Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council concerning the Implementation of the Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) N° 58/97
Date: 2004-04-13
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: EU statistics, branch of activity, business policy, company structure, competitiveness, economic statistics, national implementing measure, report

COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES 

Brussels, 13.4.2004 
COM(2004) 249 final 

REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION 
TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL 

concerning the Implementation of the Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) N° 58/97 

EN 

   EN 

 
 
 
  
  
  
REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION 
TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL 

concerning the Implementation of the Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) N° 58/97 

Summary and Recommendations 

This report covers the implementation of Council Regulation No 58/97 (hereafter referred to 
as “the SBS Regulation”) and Council Regulation No 410/98 that has subsequently amended 
it. This report has been prepared under the provisions of Article 14 (1) of the SBS Regulation: 
“The Commission shall, within three years of the date of entry into force of this Regulation 
and again every three years thereafter, submit a report to the European Parliament and the 
Council  on  the  statistics  compiled  pursuant  to  this  Regulation  and  in  particular  on  their 
quality and the burden on business.”1 

More generally, the report aims to provide information about the manner and extent to which 
each of the Member States have implemented the SBS Regulation as well as to report on the 
actions  undertaken  by  the  Commission  to  work  towards  the  aim  of  producing  comparable 
European structural business statistics. 

The report is structured into four parts followed by a number of reference annexes. These are 
preceded  by  main  diagnosis  and  conclusions:  they  provide  a  brief  summary  of  the  state  of 
implementation in the Member States, followed by certain recommendations. Then part one 
looks  at  the  actions  taken  to  implement  the  SBS  Regulation.  The  second  part  looks  at  the 
statistics resulting from the implementation. The third part looks at issues related to cost and 
burden  related  to  the  collection  of  SBS  data.  The  fourth  part  looks  to  the  future  at  the  way 
Structural Business Statistics may move forward. 

The  annexes  provide  more  detailed  information  relating  to  points  raised  in  the  report.  They 
also  provide  information  on  SBS  data  availability  in  credit  institutions  and  pension  funds 
(Annex  7)  that  are  not  covered  fully  by  the  SBS  Regulation,  and  at  the  availability  of  SBS 
data in Candidate countries (Annex 8). 

Meeting the objective2 of the SBS regulation  

The  framework  for  the  production  of  SBS  sets  a  number  of  targets  (in  terms  of  data 
availability,  coverage,  freshness  of  data,  etc.).  It  is  by  them  that  the  effectiveness  of  the 
implementation of the SBS regulation must be judged. The analysis is based on the situation 
at  the  end  of  2002,  immediately  systematic  comparisons  between  reference  years  1996  and 
2000 became available. 

1 

2 

to 

that  provisions  a  first  report  was  communicated 

According 
(COM(2000) 719 final)  
The objective of the SBS regulation according its first Article is "to establish a common framework for 
the  collection,  compilation,  transmission  and  evaluation  of  Community  statistics  on  the  structure, 
activity, competitiveness and performance of businesses in the Community". 

the  10  November,  2000 

2 

 
 
  
 
                                                 
Regulatory  evolutions:  the  SBS  regulation  and  related  legislation  are  described  in  Part  I. 
Since  the  adoption  of  Regulation  No  58/97  and  its  implementation  modules,  three  major 
regulatory developments have followed.  

1) a first amendment was adopted by the Council and the European Parliament and published 
on 21 February 1998. It added a fifth annex concerning a framework for structural business 
statistics for life and non-life insurance activities starting with the 1996 reference period. 

2) an adaptation process was implemented in 2001 using the Comitology procedure. It aimed 
at  reducing  or  at  least  containing  the  statistical  burden  by  removing  less  useful  parts  of  the 
requirements, offering room for new investigations or developments of the SBS Regulation in 
the future; this amendment was adopted on 6 September 2002; the impact of this adaptation is 
analysed in Chapter 3.1. 

3)  a  second  amendment  was  adopted  by  the  Council  and  the  European  Parliament  and 
published  on  21  November  2002.  This  amendment  essentially  added  two  new  annexes 
concerning credit institutions and pension funds, and two variables related to expenditure on 
environmental protection. The progress made within this framework is addressed in Annex 7. 

Data  Availability:  the  major  result  is  that  between  the  two  reference  years  there  was  a 
dramatic improvement  in the  volume  of  data available. On average the availability ratio for 
sixteen  countries  and  for  the  main  series  has  increased  from  54 %  to  82 %3.  All  countries 
have made implementation efforts (an overview of efforts made since reference year 1997 is 
presented  in  Chapter  1.3)  and  have  seen  an  overall  improvement  in  their  position  in  both 
industrial  and  services  sectors.  However  efforts  remain  still  to  be  made  in  some  specific 
countries and globally in some specific sectors (the insurance and the construction sectors). 

Confidentiality: this remains a concern for EU business statistics: data dissemination for the 
EU  as  a  whole  is  limited  by  problems  of  statistical  confidentiality.  However  good  progress 
has  been  made  in  this  area  compared  to  the  situation  described  in  the  first  report.  First  the 
harmonisation  of  national  confidentiality  rules  has  improved.  Secondly,  IT  investments  in 
tools for the automatic treatment of confidentiality have been made with the co-operation of 
National  Statistical  Institutes.  At  least  setting  up  a  new  estimation  strategy  has  made  it 
feasible to increase substantially the number of aggregates disseminated at EU level. A table 
in Chapter 2.2 illustrates the extent to which confidentiality reduces data availability. 

Timeliness:  a  second  major  result  is  that  there  has  been  a  noticeable  improvement  in 
timeliness. Based on data actually transmitted, the average delay after the deadline4 fell from 
more  than  5  months  for  reference  year  1996  to  1.5  months  for  reference  year  2000.  These 
results, which depend neither on the sector nor on the country, are due to the changes brought 
in several countries setting up new survey systems or carrying out major changes to existing 
systems during the transitional period (1995-1999). 

Evaluation  of  quality:  Commission  Regulation  (EC)  No  1618/1999  of  23  July  1999 
concerning  the  criteria  for  the  evaluation  of  quality  of  structural  business  statistics  required 
Member  States  to  provide,  annually,  within  a  period  of  24  months  from  the  end  of  the 
reference  year,  information  relating  to  the  accuracy  of  data.  This  regulation  has  been  fully 
implemented  as  from  reference  year  1999.  In  the  1999  reports  all  Member  States  provided 

3 
4 

The annual "enterprise" series for 15 Member states and Norway  
18 months for the series under review, except in the insurance sector (10 months). 

3 

 
 
  
 
                                                 
information  for  each  of  the  points  required  except  a  few  cases  concerning  the  item  “non-
response”.  Although  Luxembourg  and  Ireland  are  regarded  as  being  exempt  from  the 
provisions of the Commission Regulation on the grounds of their size, they have voluntarily 
provided Eurostat with information on the organisation of their survey systems. Eurostat has 
made  an  analysis  of  the  information  provided  on  the  coefficients  of  variation  in  order  to 
compile an overall figure for the EU. Some results of this analysis are provided in Annex 4. 

Assessment of burden: progress is still being made only slowly on the assessment of response 
burden as very few Member States regularly collect such information. Work to assess burden 
across the EU has underlined the difficulties of providing a relevant quantitative assessment 
for  the  Union;  the  most  important  difficulty  being  how  an  estimate  of  burden  can  be 
connected  to  information  on  the  availability  and  quality  of  the  statistical  information 
compiled  and  disseminated.  However,  Part  III  of  the  Report  proposes  both  quantitative  and 
qualitative elements for this assessment. As a major result, the Member States are continuing 
their efforts to limit or reduce the statistical burden on companies. An overview of qualitative 
contributions to that goal is given in Chapter 3.2. The quantitative results of these efforts may 
be measured especially in the case of small and medium enterprises, whose relative statistical 
burden decreased between 1995 and 2000 and even after 2000 (see Chapter 3.3). 

Users'  needs  and  SBS  developments:  users'  needs  for  structural  business  statistics  have 
continued  to  grow  and  diversify.  Chapter  2.1  gives  an  overview  of  the  main  categories  of 
users  (Community  policies,  business  and  business  associations,  research  bodies).  The  first 
main  concerns  of  these  users  have  already  been  discussed  (availability,  freshness).  Another 
feature of European statistics is that they must be comparable. Efforts have been made in that 
direction through regulatory measures (harmonisation of concepts and definitions). However, 
work  remains  to  be  done  from  the  methodological  point  of  view  (using  harmonised 
classifications  rules,  using  the  statistical  units,  pending  issues  about  thresholds  and 
interpretation  of  definitions).  The  second  main  concern  of  users  is  the  relevance  of  the 
statistical offer. In the SBS area a rolling development programme has been set up through a 
permanent  "statistical  watch"  ;  the  programme  for  the  years  2003  to  2005  is  presented  in 
Chapter  4.2.  In  the  following  years  the  SBS  will  bring  a  strong  contribution  to  the 
development of the statistics on services (see the "services strategy"). 

The  general  extension  of  the  SBS  to  the  Acceding  Countries  (and  more  generally  to  the 
Candidate  Countries)  should  also  be  mentioned  here.  The  current  development  of  SBS  in 
these countries bears comparison with most of the Member States. Their progress is described 
in Annex 8. 

Conclusions and recommendations 

General  assessment  of  the  implementation  of  the  SBS-R  Since  the  adoption  of  the  SBS 
Regulation most of the Member States and Norway have made great progress in making high 
quality  data  available  to  users  of  European  SBS  data.  Most  of  the  Member  States  achieved 
this  progress  during  the  transition  period.  Many  of  those  that  did  not,  for  whatever  reason, 
complete  the  task  during  this  period  have  continued  their  efforts  in  1999  and  2000  and 
recorded progress bringing them closer to a full implementation. 

Significant problems remain in two countries. 

In Ireland thresholds need to be removed in industry and construction. Although there have 
been recent improvements, delays are not significantly better in 2000 than they were in 1996. 

4 

 
 
  
 
The poor availability of Greek data is the largest single problem in the implementation of the 
Regulation. What data is available is limited in activity coverage, not comparable with other 
countries because of a size threshold excluding small enterprises, and arrives late. 

Turning attention to the remaining countries the following areas have been noted where final 
improvements are needed. 

— Belgium needs to make further progress on the timeliness of regional data. 

— Germany  needs  to  make  further  progress  on  the  timeliness  of  data  for  the  distribution 
sector in general and for size-class data and regional data for services. The surveys in services 
are new and this may explain the delays currently experienced. 

— Spain needs to make further progress on the timeliness of data for the construction sector. 

— Sweden needs to produce regional construction data. 

— Norway needs to make further progress on the timeliness of data for the distribution sector. 

Actions  and  recommendations5  The  Commission  will  continue  to  work  with  national 
statistical authorities to review the requirements under the SBS Regulation paying attention to 
changing user needs and the burden on the business community. In particular: 

— Eurostat will set up a reporting system that will be regularly updated. This will show the 
current  state  of  implementation  and  allow  both  the  main  implementation  problems  and  the 
details to be clearly identified in order that they can be followed-up more effectively. It will 
be discussed at Business Directors meetings and in the SBS Steering Group meetings.  

— In order to maintain the rhythm of progress in SBS area, the Commission will continue to 
work with National Statistical Offices to ensure a full implementation of the SBS Regulation 
where this has not yet been achieved, with particular attention to those Member States where 
major changes in data collection practices appear necessary and to Acceding countries. 

