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Mapping Country-Specific Commodity Lists to International Standards

On March 30 2007, the FAO submitted an official proposal to the World Customs Organization (WCO) to modify the Harmonized System (HS) to incorporate food security and agriculture statistics.

Proposed changes to the Harmonized System

The proposal aims at changing the HS to make it more relevant for classifying food security and agriculture data. Indeed, the changes proposed are so pertinent that the WCO has decided to waive the standard criteria for accepting changes to the original HS classification. If accepted, the proposed revisions will allow for better mapping between country-specific commodity classifications and the HS. This will result in:

	better standardization for clearer and more widely accepted product definitions; and
	improved data availability and comparability through easier access to national and international databases.

The changes proposed will also make it easier to share data and conduct analysis that accounts for country-specific products.

A series of dialogues

This proposal results from a series of dialogues between a team from the Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS) Workstation and the World Customs Organization (WCO) on the advantages of expanding the Harmonized System to include food security related data. The GIEWS Workstation team coordinated the development of the proposal with inputs from FAO's Statistics division and the Fisheries, Forestry, and Agriculture departments.

Next Steps

The FAO and the WCO will meet in May 2007 to discuss the potential amendments to the HS. Furthermore, a representative from FAO will attend the first session of the Review-Sub Committee to explain the relevance and objectives of the proposed changes.

What is the Harmonized System? (HS): "The Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System is an international product nomenclature developed by the World Customs Organization (WCO). It comprises about 5,000 commodity groups, each identified by a six digit code, arranged in a legal and logical structure and is supported by well-defined rules to achieve uniform classification. 190 countries and economies use the HS as the basis for their Customs tariffs and for collecting international trade statistics. Over 98 % of the merchandise in international trade is classified in terms of the HS." source: World Customs Union

Why Use the HS for Classifying Food Security Data and Agriculture Statistics? 1. The HS is the most widely accepted international product classification standard. It is currently used by more than 200 countries and several international organizations such as the WB, WTO, UNCTAD, UNIDO, OECD, etc. 2. The HS is the basis for other international classifications such as SITC and CPC. HS headings and sub-headings provide the building blocks for more aggregated product classifications 3. It is a well-maintained system which is revised every five years. Updates are carried out through a consensus building approach that requires the involvement and agreement of all contracting parties.