Problems of Commodity Nomenclatures Implementation in the International Trade on the Example of Chapter 56 “Nonwovens” of the EAEU Commodity Nomenclature of Foreign Eco nomic Activity

The article examines the problems of using the Commodity Nomenclature of Foreign Economic Activity. The following problems are highlighted: the lag of the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System from the development of technologies; disagreement of countries with the decisions of the Harmonized System Committee; mistakes in texts; difficulties with the implementation of the classification decisions of the Federal Customs Service and Eurasian Economic Commission. Discrepancies in classification lead to distortion of mirror statistics of foreign trade and make it possible to identify “risk” and “cover” goods. The purpose of the work was to compare the imports by the Russian Federation nonwovens of chapter 56 from three countries — the main exporters at the level of commodity headings and subheadings. The hypothesis was tested: since chapter 56 is not the leading one in the volume of imports, there will be no significant discrepancies in the mirror statistics. Research method was comparison of data on Russian imports from a trading partner country and corresponding data on exports of a trading partner country to Russia. Data source is Trade Map of the International Trade Center. Headings 5602 (felt) and 5603 (nonwovens) were considered, which include goods that are similar in structure and properties, as well as heading 5607 — twine, cordage, ropes and cables. These goods are imported from both European and Asian countries. However, only when importing from the Asian direction — from China — discrepancies in the mirror statistics were found. It is shown that goods of “risk” (heading 5602) were imported into Russia from China in 9 times less than exported from China, and goods of “cover” (heading 5603) were imported from China by 5% more, than exported by China. The subheading of twine, cordage, ropes and cables made of synthetic fibers (570650) also represents risk goods, imports of which are 3 times less than exports from China. There are several cover headings that include similar goods with a lower duty rate. Comparison of duties showed that the main reason for classification errors leading to distortion of mirror statistics is the deliberately wrong choice of the code in the presence of close alternatives, which allows to reduce the customs payment. The hypothesis that group 56 will not show significant discrepancies in mirror statistics has not been confirmed.

Orphan Imports and Lost Exports in India’s Trade: A Quantitative Assessment of the Significance and Implications for Illicit Financial Flows

Orphan imports and lost exports refer to import and export transactions that have been reported by only one of the two trading partners.They are excluded from computations of trade mis-invoicing based on comparing partner country trade statistics. We show that India’s trade with 19 trading partners over 2000-2018 not only indicates substantial trade mis-invoicing but alsosignificant orphan and lost trade in the commodities displaying mis- invoicing. We also show that the amounts involved show an uptrend and are more pronounced in imports, with the orphan imports recorded by India being more than 15 times the orphan imports recorded by partner countries. Therefore, any conclusion on illicit flows through mis-invoicing in these commodities will be incomplete without analysing the impact of orphan and lost trade. We analyse some possible causes and discuss specific commodity-level examples to demonstrate that orphan and lost trade could not only lead to re-adjustment of computed amounts of trade mis-invoicing but, in the worst scenario, indicate serious fraud, with important implications for illicit flows. The paper’s finding that only a few commodities account for bulk of the amounts in orphan and lost trade could facilitate better analysis and mitigation measures.