— Based on the regular reporting procedure proposed to follow-up implementation, Eurostat 
and the Member States will develop and implement a quality programme in which quality will 
be measured and quality problems will be addressed. 

— Eurostat  will  continue  efforts  to  make  data  available  more  rapidly  by  improving  data 
treatment  procedures.  It  will  set  up  procedures  to  ensure  that  all  available  data  are 
disseminated, notably by means of a regular audit comparing the volume of data transmitted 
by  Member  States  with  the  volume  of  data  made  available  to  users  through  Eurostat's 
reference data base (NewCronos). 

— the  Commission  will  work  with  national  statistical  authorities  to  implement  the  services 
strategy presented to the SPC in September 2002; 

5 

The  Community  statistical  programme  2003  to  2007  (Decision  No  2367/2002/EC  of  the  European 
Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2002) foresees in its title XVI amongst others that work 
will  progress  in  the  following  areas:  improve  the  system  for  developing  structural  business  statistics, 
based on political needs and with a capacity of quick reaction to changing factors such as environment, 
policies  and  users;  focus  on  the  quality  assessment  and  improvement  of  the  data  produced.  Some  of 
these actions will have to be carried out through regulatory procedures (see also 4.3.1). 

5 

 
 
  
 
                                                 
— the Commission will launch a second round of consultations on the possibility of adapting 
parts  of  the  SBS  Regulation  that  were  not  considered  in  the  first  round  of  adaptations 
completed in September 2002. 

6 

 
 
  
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PART I 

1.1 

1.2 

1.3 

1.4 

2.1 

2.2 

2.3 

2.4 

2.5 

2.6 

3.1 

3.2 

3.3 

4.1 

4.2 

4.3 

Implementation of the SBS Regulation 

The SBS Regulation and related legislation ................................................................ 8 

Eurostat's implementation of the SBS Regulation ..................................................... 11 

Implementation of the SBS Regulation in the Member States .................................. 12 

Other aspects of implementation................................................................................ 18 

PART II 

Structural Business Statistics 

Quality of SBS data: relevance and completeness..................................................... 20 

Quality of SBS data: availability ............................................................................... 24 

Quality of SBS data: timeliness ................................................................................. 27 

Quality of SBS data: accuracy ................................................................................... 30 

Quality of SBS data: comparability ........................................................................... 31 

Future work on quality............................................................................................... 32 

PART III 

Costs and statistical burden 

Impact of the adaptation process................................................................................ 33 

Some ways to limit the statistical burden................................................................... 34 

A summary indicator of the evolution of the statistical burden................................. 37 

PART IV 
Development of Structural Business Statistics 

Review of the pilot studies and similar work on missing definitions ........................ 39 

Integration of pilot studies in the rolling development programme........................... 42 

Continuing the progress towards better services statistics – a strategy for services 
statistics...................................................................................................................... 43 

ANNEXES 
Annexes 1 to 10........................................................................................................................ 46 

7 

 
 
  
 
PART I 

1. 

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SBS REGULATION 

1.1. 

The SBS Regulation and related legislation 

1.1.1.  Background to the SBS Regulation 

1.1.1.1.  Problems with structural business statistics at the end of the 1980s 

Prior  to  the  adoption  of  the  SBS  Regulation,  harmonised  European  structural  business 
statistics  had  only  been  available  for  a  limited  part  of  the  business  community,  namely  the 
traditional  industrial  sectors  of  energy  and  water  supply  and  extraction,  manufacturing  and 
construction. The statistical information available for the industrial sectors was based on two 
Council Directives6 adopted in 1964 and 1972. Despite the number of years during which the 
Directives were in force the production of European industrial structural statistics remained to 
a  greater  or  lesser  extent  an  annex  to  most  national  systems.  These  statistics  became 
progressively less useful due to economic and technical developments in the intervening years 
and  a  combination  of  the  inflexibility  of  the  legal  instruments  and  limited  success  in 
development outside of the legal framework. At the end of the 1980s many serious problems 
were  evident  in  the  extent  to  which  the  Directives  were  not  being  respected  and  more 
importantly in the lack of data available for the Commission to respond to users’ data needs. 
In particular the following points were noted. 

— Data covering enterprises of all sizes was only provided every 5 years if it was provided at 
all. 

— Some industrial sectors, notably construction, were ignored by some Member States. Most 
Member States did not cover fully the service sectors of the economy and some did not cover 
it at all on an annual basis. 

— Changes  in  business  practices,  such  as  the  increased  incidence  of part-time employment, 
the  use  of  leasing  and  the  role  of  intangible  investment  had  weakened  the  usefulness  of 
existing measures. 

— Many users complained that the delay in the availability of data was far too great. 

— Information was lost due to data being hidden at the national level to avoid the disclosure 
of  confidential  data,  or  through  the  passage  from  national  classifications  to  the  common 
NACE 70. This made it close to impossible to calculate data for the EU as a whole. 

— The  statistics  were  produced  for  different  statistical  units  with  neither  the  enterprise  nor 
the  kind-of-activity  unit  being  adopted  as  statistical  units  by  all  the  national  statistical 
authorities. 

— Most  national  statistical  authorities  did  not  collect  or  supply  certain  of  the  required 
variables. 

6 

Council Directive 64/475/EEC of 30 July 1964 concerning co-ordinated annual surveys of investment 
in  industry  (OJ  L  131  of  13.8.1964,  p.  2913)  and  Council  Directive  72/221/EEC  of  6  June  1972 
concerning co-ordinated annual surveys of industrial activity (OJ L 133 of 10.6.1972, p. 57). 

8 

 
 
  
 
                                                 
Some  of  these  difficulties  were  reduced  through  the  implementation  of  Council  Regulation 
No  3037  of  9  October7  1990  on  the  statistical  classification  of  economic  activities  in  the 
European Community (NACE Rev. 1) and with the development of other statistical tools such 
as the harmonisation of business registers8, however major difficulties remained. 

1.1.1.2.  Adoption of the SBS Regulation 

In  1995  the  Commission  finalised  its  proposal  to  the  Council  for  a  new  legal  basis  for 
European  structural  business  statistics.  On  20  December  1996  the  Council  Regulation  (EC, 
EURATOM) No 58/97 concerning structural business statistics was adopted. It was published 
in  the  Official  Journal  of  the  European  Communities  on  17  January  1997  and  entered  into 
force 20 days later. 

1.1.1.3.  Objective of the SBS Regulation 

The  objective  of  the  SBS  Regulation  according  to  Article  1  is  to  establish  a  common 
framework  for  the  collection,  compilation,  transmission  and  evaluation  of  Community 
statistics  on  the  structure,  activity,  competitiveness  and  performance  of  businesses  in  the 
Community.  Full  implementation  of  the  SBS  Regulation  would  result  in  the  national 
statistical  authorities,  who  are  responsible  for  data  collection,  transmitting  to  Eurostat  data 
which  is  comparable  between  the  Member  States.  The  SBS  Regulation  lays  down  or 
anticipates  the  norms,  standards  and  definitions  necessary  for  producing  comparable 
Community statistics, without detailing the actual collection methods to be used. As such the 
statistical authorities in each Member State may conduct the data collection exercises in the 
manner  most  appropriate  to  its  own  situation,  for  example  to  take  account  of  national 
requirements for the presentation of company accounts.  

Through  its  Committee  procedure  the  SBS  Regulation  provides  a  degree  of  flexibility 
whereby  measures  adjusting  to  economic  and  technical  developments  can  be  taken  by  the 
Commission after consulting the Member States.  

The framework referred to in the first Article of the SBS Regulation is made up of a number 
of broad provisions in the text that are relevant for most or all structural business statistics. 
These  broad  provisions  are  supplemented  by  more  specific  provisions  in  the  four  annexes. 
The first annex is a general one relating to the production of a number of standard indicators 
for  all  activities  covered  by  the  Regulation.  The  other  three  cover  respectively  industry, 
distributive  trades  and  construction.  This  modular  approach  lends  itself  to  relatively  simple 
modifications  of  the  SBS  Regulation  as  and  when  decisions  are  taken  to  extend  the  data 
collection to cover in more detail any particular aspect of the business community.  

1.1.2.  Developments undertaken 

1.1.2.1.  Integration of the SBS Regulation into the statistical annex of the EEA treaty 

The  SBS  Regulation  was  incorporated  into  annex  XXI  (statistical  annex)  of  the  EEA 
Agreement  by  Decision  13/1999  of  the  EEA  Joint  Committee  at  its  60th  meeting  on 
29 January 1999 and entered into force the next day.  

7 
8 

OJ L 293 of 24.10.1990, p. 1 
Council  Regulation  (EEC)  No  2186/93  of  22  July  1993  on  Community  co-ordination  in  drawing  up 
business registers for statistical purposes (OJ L 196 of 5.8.1993, p. 1). 

9 

 
 
  
 
                                                 
1.1.2.2.  Council Regulation amending the SBS Regulation, 1998 

On  16  February  1998  Council  Regulation  (EC,  Euratom)  No  410/98  amending  Regulation 
(EC, Euratom) No 58/97 concerning structural business statistics was adopted adding a fifth 
annex  to  the  SBS  Regulation.  This  annex  concerns  a  framework  for  structural  business 
statistics for life and non-life insurance activities starting with the 1996 reference period. 

1.1.2.3.  Commission Regulations implementing the SBS Regulation 

The  SBS  Regulation  includes  a  procedure  whereby  the  Commission,  after  consulting  the 
Statistical Programme Committee, may determine implementing procedures.  

The  SBS  Regulation  lays  down  a  number  of  specific  areas  where  there  are  implementing 
measures to be determined. Between the adoption of the text in 1996 and the time of drafting 
this report this procedure has been used for the following implementation aspects:  

— definitions of the characteristics;  

— first reference year for the compilation of the preliminary results; 

— breakdown of results; 

— frequency of the compilation of the statistics; 

— appropriate technical format for the transmission of results; 

— transitional period and derogations from the provisions of the SBS Regulation; 

— criteria for the evaluation of quality.  

Measures  relating  to  all  of  these  have  been  presented  to  the  SPC  and  adopted  as  nine 
Commission Regulations during 1998 and 1999.9  

9 

Commission  Regulation  (EC)  No  2699/98  of  17  December  1998  concerning  the  derogations  to  be 
granted for structural business statistics (OJ L 344 of 18.12.1998, p. 1); Commission Regulation (EC) 
No 2700/98 of 17 December 1998 concerning the definitions of characteristics for structural business 
statistics (OJ L 344 of 18.12.1998, p. 49); Commission Regulation (EC) No 2701/98 of 17 December 
1998  concerning  the  series  of  data  to  be  produced  for  structural  business  statistics  (OJ  No  L  344  of 
18.12.1998,  p.  81);  Commission  Regulation  (EC)  No  2702/98  of  17  December  1998  concerning  the 
technical format for the transmission of structural business statistics (OJ L 344 of 18.12.1998, p. 102); 
Commission Regulation (EC) No 1618/99 of 23 July 1999 concerning the criteria for the evaluation of 
quality  of  structural  business  statistics  (OJ  L  192  of  24.7.1999,  p.  11);  Commission  Regulation  (EC) 
No 1225/99  of  27  May  1999  concerning  the  definitions  of  characteristics  for  insurance  services 
statistics  (OJ  L  154  of  19.6.1999,  p.  1);  Commission  Regulation  (EC)  No  1226/99  of  28  May  1999 
concerning  the  derogations  to  be  granted  for  insurance  services  statistics  (OJ  L  154  of  19.6.1999,  p. 
46); Commission Regulation (EC) No 1227/99 of 28 May 1999 concerning the technical format for the 
transmission  of  insurance  services  statistics  (OJ  L  154  of  19.6.1999,  p.  75);  Commission  Regulation 
(EC) No 1228/99 of 28 May 1999 concerning the series of data to be produced for insurance services 
statistics (OJ L 154 of 19.6.1999, p. 91). 

