INTERNATIONAL CHEMICAL STATISTICS—HISTORICAL BACKGROUND AND CURRENT PROBLEMS Available to Purchase

May I start by saying how happy OECD is to have been asked to take part in this meeting on documentation for the chemical industry. One of the many problems of the international civil servant is the lack of contact with the persons who use our publications in their daily work. As you know, OECD's regular publications on the chemical industry are limited in fact to an annual report which we, of course, consider serves a useful purpose. We sometimes wonder, however, how far it meets the reader's requirements. In order to find this out, we enclosed an enquiry card in our 1965/66 report and, while we had a fairly good response, we gained the impression that readers wished us to expand the statistical coverage without giving us any clear indication as to those parts of the report which they considered satisfactory and those which were rather weak. We have our own views on this subject but realize that opinions formed in the isolation of an office in Paris may not always be valid. It would, therefore, be useful to have confirmation of our views on those chapters which need expanding and of our impression that other parts of the report could be condensed.