What is Intrastat Declarations and is it importance?

Intrastat is the system for collecting statistical data on the trade with between member states of European Union. When a country becomes a member of EU and part of the single Market, the customs control over the goods movement between this country and other Member States disappears, so that the traders will no longer be obliged to fill in customs declaration for these goods. There are two types of intrastat electronic and paper declaration. Intrastat declaration can be used to get valuable information from the foreign trade with other EU countries.

In Finland customs collect the statistical data for both external trade and internal trade. The importers and exporters every month deliver the data of their internal trade to customs. And then the customs receives and checks the data and uses the extrenal and internal trade data to produce the offical Finnish foreign trade statistics. Those are sent monthly to Eurostat (the statistical office for the EU).

The complilation of statistics on international trade it's based on the settings. It's laid by the EU and so it forces all member states as staturory provision. Mainly the submmited data is used for the compilation for foreign trade satistics but it can also be used accounts and statistical investigation. It can aslo be combined with other administrative material for such as business registerfor the above purposes.