10 

 
 
  
 
                                                 
1.1.2.4.  Adaptation process 

The procedure for determining implementing measures can also be followed for measures to 
adjust  the  provisions  of  the  SBS  Regulation  in  the  event  of  economic  and  technical 
developments.  At  the  end  of  2000  Eurostat  prepared  its  first  proposals  to  amend  the  SBS 
Regulation using the Comitology procedure. The aims of this work were to try to reduce or at 
least contain the statistical burden by removing less useful parts of the requirements, offering 
room for new investigations or developments of the SBS Regulation in the future. These were 
discussed  with  data  users  and  the  national  statistical  authorities  and  adopted  by  the 
Commission  on  6  September  2002.  More  information  on  this  point  can  be  found  in 
Chapter 3.1. 

1.1.2.5.  Council and European Parliament Regulation amending the SBS Regulation, 2002 

In 2001 the Commission adopted a proposal for a second amendment to the SBS Regulation. 
This amendment essentially proposed to add two new annexes concerning credit institutions 
and  pension  funds,  to  add  two  variables  related  to  expenditure  on  environmental  protection 
and to extend indefinitely  the time  period for work on the pilot studies. On 20 June 2002 a 
common position was adopted by the Council and in October 2002 the European Parliament 
accepted this position. Regulation (EC) No. 2056/2002 of the European Parliament and of the 
Council  of  5  November  2002  amending  Council  Regulation  (EC,  Euratom)  No  58/97 
concerning  structural  business  statistics10  was  published  on  21  November  2002  and  entered 
into force 20 days later.  

1.2. 

Eurostat's implementation of the SBS Regulation 

From  a  formal  perspective  the  Commission’s  work  on  implementation  has  been  concerned 
with  the  preparation  of  Commission  implementing  and  modifying  Regulations.  In  practice 
many other actions are necessary to ensure that data transmitted to Eurostat makes its way to 
users.  

On  reception  of  data  Eurostat  runs  a  number  of  checks  on  it  to  check  for  coherency  and  to 
identify if the data delivered are complete and on time with respect to the requirements of the 
SBS  Regulation,  taking  account  of  any  derogations.  Problems  arising  from  the  coherency 
checks are discussed with the countries concerned to try to solve them. Serious problems of 
non-compliance  with  the  requirements  of  the  SBS  Regulation  are  discussed  bilaterally  with 
the countries concerned. 

Eurostat's added value to the data transmitted by national statistical authorities is multiple. In 
the  last  few  years  developments  have  been  concentrated  in  two  areas,  namely  estimating 
totals  for  the  EU  and  accelerating  data  treatment.  In  simple  circumstances,  when  data  are 
available for all Member States, EU totals are calculated. Estimates are frequently needed and 
Eurostat continues to develop and extend the range of estimates made for SBS data. Starting 
in  2002  Eurostat  has  extended  its  procedures  for  the  estimation  of  EU  totals  from 
manufacturing  to  include  mining  and  quarrying,  electricity,  gas  and  water  supply, 
construction  and  all  of  the  non-financial  service  sectors  covered  by  the  SBS  Regulation. 
These  estimation  procedures  have  also  been  extended  to  the  series  of  data  broken  down  by 
size class whereas previously they only covered the national series. 

10 

OJ L 317 of 21.11.2002, p. 1. 

11 

 
 
  
 
                                                 
Eurostat  continues  to  work  with  various  partners  to  try  to  improve  the  treatment  of 
confidentiality. Notably, during 2002 new software has been introduced within Eurostat to try 
to automate the treatment of confidential data with the aim of speeding up data treatment and 
reducing the risk of errors. 

Resources  within  Eurostat  are  limited  to  treat  national  data  sets  and  to  add  value  through 
aggregations,  estimations,  the  calculation  of  derived  indicators  and  dissemination.  Eurostat 
has  in  the  past  sub-contracted  some  of  these  processes  but  over  the  last  few  years  has 
internalised  all  of  the  data  processing  of  the  data  provided  under  the  provisions  of  the  SBS 
Regulation except that for financial intermediation. Furthermore it carries out all of the added 
value services itself except for the preparation of some of the dissemination products. 

1.3. 

Implementation of the SBS Regulation in the Member States 

1.3.1.  Current methods of data compilation 

The SBS Regulation provided for a transition period. In practice this has been implemented as 
a  period  of  four  years  covering  the  reference  periods  1995  to  1998  inclusive.  Numerous 
changes  were  made  in  national  practices  during  the  period  immediately  after  the  SBS 
Regulation  came  into  force.  In  principle,  the  situation  now  is  more  stable  as  the  transition 
period is over and all necessary measures should have been taken. This point of the present 
report provides an overview of the situation for the latest reference year available, generally 
2000.  

The survey strategies of the Member States can be classified in a number of ways. One group 
of Member States relies almost entirely on statistical surveys (Belgium, Germany, Greece11, 
Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal and the United Kingdom), another mainly 
uses  administrative  data  as  a  substitute  for  statistical  surveys  for  a  major  part  of  the 
population (Denmark, Finland and Sweden) and a third group confronts statistical survey and 
administrative data (France, Italy, Luxembourg and Norway) to produce integrated results.  

Practically  all  Member  States  use  sampling  for  surveys  below  a  certain  size  threshold  and 
some,  relying  entirely  on  administrative  data,  do  not  survey  smaller  enterprises  at  all 
(Denmark, France12, Luxembourg, Finland and Sweden). Belgium, Germany, Spain, France13, 
Ireland,  Italy,  Austria,  Portugal  and  the  United  Kingdom  use  simplified  questionnaires  for 
smaller enterprises.  

In all Member States except one the co-ordination of surveys in different sectors is achieved 
at  least  through  the  use  of  a  common  business  register.  The  main  exception  to  this  rule  is 
NACE  Section  J  (financial  intermediation)  which  is  treated  as  a  special  case  by  Member 
States - see following paragraph.  

11 

12 
13 

From  1999  it  is  intended  to  use  administrative  data  for  manufacturing  enterprises  with  less  than 
10 persons employed as a replacement of the sample started in 1997. 
In some sectors. 
In some sectors. 

12 

 
 
  
 
                                                 
Apart  from  this  one  NACE  Section,  Member  States  generally  use  a  harmonised  system  to 
compile results across all of the other activities. However, in some countries there is greater 
diversity  in  the  methods  used  between  sectors  and  these  survey  systems  can  generally  be 
described  as  co-ordinated  rather  than  harmonised.  For  example,  in  France  and  Spain 
Government Ministries carry out some of the surveys with varying degrees of co-ordination 
provided by the statistical office. There are different survey strategies for different sectors in 
Denmark (from 2001 only for Section E), Germany, Spain, Ireland and the Netherlands. The 
other  Member  States  tend  to  have  a  more  harmonised  system  with  sector-specific  matters 
addressed  in  questionnaires  tailored  to  the  activities  concerned  rather  than  independent 
surveys. A move towards this harmonised approach has been observed since the adoption of 
the SBS Regulation.  

In  insurance,  the  tasks  for  collection  and  transmission  of  data  to  Eurostat  are  often  shared 
between the national statistical authority and the regulatory authorities.  

— In  Belgium,  Denmark,  Germany14,  Spain,  France,  Italy,  Austria  and  Finland  the  relevant 
regulatory authorities are responsible for the collection and transmission of data.  

— In Ireland it is the national statistical authority that is entirely responsible for this sector.  

— In  Luxembourg,  the  Netherlands,  Sweden,  the  United  Kingdom  and  Norway  the  data 
collection  is  done  by  the  regulatory  authorities  but  the  data  are  transmitted  by  the  national 
statistical authority. 

— In  Portugal  some  data  collection  is  done  by  the  regulatory  authorities  but  the  data  are 
transmitted by the national statistical authority, which also collects further data. 

Whilst most Member States use the enterprise as the main statistical unit for their statistical 
surveys, there is a great variety in methods used to compile KAU15 and regional data. 

Several  Member  States  collect  KAU  (or  local  KAU)  data  directly  by  having  a  special 
questionnaire or insert to their main questionnaire; this is the case in Denmark, Germany (for 
NACE Section E), Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria, Finland, Sweden and Norway. 

Some Member States collect data for local units and consider these as a proxy for KAU data; 
this is the case in Spain and Italy. 

Some  Member  States  collect  enterprise  data  broken  down  by  activity  for  one  or  more  key 
variables and then use this to estimate KAU data for all of the required variables; this is the 
approach in Portugal and the United Kingdom. In Germany KAU data (for NACE Sections C 
and D) are derived by combining the enterprise results with local KAU data from the short-
term business statistics. 

Several Member States do not yet compile KAU data (Belgium, Greece, France and Ireland). 

14 
15 

For some variables. 
Kind-of-activity unit. A KAU groups all the parts of an enterprise contributing to the performance of an 
activity at class level (4-digits) of NACE Rev. 1. See glossary for more details. 

13 

 
 
  
 
                                                 
Several  Member  States  collect  local  unit  (or  local  KAU)  data  directly  by  having  a  special 
questionnaire  or  insert  to  their  main  questionnaire. This is the case  in Belgium,  Denmark16, 
Greece, Spain (for industrial data), Ireland17, Luxembourg, Austria, Finland18, Sweden19 and 
Norway. 

Some  Member  States  collect  enterprise  data  broken  down  by  region  for  one  or  more  key 
variables and then use this to estimate regional data for all of the required variables; this is the 
approach in Spain (for distribution and services), Italy and the Netherlands. 

Germany  estimates  regional  industrial  and  construction  data  using  short-term  business 
statistics  (except  for  investment  in  industry  which  is  collected  in  an  annual  survey).  For 
NACE Sections G and H administrative data is used. 

Portugal compiles regional data using the legal unit/enterprise as the statistical unit. 

The United Kingdom compiles regional statistics using administrative data and modelling to 
provide a regional breakdown of the enterprise results. 

The methods used for compiling preliminary results also vary between Member States. 

— Spain, Germany20, France, Ireland21, Portugal, the United Kingdom and Norway use early 
returns  from  the  main  survey;  Germany  also  uses  the  results  of  infra-annual  (monthly  or 
quarterly) surveys. 

— Luxembourg uses administrative data, notably the business register. 

— Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Finland and Sweden use a combination of early results from the 
surveys and administrative data. 

— The  Netherlands  estimates  the  results  based  on  infra-annual  (monthly  or  quarterly) 
surveys. 

— Austria  uses  results  from  infra-annual  surveys  for  industry,  construction  and  distribution 
sectors, supplemented with business register data for industry and construction; for services 
national accounts data are used. 

— Greece does not yet compile preliminary results. 

16 
17 
18 
19 

20 
21 

The local KAU is used as the statistical unit not the local unit. 
Used for industry; no regional data available for construction, distribution or services. 
Used for industry and construction; register data is used to estimate results for distribution and services. 
Used for industry; register data is used to estimate results for distribution and services; regional data is 
not compiled for construction. 
Used for industry and construction; preliminary results for some service sectors are also estimated. 
Used for industry; no preliminary results available for construction, distribution or services. 

