About WITS HS Combined Nomenclature

The HS Combined is WITS internal nomenclature used for product selection only when dealing with tariff data in Advanced Query or WITS Analytical Tools.

HS Combined combines all revisions of HS.As a country reports its tariff scheduled for a given year in only one revision (HS88/92 (H0), HS96 (H1) or HS2002 (H2)),combining these different revisionsenables users to choose products without having to know in which nomenclature a particular country reports in a particular year. One selects products in HS combined and WITS returns results in the native HS version.

HS Combined structure with Heading 0101 expanded

The three HS versions share the same structure at the Chapter (2-digit) and Heading (4-digit) levels. However, differences occur in some headings at the (6-digit level) level: through revisions, some 6-digit codes were added, removed or replaced.

Since HS Combined brings together the structures of the 3 HS versions, HS Combined includes additional information in order to identify the HS version of each 6-digit product category. This information is located between the product 6-digit code and its label.

For example, in the previous screenshot, (2002-) located after 010110 (product code) means this product is included in HS 2002 but not in HS 1988-92 or HS 1996. This code can be red as “included from 2002?.

The (-2001) code in the case of 010111 means that product code was used until 2001, that is in both HS 1988-92 and HS 1996 but not in HS 2002.

The following codes are used:

Code		Meaning
		Empty code (no year information) means the considered product code is used by all HS versions.
(-1995)		Product code used until 1995, i.e. in HS 1988/92.
(-2001)		Product code used until 2001, i.e. in HS 1988/92 and HS 1996.
(1996-)		Product code used since 1996, i.e. in HS 1996 and HS 2002.
(1996-2001)		Product code used between 1996 and 2001, i.e. in HS 1996 only.
(2002-)		Product code introduced in HS 2002

Consequences of HS combined on product selection and results

• For any item selection at HS 2-digit or 4-digit, any cluster or pre-defined aggregate selection, usage of HS Combined is transparent and produces results based on the native HS version used by each reporter.
• A given 6-digit level product may correspond to different product codes in the various HS versions. Therefore, if dealing with several reporters (possibly reporting in different HS versions) or several years (a same country may report in different HS versions from year to year) make sure the selected code is common to all HS versions, or select all codes corresponding to the chosen product. For example, if one wants to retrieve all occurrences of the product corresponding to 010190 in HS2, one must also select 010120 (its equivalent in HS0 and HS1). WITS will return results for 010190 or 010120 depending on the HS version used by each reporter. Available Product Concordances in Help and Information (see Checking Product Concordances) provides with all concordances at the 6-digit level.

---

WITS Online Help

The World Bank, 2010