Q. I am trying to understand the country coverage and would appreciate your clarifications on the following:

1. You do not report data for France (250) or for Italy (380), right?
2. Is country code 251 only France and Monaco or also these other areas: French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Reunion?
3. Do you report data for Chad (148) and for Equatorial Guinea (226)?
4. Does Comtrade data for “Italy Including San Marino and the Holy See” include exports and imports between these three areas? Does the same rule apply to other cases such as France 251?

A: See responses below:

1. For France, UN Comtrade does not use code 250 since this refers to the geographical area of France. The trade data covers the customs areas of France.  For Italy, code 380 is now used.  Code 381 was ITA+Monaco+San Marino, and code 380 was only ITA. There was a mistake in the old Comtrade that trade area of Italy included Monaco and San Marino, and it was incorrect. Therefore, it is now coded as code 380 in both reporter and partner.
2. For Chad, the latest data available in UN Comtrade refer to the year 1995. Data from 1976 to 1994 are also missing. Please refer to data availability. For Equatorial Guinea, there are no data at all available in UN Comtrade.
3. The overseas departments of French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Reunion belong to France, and trade of these departments has been included in France since 1996. Country code 251 refers to the Customs area of France, including the overseas departments, and Monaco.
4. No, the intra-customs trade between Italy and San Marino is excluded from the external trade of the customs area. The same rule applies to other customs areas like France-Monaco.

The following table shows the different reporter codes based on the statistical territory used for merchandise trade statistics in comparison to the one used for other (economic) statistics: