Overseas Merchandise Trade - Weekly series

Overseas merchandise trade data is derived from Customs data. We receive data from Customs daily for imports and exports over $1000. We release overseas merchandise trade data on a monthly basis. See Overseas Trade. Data not yet released on a monthly basis is raw and has not been through our full edit and imputation process. This data is still ‘live’, that is, we are still editing it, and processing amendments and deletions from Customs when we receive them. Our edits are not fed back to the Customs system, but significant edits are communicated to them weekly. We use the same convention for dates as overseas merchandise trade. For exports we use the ‘date of export’, which is when the goods are expected to leave port. A ship could leave a port and travel to another port before leaving New Zealand waters. For imports we use the ‘date passed’, which is when goods can cross the Customs frontier. This could be before the ships have physically landed in New Zealand. Oil companies combine their monthly imports into one import entry for shipments into the Marsden Point refinery. To avoid higher daily values at the end of each month, we have spread the values for these entries evenly over the whole month. Typically, export entries are cleared by Customs days before the goods are loaded onto ships. Also, if shipments are rerouted on their way to the intended destination on the Customs entry, we won’t know about it unless the entry is revised, which is unlikely. We consider the data points to be ‘intentions to export’, as it can take some time for deleted entries to come through. If goods are returned to New Zealand, they will be treated as exports when they leave and imports from New Zealand when they return. It is difficult to match export entries to the returning import entries. We have included re-import values in the data. We use cumulative values as an indication of trends because daily fluctuations make analysing trade data on a daily basis problematic. We round dollar figures to the nearest million except for re-imports, which are rounded to the nearest hundred thousand. Weights are rounded to the nearest tonne. Where we include them, the weights published are apportioned gross weights, which are the weights of the goods, plus packaging. These weights are apportioned from a model to allocate the weight of a Customs lodgement across all the items of the lodgement. Apportioned gross weights are required for weekly data due to a lack of uniformity in units of measurement. Many imports and exports do not have units of measurement for weight. Mode of transport is only broken down into air versus sea at the total level for imports and exports. We include select individual countries and country groupings in this release, in addition to All countries. The grouping ‘East Asia (excluding China)’ includes: • Brunei Darussalam • Hong Kong (Special Administrative Region) • Indonesia • Japan • Korea, Republic of • Laos • Macau (Special Administrative Region) • Malaysia • Mongolia • Myanmar • Philippines • Singapore • Taiwan • Thailand • Timor-Leste • Viet Nam The grouping ‘European Union (27)’ includes all current members of the European Union, with the United Kingdom having exited the Union on 31 December 2020. en-NZ