WRITTEN QUESTION E-2497/03 by Christopher Huhne (ELDR) to the Commission. Foreign direct investment.
Date: 2003-07-25
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: EU statistics, Eurostat, OECD, direct investment, economic statistics, foreign investment, international statistics, national statistics, statistical method

C 78 E/120

Official Journal of the European Union

EN

27.3.2004

There are many reasons that explain a slightly higher consumer price in the Union for some food
products:

(cid:1) Requirements of Union consumers concerning diversity,

freshness, quality and food safety are

extremely high,

(cid:1) Union food producers face higher wage, social and energy costs than most of their competitors,

(cid:1) The prices paid by consumers also reflect the slightly higher prices of agricultural products paid to
farmers in the Union, which are mainly linked to the specific economic, social, structural and
environmental conditions faced by Union farmers.

However, all these considerations are based on the assumption that world prices would not substantially
increase following a full liberalisation of agricultural trade, which is totally unrealistic. In addition, it should
be stressed that the basic agricultural products only represent some 20 % of the value of the food products
purchased by the consumers.

(2004/C 78 E/0121)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2497/03

by Christopher Huhne (ELDR) to the Commission

(25 July 2003)

Subject: Foreign direct investment

Will the Commission list the different figures produced by different international organisations (such as
Eurostat and also the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) and Member States for
foreign direct investment, and will it clarify any differences in definitions that might lead to discrepancies
in the figures?

Answer given by Mr Solbes Mira on behalf of the Commission

(12 September 2003)

Section 1 (of the annexes sent direct to the Honourable Member and to Parliament’s Secretariat) provides a
comparison between FDI data published by Eurostat and by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation
(OECD). Section 2 (of the annexes sent direct to the Honourable Member and to Parliament’s Secretariat)
provides the same comparison for the European Central Bank (ECB). Section 3 is about national data
published by the Member States. A summary of Eurostat data collection process for FDI is also included
(particularly in section 1), showing the links and differences with data collections of the OECD and of the
ECB.

Main conclusions are as follows:

(cid:1) there are no methodological differences between Eurostat and the OECD with respect to FDI data.
Existing differences in data published for the EU15 Member States (1995-2002 is the period
considered) are of limited impact on total numbers. Differences are due either to rounding (exchange
rate effect, data in billions or in millions), or to temporary differences in timing of data revisions for
latest years. Maximum total difference 2 % (Table 2);

(cid:1) there is one methodological difference of a certain importance, concerning the Netherlands, between
the data published by Eurostat and the ECB for the Eurozone. Eurostat and the ECB are working
actively with the Netherlands to eliminate this difference during the course of next year 2004;

(cid:1) Member States also apply the international methodological definitions in their data collection on
which are based the data collected by Eurostat, the OECD and the ECB. Concerning the publication of
data, some temporary differences may exist due to differences in timing of data revisions for latest
years.

Please find the development of these conclusions in Annex A supported by tables 1, 2 and 3 that are sent
direct to the Honourable Member and to Parliament’s Secretariat