01277nam a2200109   4500100001100000245007700011260007500088300000800163520090400171650002301075856006901098  aUNCTAD  aUNCTAD Welcomes Discussion, Transparency on Commodities and Misinvoicing  aSwitzerlandbUnited Nations Conference on Trade and Development c2016  a4p.  aThis is a response by UNCTAD  on the ongoing debate on the accuracy of the report it produced that stated  that South Africa lost billions in gold smuggling.UNCTAD welcomes comments on its commodities paper. The paper used a standard methodology and publicly available (Comtrade) data to look at the mismatches between import and export figures on a range of commodities exported from five natural-resource-rich countries over periods of about 20 years. In doing so, it identified clear and consistent patterns of misinvoicing, a term we use without attributing blame or making any specific accusations. Trade misinvoicing has been generating more and more attention in the research and policy communities, linked mainly to debates on illicit financial flows. Trade misinvoicing continues to be used as a key mechanism of capital flight and illicit financial flows (IFFs) from developing countries.   aTrade Misinvoicing  uiffoadatabase.trustafrica.org/iff/UNCTAD welcomes discussion.pdf