Corrections to the Overseas Trade in Goods Statistics (OTS)

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Corrections to the Overseas Trade in Goods Statistics (OTS) are being published on Monday 12 December 2022.

Today we are announcing corrections to the Overseas Trade in Goods Statistics (OTS) that will be published in the October 2022 publication released on Monday 12 December 2022.

Certain import Customs declarations, for goods removed from Customs warehouses into UK free circulation were excluded from the OTS. The issue was found during regular quality assurance checks of Customs declaration data. 

This affects UK imports from January 2021 to September 2022.  
 
The January 2022 to September 2022 data is currently provisional, so open to revisions, and we are re-opening 2021 to apply these corrections within the dataset released in December. 
 
The correction revises the monthly UK import trade figures upwards, by approximately 1.5% in most months of 2022, and approximately 0.05% for most months of 2021. 

These corrections affect UK imports within the following HS2 chapters: 

  • 03 - Fish and shellfish
  • 16 - Preparations of meat or fish
  • 27 - Mineral Fuels
  • 39 - Plastics and plastic products
  • 42 - Leather goods
  • 48 - Paper
  • 49 - Books and newspapers
  • 63 - Other textile goods
  • 73 - Articles of iron or steel
  • 76 - Aluminium and articles thereof
  • 84 - Nuclear reactors, boilers, machinery and mechanical appliances; parts thereof
  • 85 - Electrical machinery and equipment and parts thereof
  • 87 - Motor vehicles
  • 90 - Measuring devices and gauges

Note:
The corrections include HS Chapter 27 - Mineral Fuels which was excluded from the pre-announcement.

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