14 

 
 
  
 
                                                 
1.3.2.  What implementation efforts have been made and what still remains to be achieved 

1.3.2.1.  Overview of efforts made since the 1997 reference year 

Several Member States had made major changes to their survey system between the adoption 
of the SBS Regulation and the time of the previous (first) report to the Council and European 
Parliament  on  the  implementation  of  the  SBS  Regulation.  With  the  exception  of  timeliness 
(where  several  Member  States  still  had  progress  to  make)  by  the  1997  reference  period  the 
activity  and  size  coverage  of  SBS  data  was  relatively  complete  in  Belgium,  France,  Italy, 
Luxembourg, Austria, Portugal, Finland and Sweden. At least for the main annual enterprise 
series  of  data  there  were  few  if  any  major  changes  still  to  undertake  for  a  high  level  of 
implementation. Many of the Member States have made efforts since then to compile results 
for specific activities  or variables that  were  not available, and to speed up the timeliness of 
results. A  number  of  Member States have also made major changes to their survey systems 
since the 1997 reference period, notably by extending greatly the activity or size coverage of 
their  statistics  or  by  increasing  the  frequency  of  surveys.  The  following  points  in  particular 
can be noted.  

— Belgium has improved the data compilation procedure to provide regional data without a 
cut-off threshold. Results for a number of previously missing variables are now compiled. 

— Denmark  has  extended  the  coverage  of  its  accounts  statistics  from  manufacturing, 
construction and retail trades to encompass all activities required by the SBS Regulation. 

— Germany  has  started  compiling  results  for  the  industrial  and  construction  sectors  that 
represent the entire population without a size threshold, initially on the basis of estimations 
for smaller enterprises, and from 2001 using a sample survey for enterprises with less than 20 
persons employed. The coverage of the survey in distribution has been expanded and is now 
complete.  The  frequency  of  the  survey  in  NACE  Section  H  has  increased  to  be  annual. 
Results have been compiled since 1999 for NACE Sections I and K with a new sample survey 
from the 2000 reference year. Results for a number of previously missing variables are now 
compiled. 

— Greece has removed the cut-off threshold of 10 persons employed for Sections C to E by 
introducing  an  exhaustive  survey  below  this  for  Sections  C  and  E  and  a  sample  survey  for 
Section  D.  Since  1999  the  sample  survey  for  Section  D  has  been  replaced  by  the  use  of 
administrative  data.  Nevertheless  the  cut-off  threshold  has  continued  to  apply  to  data 
compiled  under  the  provisions  of  the  SBS  Regulation  for  Sections  C  and  D  up  to  and 
including the 1999 reference year (latest year available). 

— Spain has introduced a survey to cover all service activities, initially covering half of the 
service activities each year - from 2000 a full survey will take place annually. Construction 
statistics have been provided since 1999. The industrial survey has been expanded to compile 
results  for  some  variables  that  were  previously  missing.  The  threshold  of  one  employee  for 
industrial sectors has been removed since 1999. 

— Italy  already  had  a  relatively  complete  size  and  activity  coverage;  however  since  1998 
administrative sources have been used for larger enterprises. For enterprises with between 20 
and 99 employees a census was carried out before 1998; since 1998 a sample has been used 
for this stratum. Administrative data are also now being used to compile preliminary results. 

15 

 
 
  
 
— Luxembourg  already  had  a  relatively  complete  size  and  activity  coverage;  however 
administrative  sources  are  now  used  more  extensively  for  smaller  enterprises  and  in 
consequence the lower threshold for inclusion in the survey has been raised to 50 employees 
and/or turnover exceeding EUR 7 million. 

— The Netherlands has extended the survey coverage to include Section C and Division 73. 
The size threshold of 20 persons employed has been removed for Section E and also for the 
investment survey in Sections C to F. A redesign of most surveys was implemented in 2000. 

— Portugal has started producing KAU, regional and preliminary series of data. A number of 
previously  missing  variables  are  now  compiled.  Size  coverage  has  been  extended  to  be 
complete. 

— Finland  already  had  a  relatively  complete  size  and  activity  coverage;  however 
administrative  sources  are  now  used  more  extensively  for  smaller  enterprises  and  in 
consequence sampling has been introduced in the survey for enterprises with between 5 and 
19 persons employed in construction and between 5 and 49 persons employed in distribution 
whereas  previously  all  enterprises  in  these  sectors  with  10  or  more  persons  employed  had 
been surveyed. 

— Swedish regional data for NACE Sections E (electricity, gas and water supply) and G to K 
(distribution  and  services)  have  been  provided  since  1999.  Preliminary  results  have  been 
compiled in accordance with the SBS Regulation requirements since 1998. 

— The United Kingdom introduced a harmonised survey system (the annual business inquiry 
– ABI) covering all activities in 1998, replacing the previous system of independent sectoral 
surveys and an independent employment survey. This has lead to the inclusion of several new 
variables in 1998 and 1999 and to the coverage of NACE Class 64.11 since 1999. Preliminary 
results are now compiled. Administrative data are now being used to compile regional data. 

— Norway  has  introduced  a  new  system  of  service  statistics.  Although  not  a  new  data 
collection, SBS compatible data are now compiled for NACE Division 11 and Section E from 
existing  statistics.  Generally,  more  administrative  data  are  being  used  instead  of  surveys. 
Results  are  compiled  (from  statistical  surveys)  for  a  number  of  new  variables,  notably 
financial leasing, environmental protection expenditure and expenditure on software. 

As  can  be  seen  from  above,  for  example  in  the  cases  of  Italy,  Luxembourg  and  Finland, 
Member  States  continue  to  refine  their  survey  systems,  even  when  there  was  already  a 
relatively  complete  coverage  in  activity  and  size  terms,  notably  to  reduce  the  burden  on 
smaller  enterprises.  Austria  has  announced  plans  to  make  similar  changes  from  2002  to 
exclude  smaller  enterprises  from  the  statistical  surveys  and  to  estimate  results  based 
essentially on administrative data. Portugal has announced plans for a major review between 
2002 and 2005 which, among other objectives, will aim to simplify questionnaires, extend the 
use  of  administrative  and  other  data,  and  establish  and  improve  electronic  data  interchange. 
Sweden  has  announced  plans  to  make  wider  use  of  administrative  data  for  large  enterprises 
integrating the statistical survey results and administrative data for these enterprises. 

1.3.2.2.  Remaining problems and timetables for implementation 

As of the 2000 reference year a number of problems remain with respect to implementation in 
the Member States. In some cases plans have been developed or even implemented to resolve 
these problems.  

16 

 
 
  
 
— Belgium does not yet provide KAU data nor does it compile results concerning purchases 
of energy. No plans currently exist to solve these problems and efforts are being directed to 
maintaining the current survey system. 

— In  Denmark  there  are  plans  to  compile  the  variables  related  to  R&D  (intra-mural 
expenditure  and  personnel)  and  also  the  variable  related  to  the  number  of  hours  worked  by 
employees. 

— In  Germany,  successful  implementation  of  the planned sample  survey  of small  industrial 
and construction enterprises and the survey in NACE Sections I and K should complete the 
coverage  of  the  survey  system.  There  remain  some  problems  of  interpretation  concerning 
NACE  Class  74.15  (holding  companies)  that  are  expected  to  be  solved  with  the 
implementation of the new activity classification (WZ 2003). 

— In Greece the results for industry exclude enterprises with less than 10 persons employed 
although data are collected for these units. No KAU data or preliminary results are compiled. 
Preliminary results are not expected before the 2003 reference period at the earliest. 

— In  France  the  preliminary  results  do  not  cover  enterprises  in  NACE  Section  D  with  less 
than 20 employees. 

— In  Ireland  the  results  for  industry  exclude  enterprises  with  less  than  three  persons 
employed  and  the  results  for  construction  exclude  enterprises  with  less  than  20  persons 
employed. Preliminary data are not yet compiled for construction, distribution or services. It 
is hoped to produce preliminary data for most of these activities for the 2002 reference year. 
No  regional  data  are  available  yet  for  the  construction  sector  but  it  is  intended  to  provide 
these for the 2000 reference year. No KAU data are compiled. Information on personnel costs 
is  not  available  for  service  sectors  but  will  become  available  from  the  2001  reference  year. 
Many variables are missing for insurance. 

— Luxembourg  has  not  provided  regional22  series  and  will  try  to  provide  this  data  in  the 
future.  Results  are  not  compiled  for  a  number  of  variables,  notably  concerning  business 
demography,  the  number  of  home-workers  and  sub-contracting.  The  size  class  breakdowns 
for insurance are not sufficiently detailed. 

— The  Netherlands  still  uses  size  classes  expressed  in  terms  of  employees  and  this  is 
expected to change to the number of persons employed for the 2002 reference year. 

— Finland has introduced a pilot survey that should be operational by the 2002 reference year 
for the multi-yearly variables in the distribution sector. 

— Sweden does not yet compile regional construction statistics nor does it compile results for 
the R&D variables or the number of part-time employees. 

— The  United  Kingdom  will  provide  data  on  hours  worked  from  the  2000  reference  year. 
Some of the data for the insurance sector are not yet available. 

— Norway has compiled preliminary results for construction, distribution and services from 
the  2001  reference  year  and  for  the  industrial sectors from  the  2002 reference year. Results 

22 

Luxembourg is a single region at the level of detail required by the SBS Regulation. 

17 

 
 
  
 
                                                 
for  the  R&  D  variables  will  be  compiled  for  the  2001  reference  year  from  a  separate  R&D 
survey. 

1.4. 

Other aspects of implementation 

1.4.1. 

Implementation of the data transmission formats 

Nearly  all  countries  provide  data  in  accordance  with  the  data  transmission  format.  Two 
problems can however be noted with the implementation in practice.  

The  SBS  Regulation  in  its  annexes  indicates  the  lowest  level  at  which  data  should  be 
transmitted  to  Eurostat,  often  the  4-digit  level  but  sometimes  higher.  Neither  the  SBS 
Regulation nor its implementing Regulations require data to be sent for higher levels of the 
NACE classification (such as Sections, Sub-sections etc.), but they do not prohibit it. Eurostat 
has encouraged Member States to provide all higher levels in order to be able to identify and 
protect properly confidential data, and most countries do this. 

The second problem is the non-transmission by some Member States of data for activities or 
size classes in which there are no units active. The absence of this data is interpreted as the 
data being missing, when in fact it should be indicated as 0 (zero). The main consequence of 
this  is  that  users  cannot  interpret  the  data  as  they  do  not  know  which  values  are  zero  and 
which  are  simply  missing.  Secondly,  evaluations  of  data  availability  such  as  those  done 
elsewhere  in  this  report  underestimate  data  availability  as  they  count  these  "not  delivered" 
zero values in exactly the same way as missing values. 

1.4.2. 

