Q: What is 2nd partner?

A: The 2nd partner is country of consignment.

The country of consignment (in the case of imports) is the country from which goods were dispatched to the importing country, without any commercial transactions or other operations that change the legal status of the goods taking place in any intermediate country. If, before arriving in the importing country, goods enter one or more further countries and are subject to such transactions or operations, that last intermediate country where such transactions or operations took place should be taken as the country of consignment.

The country of consignment (in the case of exports) is the country to which goods are dispatched by the exporting country, without—as far as it is known at the time of exportation—being subject to any commercial transactions or other operations that change the legal status of the goods taking place in any intermediate country. If there are several intermediate countries, then the first intermediate country after leaving the exporting country should be recorded as country of consignment or destination.

Q: I am reaching out with a question regarding the trade data on your website for the import and export of cut flowers (code 0603) and plants (code 0604). The data includes the following columns for each category: Partners and 2nd Partners. Could you please clarify the difference between these two columns? Specifically, if we want to identify the top import suppliers from Country A, which column should we focus on?

A: Kindly refer to International Merchandise Trade Statistics Concepts and Definitions 2010:

“Although no single method of attributing partner country is ideal, attri[1]bution by origin for imports meets what is considered to be a priority application of international merchandise trade statistics, namely, matters of trade policy and related economic analysis. Consequently, it is recommended that: (a) In the case of imports, the country of origin be recorded; (b) In the case of exports, the country of last known destination be recorded. 6.26. Country of consignment. Since the partner data compiled on the basis of the country of origin (for imports) and the country of last known destination (for exports) are very often not comparable and in view of the needs for internationally comparable partner data for analytical purposes as well as for trade data reconciliation studies, it is recommended that country of consignment be recorded for imports as the second partner country attribution, alongside country of origin. Considering, in the case of exports, that countries often do not differentiate the country of last known destination and the country of consignment and that their separate recording could create a significant additional data-reporting and data-processing burden, the compilation of export statistics on the country of consignment basis is only encouraged, depending on a country’s needs and circumstances. It is recognized that the compilation of country of con[1]signment for exports may be considered by some countries as a longer-term objective. “

You might want to focus on Partners for top suppliers of imports.