In economic research, much attention is traditionally paid to the issues of trade and economic cooperation between states and the development of international trade. This kind of research is based on the materials of official statistics of countries and international organizations, which are not always published on a comparable basis, making it difficult, and sometimes impossible to do an objective analysis of processes taking place both in bilateral economic relations and in international trade in general. The article deals with this important problem of comparability of statistical sources.Using a large amount of factual and statistical material, the authors trace the changes that have occurred in world trade relations of the 21st century, paying special attention to the post-crisis period, they reveal the main features of the geographical and commodity structure of trade, they present a comparative analysis of the rates of development of world exports and imports by groups of countries, assess Russia's participation in international trade, and also demonstrate the methodological content of the main statistical indicators that are used to characterize foreign economic relations.For many decades, international cooperation in the field of statistics has focused on the problem of unifying information on the foreign economic activity of countries. Solving this problem, the UN Statistical Commission has drawn up methodological documents, which are usually called "international statistical standards". Based on the study of these documents, as well as materials of official statistics of countries and other primary sources, the authors characterize the process of international standardization of information on foreign economic relations of countries. The article presents a critical analysis of the key provisions of the latest methodological standards of statistics, considers the practice of their application in countries, including the Russian Federation, identifies the main achievements and problems in this area.

Введение. Евросоюз был и остается основным торгово-экономическим партнером Российской Федерации, что делает актуальными любые исследования, посвященные накопленному опыту и достижениям этого объединения стран в создании эффективной системы сбора, обработки и анализа данных о внешнеторговых операциях и управления товарными потоками как внутри ЕС, так и с внешними контрагентами.Материалы и методы. Исследование проведено на основе теоретического и эмпирического анализа тематических первоисточников ЕС, международных стандартов по учету товаров и услуг во внешнеэкономической деятельности 1 , и сравнительного анализа сложившейся практики учета и управления товарными потоками в РФ и странах Евросоюза, что позволило авторам дать развернутую оценку действующим в ЕС двум системам статистического учета: Интрастат и Экстрастат и возможности их применения в ЕАЭС.Результаты исследования. Проведенное в данной работе исследование формирования, развития и совершенствования системы статистического учета операций по внешней и взаимной торговле объединения из 28 стран Европы позволяет сделать ряд конкретных выводов, касающихся как особенностей применения международных стандартов статистики ВЭС в практике Евросоюза, так и целесообразности использования методологических рекомендаций Евростата по учету товарных потоков в статистике Евразийского экономического союза, а также оценить основные успехи в этой сфере и раскрыть некоторые нерешенные проблемы, препятствующие созданию единого блока полной и сопоставимой информации о внешнеэкономической деятельности стран.Обсуждение и заключение. Управленческая и статистическая деятельность Европейского союза в настоящее время оказывает наиболее заметное воздействие не только на развитие международной внешнеторговой статистики,

The article analyzes the basic documents of international organizations in recent years, which have become the global standard for the development and improvement of statistics of foreign economic relations of most countries, including the Russian Federation. The article describes the key features of the theory and practice of modern foreign trade statistics in Russia and abroad, with an emphasis on the methodological problems of its main parts - the external trade statistics. It shows their interpretation in the most recent recommendations by UN statistical apparatus and other international organizations; considers a range of problems associated with the implementation of the national statistical practices of countries, including Russia and the countries of the Customs Union, the main international standard of foreign trade statistics - UN document "International Merchandise Trade Statistics". The main attention is paid to methodological issues such as: the criteria for selecting the objects of statistical accounting in accordance with international standards, quantitative and cost parameters of foreign trade statistics, statistical methods and estimates of commodity exports and imports, the problems of comparability of data; to a comparison of international standards in 2010 with documents on key precursor methodology of foreign trade statistics, characterized by the practice of introducing these standards in the foreign trade statistics of Russia and the countries of the Customs Union. The article analyzes the content given in the official statistical manuals of Russia foreign trade and foreign countries, covers the main methodological problems of World Trade in conjunction with the major current international statistical standards - System of National Accounts, Manual on Statistics of International Trade in Services and other documents; provides specific data describing the current structure of Russian foreign trade and especially its position in international trade in goods and services.