Implementation of the 1% rule 

In several places in the SBS Regulation some Member States may be excluded from particular 
provisions  on  the  grounds  of  their  size.  These  exclusions  are  normally  determined  by  the 
proportion of the EU total accounted for by a Member State according to a particular variable 
in a certain sector. Clearly before this can be determined an EU total is required. The main 
cases  of  such  exclusions  according  to  these  rules  concern  Annexes  3  and  4  of  the  SBS 
Regulation, although there are others. If a  Member State represents less than 1% of the EU 
total in terms of both turnover and the number of persons employed for any of the Divisions 
in Sections F or G, that Member State does not need to provide data for these Divisions for 
any of the variables not included in Annex 1. Unfortunately nearly 6 years after the adoption 
of the SBS Regulation no EU totals are available for any of the four Divisions concerned. It 
has been assumed until now that both Ireland and Luxembourg were below this threshold in 
both cases. Although data are not yet available to assess precisely the situation, it seems likely 
that  most  of  the  Accession  countries  will  also  fall  under  the  1%  rule  for  some  or  all  of  the 
Divisions in Sections F and G. For this reason it is essential to clarify the interpretation of this 
rule and its practical implementation for the future.  

18 

 
 
  
 
1.4.3.  Definitions 

The  definitions  of  births  and  deaths  of  enterprises  expressly  link  these  variables  to  the 
business register. In practice most of the other variables in the SBS Regulation are provided 
from administrative declarations or surveys and are adjusted to take account of changes to the 
population that have been discovered during the course of the data collection. The definitions 
do  not  precisely  say  at  what  point  in  time  the  count  of  enterprises  should  take  place.  For 
example this could be done on 1 January or 31 December of the reference period, or it could 
be  specified  that  enterprises  are  included  if  they  have  been  active  for  at  least  a  part  of  the 
reference year. There are a number of related, complicated issues affecting the definition of 
such demographic variables and Eurostat is working with the Member States to clarify these 
issues.  

The  Commission  Regulation  on  definitions  does  not  include  definitions  for  the  following 
variables: gross investment in concessions, patents, licences, trade marks, and similar rights 
(15  42  0),  investment  in  purchased  software  (15  44  1),  investment  in software produced by 
the  unit  (15  44  2),  breakdown  of  turnover  by  product  (18  21  0)  and  income  from  sub-
contracting (23 12 0). 

A  number  of  Member  States  have  expressed  concerns  over  the  definitions  of  variables  in 
practice.  The  following  problem  areas  have  been  mentioned:  full-time  equivalents  for 
employment  variables,  financial  leasing,  number  of  apprentices,  payments  for  agency 
workers,  environmental  protection  expenditure  variables,  intra-mural  R&D  expenditure  and 
employment. 

19 

 
 
  
 
PART II 

2. 

STRUCTURAL BUSINESS STATISTICS 

2.1. 

Quality of SBS data: relevance and completeness 

2.1.1.  Users and their needs 

2.1.1.1.  Community policies 

The central objective of European business statistics is to supply the necessary information on 
the structure, activity, competitiveness and performance of the European business community 
in  order  to  permit  accurate,  up-to-date  sectoral  analyses.  The  design  and  effectiveness  of 
policy  instruments  employed  will  depend  on  detailed  sectoral  monitoring  of  structural 
variables  with  a  view,  in  particular,  to  assessing  the  various  aspects  of  the  competitiveness 
and economic viability of Community businesses. 

In  the  Lisbon  European  Council  meeting  in  March  2000  the  European  Union  set  itself  the 
goal "to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, 
capable  of  sustainable  economic  growth  with  more  and  better  jobs  and  greater  social 
cohesion"23.  

Meeting  in  Stockholm  in  March  2001,  the  European  Council  restated  the  importance  of 
exploiting  the  potential  of  the  internal  market  as  "Well-functioning  markets  are  vital  for 
increasing  consumer  benefits  and  creating  an  entrepreneurial  environment.  The  success  of 
earlier  reforms,  with  falling  costs  and  better  choice  and  quality  of  products  delivered, 
provides  a  strong  incentive  for  further  progress.  The  creation  of  an  effectively  functioning 
internal market in services is one of Europe's highest priorities." 

Accordingly,  "Member  States  and  the  Commission  are  requested  to  improve  the  quality, 
timeliness and availability of statistical information necessary for benchmarking in commonly 
agreed areas of crucial importance for enterprise policy" 

Furthermore  at  the  Brussels  2003  Spring  European  Council,  the  Commission  expressed  its 
intention to report in time for the 2004 Spring European Council on how the use of structural 
indicators  and  other  analytical  tools  for  assessing  progress  on  Lisbon  strategy  could  be 
strengthened. 

These needs for structural business statistics from policy makers are supplemented by needs 
from  within  the  statistical  system,  in  particular  from  national  accounts  and  from  short-term 
statistics. 

As well as the basic enterprise and industry policies, structural business statistics are used in 
policy  development  and  monitoring  in  a  number  of  other  more  specific  areas,  for  example 
environment. 

23 

Lisbon European Council, Presidency conclusions - (A strategic goal for the next decade).  

20 

 
 
  
 
                                                 
2.1.1.2.  Use by business and business associations 

Businesses  require  information  on  the  competitive  situation  of  their  own  sector  and 
information  on  the  sectors  of  their  suppliers  and  clients.  Businesses  may  access  European 
structural business statistics directly from Commission products (databases, off-line electronic 
products  and  paper  products)  or  via  intermediaries.  In  the  latter  case  European  trade 
associations  play  an  influential  role  in  the  transmission  of  statistical  information  from 
statistical institutions to their members. Many have a statistical capability through which they 
compile  data  from  many  sources,  including  structural  business  statistics,  and  provide  their 
members  with  information  specific  to  their  activity.  The  main  reasons  for  European  trade 
associations to use Eurostat data are that they are relatively standardised and available for a 
large number of countries. 

2.1.1.3.  Dissemination to respondents 

A number of Member States return aggregated results to enterprises that have participated in 
surveys on a systematic basis or on request. In Germany respondents receive tabular results in 
industry  and  construction.  In  Denmark  and  Greece  information  is  returned  to  respondents 
only  on  request.  In  Spain,  respondents  to  the  main  industrial  survey  receive  personalised 
information  comparing  themselves  to  similar  units  while  respondents  to  the  service  sector 
survey  receive  aggregated  data  concerning  their  activity.  Finland  provides  respondents  with 
personalised information comparing them to similar units. In Sweden some key indicators are 
provided  to  respondents.  France  is  progressively  implementing  a  policy  of  systematically 
returning  information,  either  personalised  or  statistical,  to  every  enterprise  responding  to 
every statistical survey; this started many years ago in the manufacturing industry. Portugal is 
planning  to  implement  a  policy  of  systematically  returning  statistical  information  to 
respondents. 

2.1.1.4.  Maintaining relevance for users 

Eurostat  continues  to  assess  the  extent  to  which  the SBS data made available  to  users  meet 
their  needs.  The  adoption  of  Commission  Regulation  No  1614/02  in  September  2002  is  an 
example of the consequences of such an assessment. As noted earlier, the preparation of this 
Commission  Regulation  involved  discussions  with  both  users  and  suppliers  of  data  to  find 
ways of fine-tuning the requirements of the Regulation to better meet the needs of users. 

Another  example  of  an  attempt  to  modify  the  SBS  Regulation  to  maintain  the  relevance  of 
SBS data is the Commission's proposal for an amendment to strengthen the data compilation 
relating to environmental protection expenditure. 

Furthermore a three-year rolling programme has been established which aims to develop new 
areas of structural business statistics. This programme indicates the projects that are planned 
for the three coming years, showing the nature of the work to be done on each of them which 
normally takes the form of: preparatory work; methodological developments; data collection 
(testing of methodology); evaluation. The evaluation may lead to the discontinuation of work, 
a  renewed  data  collection  exercise  or  the  preparation  and  subsequent  implementation  of  a 
legal framework. Each year this rolling programme is reviewed to take account of the views 
of  users  of  Eurostat  data  (notably  from  within  the  Commission)  as  well  as  Member  States’ 
own development plans. Base on this review a decision is taken whether the plans need to be 
amended and new projects added or existing projects stopped. It is hoped that this approach 
will lead to greater transparency and stability in development work allowing robust methods 

21 

 
 
  
 
to be implemented in Member States and for all countries to learn from each other's practices 
in developing areas. 

One  part  of  the  current  three  year  rolling  programme  (2002  to  2004)  is  to  set  up  ad  hoc 
surveys.  It  is  assumed  that  a  quickly-changing  economy  requires  the  European  Statistical 
System to be able to respond in an equally fast and flexible way to emerging user needs. The 
proposal  to  develop  ad-hoc  surveys  has  been  approved  in  various  meetings  with  national 
statistical authorities. It is hoped that these ad hoc surveys could be an opportunity to deal in a 
harmonised way with topics that could be addressed in several Member States. It is expected 
that  these  ad  hoc  surveys  will  be  a  good  instrument  to  throw  light  on  a  phenomenon  about 
which  very  little  is  known.  Such  surveys  will  not  be  proposed  for  the  collection  of 
information that is required on a regular basis. Following consultation with users as well as 
national  statistical  authorities,  the  topic  of  inter-enterprise  relations  was  chosen  for  the  first 
survey. A project description, draft questionnaire and definitions have been prepared. 

Eurostat  is  investigating  the  possibility  of  introducing  a  legal  framework,  which  may  be 
necessary for ad hoc surveys to be carried out by all Member States. 

A  longer  term  assessment  of  users  needs  has  been  made  as  part  of  the  development  of  the 
"Strategy for services statistics" that has recently been discussed by Eurostat and the national 
statistical authorities. This strategy outlines the next steps in the development of services SBS 
data to build on the major step forward taken by the SBS Regulation itself - see Chapter 4.3. 

2.1.2.  Dissemination policy 

Eurostat  disseminates  SBS  data  and  its  related  methodology  through  a  number  of  products. 
The main ones are summarised in the table 1 below. 

Table 1: main features of the SBS dissemination policy  

Product 
name 

NewCronos 

Media  On-line database 

European 
Business, facts 
and figures 

Paper, PDF and 
CD-ROM 

Statistics in 
focus 

SBS Sources 

SME 

Paper and PDF 

Paper and PDF 

Paper and PDF 

Collection 

Panorama 

Statistics in focus  Methods and 

Detailed tables 

Type of 
content 

Data with 
methodological 
notes 

Data commentary 
(40%) graphs and 
tables (60%) 

Data commentary, 
graphs and tables, 
summary 
methodology 

nomenclatures 

Methodological 
notes 

Data commentary 
(20%) graphs and 
tables (80%) 

Paying/ 
non-paying 

Paying 

Paying 

Free as PDF 

Paying 

Paying 

Frequency  Updated on a daily 
basis 

Annual 

Irregular 

Updated on an 
irregular basis 

Seven publications 
in 10 years 

Target user 
group 

Commission users, 
national statistical 
authorities, data 
shops and regular 
users of large 
volumes of data. 

Commission users, 
analysts, trade 
associations, 
educational 
establishments 

Non-specialist 

Commission users, 
national statistical 
authorities 

Commission and 
national policy 
makers and 
associations and 
similar bodies 
representing SMEs. 

22 

 
 
  
 
 
NewCronos 

Product 
name 

Other 
comments 

European 
Business, facts 
and figures 

This is the flagship 
publication on 
business statistics 
with SBS data at 
its core. It replaced 
the Panorama of 
EU Business 

Statistics in 
focus 

SBS Sources 

SME 

SIF is a collection 
of publications that 
are 4 or 8 pages 
long and provide 
an overview of a 
data set or 
summary prelim-
inary results. 

Detailed 
methodological 
notes have been 
compiled since the 
early 1990s and 
updated 
approximately 
every 4 years since 
then. 

