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measured in terms of the weight of goods shipped. Tramp services are defined as bulk and tanker services. Data is annual, and can be purchased from USDOT.

# _-_ _<u>International Monetary Fund (IMF) International Finance Statistics (IFS)</u>_

International Financial Statistics is a standard source of international statistics on all aspects of international and domestic finance. It reports, for most countries of the world, current data needed in the analysis of problems of international payments and of inflation and deflation, i.e., data on exchange rates, international liquidity, international banking, money and banking, interest rates, prices, production, international transactions, government accounts, and national accounts.

The IFS database contains time series data from 1948. The browser software provides an interface for browsing the database, selecting series of interest, displaying the selected series in a spreadsheet format, and saving the selected series for transfer to other software systems, such as Microsoft Excel.

The IFS database contains approximately 32,000 time series covering more than 200 countries and areas and includes all series appearing on the IFS Country Pages; exchange rate series for all Fund member countries, plus Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles; major Fund accounts series; and most other world, area, and country series from the IFS World Tables. The Country, World, and Commodity Prices Tables, as presented in the monthly printed copy of IFS, are available as selection options. The Economic Concept View provides a cross-country view of the concepts in the IFS by individual or groups of countries.

IFS includes the ratio of CIF to FOB, but no breakdown is available for individual commodities – the measure is an aggregate over all commodity types imported. The CIF/FOB comparison is a simple representation of transaction costs, as it covers total imports of each reporting country. The CIF (cost, insurance, freight) price measures the cost of the imported good at the point of entry into the importing country, inclusive of costs of transport, insurance, handling and shipping costs (but excluding customs charges). The FOB (free on board) price measures costs at the point of shipment by the exporter when the good is loaded on to a carrier for transport. This measure understates true door-to-door shipping costs as it only accounts for the international segment of transport. There are also questions concerning the quality of this data. The US customs also provides breakdown by country and commodities.

# _<u>UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Review of Maritime Transport</u>_

Published since 1968, the review reports on the worldwide evolution of shipping, ports and multi-modal transport related to the major traffics of liquid bulk, dry bulk and containers. It provides data on maritime transport movements globally, world fleet productivity, trade and transport efficiency (rephrase). Total freight costs for imports in world trade are a useful indicator. High freight costs are like an implicit tariff affecting the competitiveness of a country, reducing its ability to compete in the market.

_<u>World Trade Organization (WTO) Questionnaire on Maritime Transport Services</u>_ 29 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________