The seminar was designed for experts from the National Statistical Institutes and the Customs Services coming from 11 Eastern European Countries neighbouring the enlarged EU. Over 40 participants including Directorate General Trade of the European Commission, Statistics Norway and the Finish Customs actively discussed topics on the latest developments and challenges in the domain of external trade statistics and exchanged views on how to deal with concrete issues.

The most positive outcome of the seminar is that external trade statistics from the 11 Eastern European Countries will be available on the Eurostat database in the very near future. Furthermore, participants recognised the need to enhance reconciliation exercises and proposed to meet in one year to compare and discuss results.

Access to working documents for the seminar can be obtained under the following link:

http://forum.europa.eu.int/Public/irc/dsis/statnewindstates/library?l=/meetings_seminars/seminars_workshops/luxembourg_eftaeurostat&vm=detailed&sb=Title