Analysis of the cost-benefit and administrative burden reduction potential of options for Re-design of Intrastat

The European Statistical System Committe (ESSC) has requested Eurostat to provide information on alternative or complementary approaches to re-design Intrastat (the system set up for the collection of intra EU trade data). Consequently, the project called “Re-design of Intrastat” was launched in November 2014, which aims at documenting the alternative approaches analysed for the re-design of Intrastat in terms of costs and benefits, potential reduction of administrative burden and methodological implications.

DevStat, as the leader of a consortium that also counts with the participation of Panteia (NL) and CSIL (IT), has been awarded a contract for carrying out an independent assessment of the administrative burden on Intrastat and to estimate the burden reduction potential of the different options of the re-design of Intrastat. Furthermore, through the same contract, DevStat will also support Eurostat in the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the impact of different Intrastat re-design options and in producing a series of reports of the project outcomes (including reports for the FRIBS Impact Assessment and for a stakeholders consultation). All these will contribute to some of the “Re-design of Intrastat” project phases.

The work on the project started at the beginning of October 2015. All the results are planned to be available for the May 2016 ESSC meeting and will support the decision on the future implementation of Intrastat.

With this project, DevStat strengthens its experience in independent assessment studies, following the on-going “Impact Assessment for a framework regulation in the area of European social statistics”, the “Ex–post evaluation of the Community Statistical Programme 2008-2014” and other quality assessments of statistical operations.