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This release is issued jointly with the Bureau of Census and is made available on both the Census and the BEA Web sites.

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                       U.S. Census Bureau
                U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis
                              NEWS
      U.S. Department of Commerce  Washington, D.C. 20230


                     

CB05-82
BEA05-26
FT-900 (05-04)

For information on goods contact:
U.S. Census Bureau:
Nick Orsini    (301) 763-6959
Vanessa Ware   (301) 763-2311

For information on services contact:
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis:
Technical: Christopher Bach   (202) 606-9545
Media:     Ralph Stewart      (202) 606-9690

         U.S. INTERNATIONAL TRADE IN GOODS AND SERVICES

                    Annual Revision for 2004


                             NOTICE

In this release and the accompanying "U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services:
April 2005", 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 2002-2004 and the first
three months of 2005 and revised data on services for 1992-2004 and the first three
months of 2005.

Goods

The 2004 not seasonally adjusted Census-basis goods data were revised to eliminate
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
adjustments and trading day adjustments were recomputed and the seasonally adjusted
current-dollar series were revised for 2002-2004 and the first three months of 2005.
Similar changes were made to the chain-weighted dollar series.

Services

The services estimates were revised for 1992-2004 and the first three months of 2005.
The revisions resulted from the incorporation of results from BEA's annual and quarterly
surveys and from other newly available and updated source data.  Revisions from these
sources have an impact mostly on receipts and payments for 2002-2004 and the first
three months of 2005.

Beginning with 2004, estimates of major types of other private services transactions
are based on quarterly rather than annual BEA surveys.  BEA has instituted a program of
quarterly surveys to better capture movements of large and volatile categories of
transactions, as well as to improve the coverage of transactions.  In addition, estimates
of medical services payments, a component of other private services, are introduced for
1992-2004 and the first three months of 2005.