21.5. Valuation quality control. Customs has a legal obligation to ensure the valuation of imports, which are subject to ad valorem duties, according to the WTO Agreement on Customs Valuation. However, while not covered by this agreement, in general customs still aims to ensure the correct valuation of all imports and exports. The responsible statistical agency either accepts the customs valuation or makes necessary adjustments to determine the appropriate statistical value of imports and exports using additional sources or estimation (see chap. XIV). The value of goods declared by related parties can be influenced by their relationship, as shown by long-term studies of inter-company prices. Therefore, information on whether any given transaction takes place between related parties or not would facilitate significantly the monitoring and assessment of valuation practices and provide the basis for making any adjustments to the declared values, as deemed appropriate by the responsible statistical authority.
21.6. Understanding multinational enterprises and the causes of trade. The activities of multinational enterprises are widely seen as a key factor in the global economy. These enterprises account for a large share of value added, employment and exports and imports in many countries and for a large share of global trade. They are considered responsible for the development of global value chains and the spreading out of production processes over many countries, thereby accounting for a large part of the increase of global trade. In the past, trade statisticians had no detailed information on the trade carried out by multinational enterprises. The development of trade by enterprise characteristics (TEC), which is achieved by linking trade data with information from the business register (see chap. XI), provides insights into the trade of large enterprises. However, the systematic identification of intra-firm trade would allow a much more comprehensive and more detailed analysis of global trade and the activities of multinational enterprises, including their impact on national growth and employment.
21.7. Level of detail needed. As described below, there are different options for obtaining information on the trade between related parties. These options might provide information on the trade between related parties at the total level only or at the transaction level. For valuation purposes, information on transaction level is required. However, it might be sufficient to limit the request for this information to large transactions. For the analysis of the activities of multinational enterprises, aggregate figures such as the ones suggested as part of foreign affiliates statistics (FATS) might be sufficient. However, only detailed commodity-based data concerning trade between related parties will allow a detailed understanding of this trade.