The publication 
started as 
"Enterprises in 
Europe". Since its 7th 
edition it has 
widened the scope of 
sources used, but 
SBS data remains the 
principal source. 

In  addition  to  these  publications  Eurostat  has  released  a  number  of  one-off  publications  of 
results of particular surveys or analyses based principally on SBS data. A list of the main ones 
published between January 1999 and the end of April 2002 is included in annex 1. 

A rationalisation of the dissemination policy has been undertaken since 2001 to seek a more 
balanced programme. In particular this has resulted in fewer special publications focusing on 
the distribution and financial intermediation sectors and greater emphasis on services sectors 
within the flagship publication European Business, facts and figures. 

An  analysis  of  users’  perceptions  of  SBS  data  publications  was  conducted  in  2002.  This 
produced a number of fairly general conclusions of the strengths and weaknesses of current 
dissemination  practices.  It  highlighted  the  importance  of  regular,  repeat  publications  and 
indicated that the inter-relation/complementary nature of the current range of publications was 
not visible to many users. The report noted the important role that Eurostat's publications play 
in  disseminating  harmonised  statistics  for  a  range  of  countries  rather  than  simply  collecting 
together unharmonised national data. Amongst specialist users the report noted an interest in 
more  information  on  methodological  practices,  quantitative  measures  of  the  quality  of  the 
data as well as more estimates for missing or late data. 

2.1.3.  On-line databases 

NewCronos  is  Eurostat's  reference  database.  SBS  data  are  made  available  by  Eurostat  in 
Theme 4 (Industry, Trade and Services) of this database, within the SBS domain. This domain 
contains all of the data sent by Member States (and other EEA countries) under the provisions 
of  the  SBS  regulation,  as  well  as  similar  data  from  Candidate  and  other  countries.  It  also 
contains data from some of the development projects related to SBS, for example on business 
demography and foreign affiliates trade statistics. An analysis has been made of the number 
of times the database was accessed for the main data tables during a seven month period of 
2002 (May to November). These show (table 2) that the main enterprise data series (national 
data  for  enterprises  of  all  sizes)  are  the  most  heavily  frequented,  both  for  data  covering  all 
business sectors and for the specialised tables for insurance. The size class data sets are also 
very heavily frequented, particularly those covering the industrial sectors. 

23 

 
 
  
 
 
Table 2: Elements for an assessment of the dissemination policy in SBS 

Collection 

Name of data table 

May 

Jun 

Jul  Aug 

Sep  Oct  Nov 

7 months 
2002 

Main detailed data 

237 

407 

142 

136 

114 

135 

235 

1,406 

Annual 
enterprise 
statistics 
(industry, 
construction, 
distribution 
and services) 

Annual 
enterprise 
statistics 
insurance 

Preliminary results 

Long time series 

Breakdown  by  type  of 
ownership 

Environmental 
protection expenditure 

Intangible 
and subcontracting 

investment 

of 

energy 

Purchases 
products 

Main data 

on 

Broken  down  by  legal 
status 

the 

Broken  down  according 
to 
of 
residence  of  the  parent 
enterprise 

country 

Annual 
enterprise 
statistics 
broken  down 
by size classes 

Broken  down  by  size 
class 

Broken 
products 

down 

by 

Geographical breakdown 

Construction 
- 
employment size classes 

data 

data 
Industrial 
employment size classes 

Services 
data- 
employment size classes 

Distributive  trades  data  - 
employment size classes 

Distributive  trades  data  - 
turnover size classes 

3 

83 

0 

0 

1 

0 

3 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

24 

55 

5 

150 

157 

0 

0 

0 

2 

1 

8 

0 

0 

16 

0 

22 

0 

6 

45 

0 

14 

0 

0 

14 

3 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

3 

24 

0 

0 

0 

21 

0 

0 

7 

10 

4 

51 

1 

4 

0 

1 

9 

1 

0 

0 

0 

0 

18 

20 

87 

8 

7 

0 

1 

4 

75 

0 

7 

0 

1 

24 

0 

14 

1 

0 

0 

0 

0 

15 

13 

2 

0 

1 

34 

97 

648 

10 

40 

1 

5 

102 

5 

0 

2 

0 

26 

144 

184 

88 

83 

30 

59 

78 

75 

597 

34 

48 

13 

21 

87 

3 

2 

5 

0 

6 

5 

0 

23 

32 

31 

187 

9 

1 

11 

12 

150 

1 

0 

7 

Regional 
statistics 

Regional statistics 

24 

34 

15 

13 

17 

46 

21 

170 

2.2. 

Quality of SBS data: availability 

Since the 1999 reference period there have no longer been any derogations for Member States 
concerning the provisions of the SBS Regulation and its annexes 1 to 5. This chapter looks at 
how  data  availability  improved  up  to  this  date  and  identifies  areas  where  it  is  not  yet 
complete. 

The tables below give an overview of data availability for the annual enterprise series. This 
assessment is based on the situation in reference years 1996 and 2000 (when 2000 reference 
year  data  are  not  available  the  percentage  for  the  1999  reference  year  has  been  shown 

24 

 
 
  
 
between  parentheses).  The  analysis  shows  the  proportion  (in  percentage  terms)  of  the  data 
that is available, compared to the compulsory requirements of the SBS Regulation. This has 
been evaluated by taking account of all compulsory variables24 and the finest level of activity 
breakdown  required  by  the  Regulation.  Where  exemptions  are  permitted  on  the  grounds  of 
size, these have been taken into account in the calculation of the proportions. 

The results of the analysis are summarised for each NACE Section (more detail for financial 
intermediation) in order to provide some information on the sectoral nature of any problems 
of data availability. The value shown in brackets after the name of the NACE Section is the 
theoretical maximum number of data points for any reference year, based on a combination of 
the number of variables required and the number of activities in the NACE Section. The first 
figure  is  the  standard  number  used  for  most  of  the  Member  States  and  for  Norway  and  the 
second  figure  is  the  number  for  smaller  countries  benefiting  from  exemptions:  Ireland  and 
Luxembourg  have  generally  sent  data  on  the  basis  that  they  benefit  from  these  exemptions 
and hence in all cases the proportions for these countries are based on this second value. 

The  analysis  of  data  availability  was  done  based  on  the  contents  of  Eurostat's  reference 
database "NewCronos" on 16 January 2003. It should be noted that there is a delay between 
the delivery of data to Eurostat and its inclusion in the NewCronos database due to validation 
procedures  and  the  treatment  of  confidentiality.  Data  that  had  been  delivered  by  the  above 
mentioned dates but not treated and hence not available on NewCronos are indicated with an 
asterisk *. Furthermore, if a Member State provides data in several stages (for example data 
may be delayed for certain sectors or for certain variables from special surveys), it is possible 
that the proportion of data for 2000 may still increase in the near future. 

The table 3 shows the proportion (as a percentage) of available data, regardless of whether it 
is confidential or not. 

Table 3 Availability table: general assessment; reference years 1996 and 2000. 

BE  DK  DE  EL ES  FR IE 

IT  LU NL AT  PT  FI  SE  UK NO

1996 

2000 

1996 

2000 

1996 

2000 

1996 

2000 

1996 

41 

65 

41 

65 

39 

64 

39 

63 

41 

59 

88 

68 

88 

61 

100 

100 

85 

(100)

68 

94 

30 

98 

41 

65 

93 

65 

94 

64 

91 

2 

Mining and quarrying 
(544/512) 

Manufacturing 
(8,194/7,712) 

Electricity, gas and 
water supply 
(132/124) 

Construction 
(529/170) 

Distribution 
(2,079/770) 

Hotels and restaurants 
(20/20) 

58 

97 

89 

92 

(100) 94 

60 

97 

86 

95 

(100) 94 

61 

97 

95 

97 

(100) 91 

84 

38 

84 

38 

81 

39 

53 

88 

85 

3 

99 

3 

35 

99 

35 

82  100  99 

19 

6 

33 

20  100  97 

88 

97 

88 

98 

89 

97 

38 

88 

38 

86 

89 

62 

64 

71 

74 

* 

43 

80 

69 

97 

56 

96 

65 

70 

93 

67 

78  100

80 

3 

39 

91 

99 

93 

90 

90 

(86) 100  100  97 

81 

4 

44 

63 

94 

37 

97  100

21  100

2000 

96  100 

(88)

100 100 (89) 100

1996 

60 

20 

10  100

45 

100

72  100  100  100  96  100

99 

30 

10 

90 

90 

60 

60 

2000  100  100  (100)

100 100

90 

90  100 100  100  100  100 100 100

90 

90 

90 

24 

For  insurance  only  list  A  variables  have  been  considered,  despite  2000  being  the  first  year  of 
compulsory transmission of List B variables. 

25 

 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
Transport, storage 
and communication 
(120/120) 

Insurance 
(362/362) 

Real estate, renting 
and business 
activities (140/140) 

1996 

60 

42 

16 

29  100

75 

100

91  100

13 

90 

90 

60 

54 

2000  100  100  100 

100 100

90 

84  100 100  100  100  100 100

83 

1996 

79 

52 

2000 

(78)  61 

1996 

60 

62 

62 

19 

3 

46 

96 

92 

99 

22 

* 

57 

98 

23  100

90 

100

2000  100  100  100 

100 100

90 

87 

65 

90 

88 

38 

42 

30 

97 

96 

19 

69 

94 

90 

52 

65 

90 

17 

64 

56 

67 

67 

47 

11 

61 

79 

90  100  100  100  100 100 100

Note: Greek annual enterprise data for 1999 for Sections C to E has been provided. Because 
of the threshold (of 10 persons employed) used in this country these data are not disseminated 
by Eurostat alongside the SBS compatible data from other countries, but in a separate, limited 
dataset. Estimates by the Greek statistical office of the proportion of 1999 data available are 
91% for Section C, 88% for Section D and 41% for Section E. 

Note:  The  proportion  of  available  data  for  Finland  for  insurance  for  2000  would  be  100% 
except that some records with a "0" value have been wrongly coded as not available. 

This table 4 indicates, for the latest year available (either 1999 or 2000), the proportion (as a 
percentage) of the required data that is available and the proportion of the required data that is 
not confidential - this illustrates the extent to which confidentiality reduces data availability. 

