6.1.1 In India, Trade Statistics are obtained as a by-product of administrative activity. In the case of External Trade, there are three stages of administrative activity namely, licensing, actual shipment and arrival of goods, and the receipt and remittance of payments. The Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) is responsible for licensing statistics; the Director General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCI&S) for the balance of trade statistics and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for the balance of payment statistics. The merchandise trade statistics disseminated by the DGCI&S captures the movement of goods across the customs frontier of the country and are based on the Daily Trade Return (DTR) generated at the various custom houses. On the other hand, the External Trade data in the standard format of balance of payments (BoP) statistics is prepared by the RBI and has been dealt with in the chapter on Financial and External Sector Statistics. The present chapter discusses issues relating to improvement in the existing system of DGCI&S External and Internal Trade, generation of data on exports by State of Origin, index numbers of foreign trade and harmonisation of codes used by various organisations dealing with product-level data.
