L 11214 Official Journal of the European Union 24.4.2008 COMMISSION REGULATION (EC) No 364/2008 of 23 April 2008 implementing Regulation (EC) No 716/2007 of the European Parliament and of the Council, as regards the technical format for the transmission of foreign affiliates statistics and the derogations to be granted to Member States THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, Having regard to Regulation (EC) No 716/2007 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2007 on Community statistics on the structure and activity of foreign affiliates (1), and in particular Article 9(1)(a) and (b) thereof, Whereas: (1) Regulation (EC) No 716/2007 established a common framework  for the systematic production of Community statistics on the structure and activity of foreign affiliates. (2) It is necessary to specify the technical format and the procedure for the transmission of foreign affiliates statistics listed in Annexes I, II and Il to Regulation (EC) No 716/2007 in order to produce data comparable and harmonised between Member States, to reduce the risk of errors in the transmission of data and to increase the speed with which the data collected can be processed and made available to users. Implementing tools should therefore be laid down, supplemented by the instructions contained in the Eurostat Recommendations Manual on the Production of Foreign Affiliates Statistics, as revised regularly. (3) It is also necessary to grant derogations from the provisions of Regulation (EC) No 716/2007 to allow Member States to make the necessary adaptations to their national statistical systems. This relates in particular in the development of new statistical registers and the methods of data collection. The particular problem for outward FATS is that the statistical unit of analysis differs from the reporting unit and is not resident in the Member States. (4)  The measures provided for in this Regulation are in accordance with the opinion of the Statistical Programme Committee, () O] L 171, 29.6.2007, p. 17. HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION: Article 1 The technical format referred to in Article 9(1)(a) of Regulation (EC) No 716/2007 for the common module for inward statistics on foreign affiliates shall be as set out in Annex I to this Regulation. Atrticle 2 Member States shall apply the format referred to in Article 1 for the data concerning the first reference year referred to in Section 4, paragraph 1, of Annex I to Regulation (EC) No 716/2007, and subsequent years. Atrticle 3 The technical format referred to in Article 9(1)(a) of Regulation (EC) No 716/2007 for the common module for outward statistics on foreign affiliates shall be as set out in Annex II to this Regulation. Atrticle 4 Member States shall apply the format referred to in Article 3 for the data concerning the first reference year referred to in Section 4, paragraph 1, of Annex II to Regulation (EC) No 716/2007, and subsequent years. Atrticle 5 The data to be submitted pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 716/2007 shall be transmitted in electronic form from competent national authorities to the Commission (Eurostat). The transmission format shall be in conformity with the inter- change standards specified by the Commission (Eurostat). Data shall be transmitted or uploaded by electronic means to the single entry point for data, maintained by the Commission (Eurostat). Member States shall implement the interchange standards and guidelines supplied by the Commission (Eurostat) according to the requirements of this Regulation.