KARACHI, Jan 12: The Federal Bureau of Statistics has clarified a news item appeared in Dawn regarding the delay in release of monthly report on trade figures for the month of December 2004.

In a press release issued here on Wednesday, the Federal Bureau of Statistics said: "It is clarified that the monthly trade figures are released by the Federal Bureau of Statistics on the basis of data provided by Pakistan Revenue Automation Ltd (PRAL), a company of the CBR.

Till last month the data pertaining to collectorates of customs at Karachi was provided by PRAL to the FBS on CD, while the data from other collectorates of customs was received directly by the FBS in the form of GD form for each import/export transaction.

"In a meeting held in the CBR on January 4, 2005, it was decided that PRAL would collect the data from all the collectorates of customs all over the country in computerized form and provide data on all Pakistan basis on CD to the FBS on 10th of every month.

On receipt of data by the FBS and completion of necessary tabulation work, the report for December 2004 will be released in a couple of days. "This adjustment in time was in line with the policy of computerization of data.

Once all field offices of the CBR are linked with PRAL by online networking system the time period will be reduced and the monthly trade statistics report will be released with reduced time lag."