adjusted for quality) to account for composition and quality effects and generally do not accept the use of unit values (except for sufficiently homogenous goods).

Export unit values could be biased upward by composition and quality changes, which could explain why the ITGS reports lower export volumes than national accounts. The national accounts-based export price index of the EU systematically increases less than the ITGS-based export unit value, suggesting a steady shift towards higher-value and higher-quality products within exports (see Graph 2b). Furthermore, this gap between the growth rates of export prices and unit values is systematically larger in the EU than on average in the world economy, which might suggest that the EU experienced more export quality improvement and/or a stronger shift towards high-value products than the rest of the world. This might reflect the relatively strong integration of EU countries in global value chains (ECB, 2019) which facilitates their specialisation in activities with high skill content (Timmer et al., 2014). ^([6]) 

Graph 2:        Selected trade variables: ratios of national accounts to International Trade in Goods Statistics

Notes: The graph shows each variable in national accounts divided by its counterpart in the ITGS, taking 2019 as base year. Each panel has the same scale for comparability purposes. Sources: Eurostat, WTO (world trade based on ITGS), European Commission (world trade based on national accounts).

These observations have implications for the use of trade data. National accounts better gauge the contribution of exports to GDP growth and aggregate trade performance, as they account for changes in export quality and composition. They also include exports of goods that are produced by resident companies outside national borders. The ITGS, due to their monthly availability, remain a useful source for the timely monitoring of trade flows, mainly at current prices. They can also be used to analyse trade by product and partner, as these breakdowns are not available in national accounts, keeping in mind the different coverage of ITGS data and the potential biases of the volume measures calculated with unit values.