Chapter 1 About

The aim of this module is to calculate the Trades Indices Numbers within the Statistical Working System (SWS). The procedure will be validated by matching the results disseminated by FAO on FAOSTAT platform. In order to perform the validation correctly, disseminated input data needs to be available within SWS in the corresponding dataset of Disseminated Dataset Domain.

1.1 Module Workflow

As shown in the figure below, the general workflow of the module require that the Technical Unit store data in “Disseminated Dataset” to allow the plugin to ingest the right data.

Trade Indices Numbers Plugin Data Flow

1.2 Build up data for validation

To apply the methodology, support data are imported into different datatable in SWS. For instance Item list, Countries list and group compositions are fetched as follow:

Country list is obtained from Definitions and standards section of FAOSTAT “Crops and livestock products” dataset and uploaded into SWS TI - Country list datatable;
Item list is obtained from Definitions and standards section of FAOSTAT “Crops and livestock products” dataset and uploaded into SWS TI - Item List datatable;
Items and Countries groups list is obtained from Definitions and standards section of FAOSTAT “Value of Production” dataset and uploaded into SWS TI - Aggregation Table datatable;
Multipliers for area not FOB (Free On Board) / CIF (Cost, Insurance, Freight) are obtained from old methodology and uploaded on SWS TI - arean not FOB/CIF multipliers datatable;

A detailed description of each supporting datatable is reported in SWS resources section of this documentation.

Since historical disseminated data may differ from those present on the Statistical Working System, it is necessary to make it available on SWS. To do this the CSI-SWS technical team need to retrieve the data from the the dissemination platform (FAOSTAT) and update it on Disseminated Domain. Note that after some changes have been applied to the methodology, results may differs for single items respect to the FAOSTAT disseminated one. Indeed, for consistency with CPC coding standard and to align the Trade Indices (TI) domain with Crops and livestock products (TCL) one, the plugin will calculate each single items individually and returns values for each one instead of grouping them.

1.3 SWS implementation procedure

The plugin will work within a session, meaning that the user needs to select the elements and the years for which they intend to calculate the trade indices, then run the plugin within the new created session. It is worth noting that for the sake of consistency with FAOSTAT item/country list and for calculation of the aggregates, the plugin will always calculate values for all the countries and items specified into the supporting data table "TI - Country list" and "TI - Item list", the output can be filtered using the different parameters implemented.

The module will pull its data directly within the working system, allowing the user to choose the source of data for Import or Export quantities. For instance, if Disseminated Datasets source is not selected:

Import / Export quantities in tonnes (element 5610/5910) are pulled from Trade domain, dataset Total Trade (CPC);
Import / Export values in thousand US Dollar (element 5622/5922) are pulled from Trade domain, dataset Total Trade (CPC);

For the correct functioning of the module it is important to ensure that the read permissions on the datasets mentioned above are correctly guaranteed.
Please note that the plugin retrieves data from the item codes specified in the "TI - Item list" datatable, following the official CPC standard. However, as some SWS item codes may not align with the standard, the plugin enables internal code conversion to ensure accurate information retrieval. The correct codes are determined by referencing the mapping specified in the TI - Code conversion table datatable.

1.4 Input of the Plugin

The module will need the following input data to compute the Trade Indices numbers :

Table 1.1: Trade Indices Numbers Plugin input elements.
Element Code	Element descriptor	Unit
5610	Import Quantity	tonnes
5622	Import Value	1000 $
5910	Export Quantity	tonnes
5922	Export Value	1000 $

1.5 Output of the plugin

The module will return the time series for all the elements selected in the session. The possible output elements are listed in the table below:

Table 1.2: Trade Indices Numbers Plugin calculated elements.
Element Code	Element descriptor	Unit
64	Import Value Base Period Quantity	1000 $
65	Import Value Base Period Price	1000 $
94	Export Value Base Period Quantity	1000 $
95	Export Value Base Period Price	1000 $
462	Import Value Index (2014-2016 = 100)	index
464	Import Unit/Value Index (2014-2016 = 100)	index
465	Import Quantity Index (2014-2016 = 100)	index
492	Export Value Index (2014-2016 = 100)	index
494	Export Unit/Value Index (2014-2016 = 100)	index
495	Export Quantity Index (2014-2016 = 100)	index