Table 4: Availability table: the confidentiality reduces data availability 

Sect C Sect D Sect E Sect F Sect G Sect H Sect I  Sect J-
(part) 

Sect K

BE 

DK 

DE 

EL 

ES 

FR 

IE 

IT 

LU 

NL 

AT 

PT 

Available records 
Non-confidential values 

Available records 
Non-confidential values 

Available records 
Non-confidential values 

Available records 
Non-confidential values 

Available records 
Non-confidential values 

Available records 
Non-confidential values 

Available records 
Non-confidential values 

Available records 
Non-confidential values 

Available records 
Non-confidential values 

Available records 
Non-confidential values 

Available records 
Non-confidential values 

Available records 
Non-confidential values 

63 
63 

94 
82 

98 
92 

2 
2 

93 
93 

99 
99 

90 
71 

86 
85 

100 
100 

100 
100 

96 
91 

100 
100 

88 
88 

100 
100 

100 
100 

89 
55 

100 
100 

90 
77 

72 
68 

100 
100 

100 
94 

100 
100 

100 
100 

100 
100 

100 
100 

100 
100 

90 
90 

90 
90 

100 
100 

100 
100 

100 
100 

100 
70 

100 
70 

100 
100 

100 
83 

100 
70 

90 
90 

84 
68 

100 
58 

100 
70 

100 
67 

78 
78 

61 
61 

62 
62 

96 
96 

99 
99 

22 
22 

98 
98 

65 
65 

42 
42 

96 
96 

94 
94 

100 
100 

100 
100 

100 
100 

100 
100 

100 
100 

90 
90 

88 
88 

90 
90 

100 
100 

100 
100 

65 
26 

88 
51 

100 
77 

93 
69 

92 
61 

100 
52 

94 
48 

38 
33 

88 
74 

99 
39 

99 
68 

65 
52 

88 
59 

100 
93 

94 
90 

95 
89 

100 
56 

94 
92 

38 
22 

82 
61 

100 
77 

99 
92 

64 
33 

85 
85 

100 
97 

91 
91 

97 
48 

100 
52 

91 
91 

39 
21 

20 
20 

100 
100 

97 
97 

26 

 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
FI 

SE 

UK 

NO 

Available records 
Non-confidential values 

Available records 
Non-confidential values 

Available records 
Non-confidential values 

Available records 
Non-confidential values 

97 
85 

88 
33 

80 
53 

64 
47 

98 
77 

86 
61 

97 
74 

74 
58 

97 
97 

89 
44 

96 
29 

97 
85 

94 
94 

97 
92 

100 
100 

100 
97 

96 
90 

100 
98 

99 
99 

100 
100 

100 
100 

100 
100 

100 
100 

100 
85 

100 
85 

100 
82 

83 
83 

65 
65 

64 
64 

67 
67 

61 
61 

100 
100 

100 
100 

100 
100 

100 
100 

Section C of the Nace Rev1: Mining and quarrying 
Section E: Electricity, gas and water supply  
Section G: Distribution 
Section I: Transport, storage and communication 
Section K: Real estate, renting and business activities. 

Section D: Manufacturing 
Section F: Construction 
Section H: Hotels and restaurants 
Section J (part): Insurance 

Very  broadly  it  can  be  concluded  that  data  availability  is  relatively  high  in:  distribution; 
hotels  and  restaurants;  transport,  storage  and  communications;  real  estate,  renting  and  other 
business  services.  Availability  is  weakest  in:  electricity,  gas  and  water;  construction; 
insurance. 

All  data  (all  required  variables  for  all  required  activities)  for  the  2000  reference  year  were 
available for 11 of the 16 countries (Member States and Norway) for the following sectors: 
hotels  and  restaurants;  transport,  storage  and  communications;  real  estate,  renting  and  other 
business  services.  For  all  other  sectors  the  number  of  countries  for  which  all  data  were 
available was much less. 

A  comparison  of  the  data  availability  in  1996  and  in  2000  shows  that  there  has  been  an 
improvement  in  all  sectors.  The  largest  improvements  have  been  in:  construction; 
distribution;  hotels  and  restaurants;  real  estate,  renting  and  other  business  services.  The 
improvement is a result of two factors. First, for several countries, data are available for more 
sectors in 2000 than in 1996; this is notably the case in Denmark, Germany, Spain, Sweden 
and Norway. Secondly the proportion of data available is higher in 2000 than in 1996 as more 
activities  are  available  or  more  variables;  this  is  notably  the  case  in  Austria,  Germany  and 
Spain. 

Information on the availability of size class data and regional data is shown in annex 2. 

2.3. 

Quality of SBS data: timeliness 

The  table  5  below  lists  the  transmission  delays  for  the  main  enterprise  series.  Delays  are 
expressed in months beyond the maximum time-lag permitted by the SBS Regulation and the 
implementing  Commission  Regulations.  For  most  sectors  the  maximum  delay  for  the 
transmission of data is fixed at 18 months after the end of the reference period. For insurance 
it is 12 months after the end of the reference period. Naturally these maximum time-lags are 
constant over the period. Where 2000 data have not yet been received, a dash "-" is shown.  

If revised data have been provided the mid-point between the first and last transmissions of 
the data was used. In one exceptional case when a country sent a first set of data much before 
the deadline and a revised version much later the transmission delay has been indicated as 0, 
neither early nor late. 

The timeliness was analysed on 15 January 2003. 

27 

 
 
  
 
 
 
 
Table 5: Timeliness table for SBS definitive data, reference years 1996 and 2000.  

Industry 

  Construction 

  Distribution 

Services 

Insurance 

1996  2000 

1996  2000 

1996 2000 

1996 2000 

1996  2000 

BE 

DK 

DE 

EL 

ES 

FR 

IE 

IT 

LU 

NL 

AT 

PT 

FI 

SE 

UK 

NO 

9  2 

1  1 

1  0 

9  5 

0  0 

8  3 

2  7.5 

9  0.5 

7  0 

6  1 

0  0 

10  0 

4  0 

4  0 

6  1 

8  0 

9  2 

1  1 

1  0 

-  - 

-  7.5 

8  3 

7  7.5 

9  0.5 

7  0 

2  1 

0  0 

10  0 

2  0 

-  0 

6  0 

8  0 

9 1 

1 1 

1 6.5 

- - 

- 0 

8 3 

3 7.5 

9 0.5 

7 0 

6 1 

0 0 

10 0 

8 0 

5 0 

5 1 

8 3.5 

9 1 

1 1 

1 1 

- - 

9 0 

1 3 

3 7.5 

9 0.5 

7 0.5 

6 1 

0 0 

10 0 

8 0 

5 0 

5 1 

8 0 

1.5  - 

4  3 

1.5  1 

-  - 

1.5  0 

3  0.5 

2  6.5 

7  0 

0  0 

3.5  0 

1  1 

0.5  0 

1  0 

3  0 

-  4.5 

-  3 

Commission  Regulation  (EC)  No  2702/98  specified  a  standard  technical  format  for  the 
transmission of structural business statistics which has been adhered to by all Member States 
by the 2000 reference year, except for the United Kingdom which has since implemented it. 
Non-implementation  of  the  standardised  transmission  format  leads  to  increased  delays  in 
making  final  data  available  to  users.  Several  countries  have  made  revisions  to  their  data, 
notably  Denmark  (1999),  Spain,  Luxembourg  and  Norway,  and  this  also  has  a  negative 
impact on the speed with which final data can be made available to users, although clearly it 
is better to have the revised data than to knowingly publish errors. 

Considering  the  situation  in  2000  for  annexes  1  to  4,  several  groups  of  countries  can  be 
distinguished as regards timeliness: 

— a perfect level of compliance in terms of timeliness can be seen for four countries, Austria, 
Portugal, Finland and Sweden - this was already the case in 1999 for all of these countries. 

— five  countries,  Denmark,  Italy,  Luxembourg,  the  Netherlands  and  the  United  Kingdom 
have short delays (one month or less) for one or more series; 

— three countries, Belgium, France and Norway have longer delays (two to four months) for 
one or more series; in the case of France this was due solely to technical, computing problems 
that have been resolved; 

— two  countries,  Germany  and  Spain,  would  be  in  or  close  to  the  category  of  perfect 
compliance  with  the  timeliness  criteria  if  it  were  not  for  the  data  for  the  distribution 
(Germany)  or  construction  (Spain)  sector;  data  for  the  construction  sector  are  produced 
independently of the national statistical authority in Spain. 

28 

 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The remaining two countries have particular situations. In Ireland there is a long delay in the 
transmission of data for each of the sectors. Greece has simply provided no data for several 
sectors  of  the  economy  for  the  2000  reference  year  and  the  data  for  industry  were  several 
months late, though notably faster than the 1999 reference year data. 

This  overview  cannot  take  account  of  all  of  the  specific  situations  in  each  country  and  too 
much attention should not be paid to small differences in delays between countries. The gaps 
between the first and second, and second and third groupings of countries are quite small. 

As well as looking at the current situation, some conclusions on progress can also be made. 

Already by 1996 very good or perfect compliance with the timeliness requirements had been 
reached in Austria and Denmark and this situation has been maintained through to the present. 
In  the  Netherlands,  Portugal,  Finland  and  Sweden  major  progress  was  made  during  the 
transition period to reduce delays to a very good or perfect compliance with the requirements. 
The same is true in Spain, with the exception of the construction sector mentioned above. 

In Belgium, France and the United Kingdom a similar effort during the transition period was 
also recorded leading to full respect of the timeliness requirements by the end of the period. 
However in these three countries the timeliness situation in 2000 has worsened compared to 
1999  although  it  remains  generally  much  better  than  it  was  in  1996  and  this  may  be  a 
temporary problem. 

Italy and Luxembourg both showed progress in reducing delays during the transition period 
although their delays were still quite substantial in 1999. This progress has nevertheless been 
maintained and reinforced since the end of the transition period. 

Germany recorded a worsening of the timeliness of their data between 1996 and the end of the 
transition  period,  but  has  improved  since.  Except  for  the  distribution  sector,  delays  were 
shorter  in  2000  than  they  were  in  1996.  In  the  sectors  of  industry  and  construction  full 
compliance with the timeliness requirements was reached. 

Greece  and  Ireland  also  recorded  a  worsening  of  the  timeliness  of  their  data  between  1996 
and the end of the transition period, but both have recorded progress since then. In the case of 
Ireland this recent progress has brought them back to the position in 1996. In Greece delays 
were shorter in 2000 than they were in 1996. 

When looking at the progress over time some care has to be taken. For example developments 
in other aspects of quality, such as the removal of a threshold to improve comparability or the 
extension of the activity coverage to improve availability (both of which have been done in 
Germany  during  the  transition  period),  may  have  led  to  a  worsening  of  the  situation  with 
respect to timeliness. It is to be hoped that in these cases progress will continue to be made to 
improve timeliness again, as appears to be the case in Germany. 

Most of the Member States deliver data for annex 5 (Insurance) before the deadline or with a 
small  delay.  Only  Denmark,  Ireland  and  the  United  Kingdom  had  major  delays  in  the 
provision of 2000 reference year data and Belgium and Greece did not provide any data for 
this reference year. 

Availability of preliminary results was rather weak during the transition period. By the 2000 
reference  year  (data due by end of October 2001) all Member States except for Greece and 
Ireland  were  providing  the  data  and  the  longest  delay  beyond  the  deadline  for  any  country 

29 

 
 
  
 
was one month. Ireland and Norway have planned to start to provide preliminary results for at 
least some sectors from the 2001 reference year and the remainder are planned for the 2002 
reference  year.  The  table  6  below  lists  the  transmission  delays  for  the  2001  preliminary 
results.  Delays  are  expressed  in  months  beyond  the  maximum  delay  permitted  by  the  SBS 
Regulation  and  implementing  Commission  Regulations.  The  maximum  delay  for  the 
transmission of data is fixed at 10 months after the end of the reference period. 

Where 2001 data have not yet been received, a dash "-" is shown. If a forecast delivery date is 
available, the forecast delay is indicated with an asterisk “*”. 

The timeliness was analysed on the 15th of January 2003. 

Table 6: Timeliness table for SBS preliminary data, reference year 2001.  

Industry 

Construction 

Distribution 

Services 

BE 

DK 

DE 

EL 

ES 

FR 

IE 

IT 

LU 

NL 

AT 

PT 

FI 

SE 

UK 

NO 

0.5 

0 

0 

- 

0 

0.5 

16* 

1.5 

0 

0.5 

0 

0 

0 

0 

1 

0.5 

0.5 

1 

0 

- 

- 

0.5 

- 

1.5 

0 

0.5 

0 

0 

0.5 

0 

1 

0.5 

0.5 

0 

0 

- 

0 

0.5 

16* 

1.5 

0 

0.5 

0 

0 

0 

0 

1 

0.5 

0.5 

0 

1.5 

- 

0 

0.5 

- 

1.5 

0 

0.5 

0 

0 

0 

0 

1 

0.5 

Information on the timeliness of size class data and regional data is shown in annex 3. 

