Page 416 - Invited Paper Session (IPS) - Volume 1

IPS173 Tatiana Mosquera Yon et al.
institution/respective statistic and not aimed to design a coherent picture of
the MNEs. However, this stovepipe approach sometimes leads to a partial
comprehension of the MNEs organisation.
For example, one of the MNEs used the VAT number of one of its subsidiary
to report exports of goods from France to Germany to the custom authorities.
In the following year, this MNE decided to report its exports under its
headquarters’ VAT number, with a lower value of the exported goods (as
required by the conclusions of an internal audit). For NA, this change was
analysed as a major drop of exports of this subsidiary that was not completely
balanced inside the group. For BoP compilers, total exports of the group had
lowered. Thanks to the cross-checking of data with the custom authorities in
one of the “inter-institutional work stream”, the information of the change of
value and reporting agent was shared, giving sense to the reported data.
The international level of the inter-institutional work stream is aimed at
detecting differences in the treatment of cross border flows, to understand the
reasons of current asymmetries, clarifying conceptual and methodological
issues to get a common view and selecting questions to be addressed to the
other work stream. In this work stream, experts can share their understanding
of the MNEs organisation developed within the national inter-institutional
work stream.
The common understanding of the organisation is a key element of the
international inter-institutional work stream to solve asymmetries. Every
difference in the assessment of the production process can lead to different
customs/FTS codes (e.g. nature of transaction, partner country) reported by
the affiliates of an MNE in the countries involved.
Therefore, in order to get a correct reporting, statisticians and reporters
must be aware not only of the conceptual differences i.e. physical flows
(customs oriented) and the concept of change of economic ownership (BoP
oriented) but also have to take into account the whole production chain even
if it takes place beyond the borders of their own statistical territory.
Throughout the meetings, it was challenging for all the participants to put
together the pieces of the puzzle from the external work streams into a picture
on which a final decision could be taken, about how these transactions must
be recorded in the statistics to provide a consistent dataset.

The external work stream with MNEs
The external work stream with MNEs can only be successful if the MNEs
fully agree to cooperate. To reach this level of cooperation, it is really
important to communicate and explain what the problems are, how the MNEs
will be involved to help solving the problems and what is to be done when
solutions are found.

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