News Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AT 8:30 A.M. EDT, TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 2008
CB08-88 BEA08-26 FT-900 (08-04)

U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services: Annual Revision for 2007

U.S. Census Bureau
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis
NEWS
U.S. Department of Commerce * Washington, D.C. 20230
Annual Revision for 2007
  
		
		                               NOTICE

In this release and the accompanying U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services: April
2008, the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) are jointly
publishing revised data on U.S. trade in goods for 2005-2007 and the first three months
of 2008 and revised data on services for 2004-2007 and the first three months of 2008.

Goods

The 2007 not seasonally adjusted Census-basis goods data were revised to redistribute monthly
data that arrived too late for inclusion in the month of transaction but that were included,
initially, in the month in which the data were received.  In addition, corrections were
made to previously published data.  Once the redistributions of data to the proper month
of transaction and corrections were completed, factors for seasonal adjustment and trading
day adjustments were recomputed and the seasonally adjusted current-dollar series were revised
for 2005-2007 and the first three months of 2008.  Similar changes were made to the chain-
weighted dollar series.  Also, the balance of payments adjustments to the Census-basis data have
been revised to incorporate updated source data.

Services

The services estimates were revised for 2004-2007 and the first three months of 2008.  The revisions
resulted largely from incorporation of results from BEAs benchmark survey of U.S. direct investment
abroad for 2004 and its quarterly surveys of direct investment abroad for 2005, as well as from its
quarterly surveys of foreign direct investment in the United States for 2005, from BEAs benchmark
survey of selected international services for 2006, and from BEAs quarterly surveys of selected
international services beginning in the first quarter of 2007.  Revisions from these sources have an
impact mostly on receipts and payments for 2006-2007.  The revisions to services receipts are
larger than the revisions to services payments.  Most of the revisions are to royalties and license
fees and to other private services.  The revisions result from recent BEA initiatives to better
capture movements of large and volatile categories of transactions, as well as to improve the
coverage of transactions.