CARIFORUM and UK EPA Study

To the extent that data could be separately identified for these sectors this Study will address these directly.

2.4 Data Sources and Classification

Though there were critical gaps in the data, and particularly so for trade in services data, the level of consistency, reporting, and analytical presentation of data among published sources have improved considerably since 2008. A range of available data sources were relied upon to answer the specific research questions posed by the ToR. In settling on the relevant data set to utilise, issues such as the consistency of the data in the relevant database, missing data, as well as disaggregation were taken into account. For bilateral trade data the priority was on use of the ONS database. As indicated by the ONS other international databases such as UN Comtrade, International Trade Centre (ITC), World Bank, EUROSTAT and the WTO also provide suitable alternatives, these are utilised throughout the report. 5

3. DATA ANALYSIS, METHODS AND ANALYTICAL TOOLS

The corner stone of the Study is the critical analysis undertaken of the available trade data and relevant trends over the period of analysis (PoA). The study relied on both trends analysis of selected data as well as empirical analysis using specific modelling techniques. The latter is more fully described in Appendix III and IV.

5 It is noted however, that there are statistical discrepancies, in particular group totals sometimes differ from reported totals.

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