2.4. 

Quality of SBS data: accuracy 

2.4.1. 

Implementation of the quality Regulation 

Commission Regulation (EC) No 1618/1999 of 23 July 1999 concerning the criteria for the 
evaluation  of  quality  of  structural  business  statistics  required  Member  States  to  provide, 
annually (starting from 1997 inclusive), within 24 months from the end of the reference year, 
information on the coefficient of variation, non-response rate, survey strategy and method of 
determining the principal activity. 

Note that an exemption from these requirements was provided for some Member States. The 
information need not be reported by a Member State if the value added at factor cost in that 
Member  State  normally  represents  less  than  1%  of  the  European  Community  total.  This 
threshold is applied for each NACE Rev. 1 activity for which a quality indicator or a report is 
required.  Luxembourg  and  Ireland  are  regarded  as  being  exempt  from  the  provisions  of  the 

30 

 
 
  
 
 
Commission  Regulation  on  the  grounds  of  their  size.  They  have,  on  a  voluntary  basis, 
provided Eurostat with information on the organisation of their survey systems. 

By  1999  all  Member  States  had  provided  the  report.  In  the  1999  reports  all  Member  States 
provided  information  for  each  of  the  points  required  except  in  some  cases  concerning  item 
non-response. Eurostat has made an analysis of the information provided on the coefficients 
of variation in order to compile an overall figure for the EU. Some results of this analysis are 
given in annex 4. 

At  the  time  of  writing  the  2000  quality  report  was  not  yet  due  but  had  been  provided  by 
several Member States. 

Several Member States use quality measures not just as measures for users but also to refine 
their data production processes. In particular these are used to review sampling methods and 
to concentrate efforts to improve response rates in the areas most needing attention. 

2.5. 

Quality of SBS data: comparability 

In general, statistics have their greatest usefulness when they enable reliable comparisons of 
values  across  space  and  time.  In  the  case  of  structural  business  statistics  this  stresses  the 
comparison  of  the  same  statistics  between  countries  in  order  to  make  international 
comparisons  and  to  evaluate  the  meaning  of  statistics  aggregated  across  countries,  for 
example  EU  totals.  Some  more  basic  problems  of  comparability  exist  because  of  an 
incomplete  compliance  with  the  SBS  Regulation  and  its  implementing  Regulations  or  with 
related legislation on which SBS data relies, for example classifications and statistical units. 
A number of examples are provided below. 

2.5.1.1.  Thresholds and statistical units 

Until recently many Member States applied thresholds excluding part of the population from 
the  SBS  data  that  they  compiled  and  thus  reducing  the  comparability  between  countries,  as 
well as between sectors. Tables showing the extent of this for the annual enterprise series of 
data and for the regional series are provided in annex 5. 

Many Member States have taken steps to remove these thresholds during the transition period 
from  1995  to  1998  (reference  years,  inclusive).  Of  the  remaining  thresholds  for  the  annual 
enterprise series the most significant are: 

— Greece still applies a threshold of 10 persons employed in industry and construction; 

— Ireland  still  applies  a  threshold  of  3  persons  employed  in  industry  and  20  persons 
employed in construction. 

The question of the comparability of statistical units is more complicated. Luxembourg is the 
only  Member  State  recorded  as  using  a  unit  other  than  the  enterprise  for  the  main  annual 
enterprise  series.  This  gives  an  impression,  unfortunately  a  false  one,  of  comparability.  A 
study  by  Eurostat  and  the  Member  States  on  the  state  of  implementation  of  Council 
Regulation  696/93  concerning  statistical  units  concluded  that  the  meaning  of  the  term 
“enterprise” varies widely. By extension it can be concluded that the meaning of the SBS data 
compiled according to this unit therefore also varies widely. 

31 

 
 
  
 
The group studying the implementation of Council Regulation 696/93 agreed that there was 
an urgent need to improve comparability. It has established some rules related to determining 
the limits of an enterprise and proposes to continue this work to develop further rules. It also 
proposes to investigate the conditions under which the KAU differs from the enterprise and to 
investigate further the possibility of agreement on a single statistical unit (either the KAU or 
the enterprise) for SBS and also for short-term business statistics. 

2.5.1.2.  Definitions 

Many  Member  States  have  provided  data  for  some  variables  according  to  non-standard 
definitions, thus reducing comparability between countries. During the transition period this 
can be regarded as an attempt by Member States to provide at least some data to users, even if 
not completely harmonised - the alternative might well have been not to provide the data at 
all. It is believed that all of these problems with definitions had been solved by the end of the 
transition period. It is however possible that other problems remain of which Eurostat is not 
aware.  For  information  on  the  main  problems identified during the transition period see  the 
list in the annex 6. 

2.5.2.  Quality of SBS data: Coherence 

When they originate from a single source, statistics are coherent in that elementary concepts 
can  be  combined  reliably  in  more  complex  ways.  When  they  come  from  different  sources 
statistics are coherent in so far as they are based on common definitions, classifications and 
methodological  standards.  Eurostat  has  recently  started  a  number  of  studies  to  evaluate  the 
coherence of SBS data with other data sets. One compares SBS data with annualised short-
term statistics and another looks at employment measures in SBS and various other sources. 
Some  early  results  are  available  from  the  comparison  with  annualised  short-term  statistics. 
This looked at annual growth rates between 1995 and 1999. It concluded that the comparisons 
were  particularly  weak  in  NACE  Divisions  30  (manufacture  of  office  machinery  and 
equipment) and 37 (recycling). Further work is planned to refine the methodology used and to 
investigate further possible sources of the differences, notably the use of different statistical 
units, data sources and data processing. 

2.6. 

Future work on quality 

Eurostat  will  establish  a  programme  setting  out  priorities  for  measuring  and  improving  the 
quality of structural business statistics. The quality programme will be a multi-annual rolling 
programme and will be discussed and approved at annual meeting with Member States. This 
programme is intended to include the following elements: 

To  measure  the  quality  of  the  statistics  by  using  a  set  of  quality  indicators  and  in  order  to 
identify areas which need quality actions; 

To give special attention to improving the coherency of data when data from different surveys 
or sources are combined; 

To evaluate the effect on SBS of the quality of business registers. 

32 

 
 
  
 
PART III 

3. 

COSTS AND STATISTICAL BURDEN 

3.1. 

Impact of the adaptation process 

At the end of 2000 Eurostat prepared its first proposals to amend the SBS Regulation using 
the Comitology procedure. The aims of this work were to try to reduce or at least contain the 
statistical  burden,  offering  room  for  new  investigations  or  developments  of  the  SBS 
Regulation  in  the  future.  These  were  discussed  with  data  users  and  the  national  statistical 
authorities. 

After discussions with all parties concerned the following adaptations were agreed: 

— addition  of  two  variables  (wages  and  salaries  and  social  security  cost)  to  the  list  of 
variables in Section 4 paragraph 4 of annex 1 of the SBS Regulation; 

— addition  of  one  variable  (social  security  cost)  to  the  list  of  variables  in  Section  4 
paragraph 3 of annex 3 of the SBS Regulation; 

— modification of the level of activity detail for which data are to be transmitted for several 
variables (purchases of energy products, R&D expenditure and employment) in annexes 2 and 
4; 

— modification  of  the  variable  "Turnover  from  the  principal  activity  at  4-digit  level"  to  be 
calculated at the 3-digit level instead; 

— replacement  of  two  variables  concerning  the  part  of  turnover  from  trading  and 
intermediary activities by one variable covering both of these activities in Section 4 paragraph 
3 of annex 3; 

— deletion  of  one  variable  (value  added  at  basic  prices  which  was  already  an  optional 
variable) from all annexes; 

— deletion  of  one  variable  (number  of  apprentices)  from  Section  4  paragraph  3  of  annex  2 
and Section 4 paragraph 4 of annex 4 as well as a regrouping of eleven variables related to the 
purchase of different types of energy products into six variables in Section 4 paragraph 4 of 
annexes 2 and 4; 

— deletion of the series by public and private ownership foreseen in Section 7 paragraph 3 of 
annexes 2 and 4. 

The  changes  to  the  SBS  Regulation  listed  in  the  above  paragraph  were  also  made  in  the 
Commission 
the 
transmission  format.  In  addition  the  Commission Regulation concerning the data  series was 
modified in order to reduce the number of size-classes used in the size class series. 

implementing  Regulations  concerning  definitions,  data  series  and 

The changes will be introduced for the data for the 2002 reference year. 

33 

 
 
  
 
In  May  2002,  the  draft  Commission  Regulation  was  unanimously  agreed  by  the  SPC.  On 
6 September  2002  the  Commission  adopted  this  Regulation25  which  entered  into  force  on 
26 September 2002. 

Additional modifications were proposed by the Commission and by Member States, but the 
necessary consensus could not be found. 

3.2. 

Some ways to limit the statistical burden 

Various measures can be taken to contain response burden. For example:  

i) by developing survey strategies to reduce the number of observed units, either by excluding 
parts of the population from the surveys or by replacing exhaustive surveys with samples ; 

ii) by improving the organisation of surveys to reduce surveying units twice ; 

iii) by implementing rotation in sample selection26 ; 

iv) by removing redundant questions surveyed on multiple questionnaires ; 

v) by using simplified questionnaires for smaller enterprises ; 

vi) by making a more intensive or systematic use of administrative data ; 

vii) by simplifying data entry (using electronic forms rather than pen and paper) ; 

viii)  by  simplifying  data  transmission  (providing  post  paid  envelopes,  using  fax  servers  or 
enabling electronic data transmission) ; 

ix) by aligning with other administrative declarations (accounting standards or software). 

It is intended that the following overview of actions by Member States should refer strictly to 
the  1999-2002  reference  period.  In  fact  it  is  hard  to apply  a precise cut-off date as  in some 
cases  the  preparation  of  actions  took  more  than  one  year.  In  other  cases  a  very  active 
preparation has begun for new projects to be implemented relative to the 2003 reference year. 
Hence this overview must be understood to refer to "recent" years. 

As already reported in the first report to the Council and European Parliament (2000), of all 
the implementation methods used or planned in the Member States, the use of administrative 
data, without any loss of information, is the one whose impact in terms of reducing response 
burden is the greatest. 

25 

26 

Commission Regulation (EC) No 1614/2002 of 6 September 2002 adjusting Council Regulation (EC, 
Euratom)  No  58/97  to  economic  and  technical  developments  and  amending  Commission  Regulations 
(EC) No 2700/98, (EC)No 2701/98 and (EC) No 2702/98. 
This  may  not  reduce  burden  but  may  ensure  that  it  is  more  evenly  spread  across  the  business 
population. 

34 

 
 
  
 
                                                 
3.2.1.  Different ways of use of administrative data may be distinguished. 

3.2.1.1.  Using administrative data for a whole size stratum: a strong impact 

In  general,  more  and  more  statistical  authorities  use  only  administrative  data  for  covering 
enterprises with employment levels below a certain threshold (20 or 50 persons employed for 
example). 

Before 1999, only four countries (Denmark, France, Finland and Sweden) used administrative 
data  to  compile  SBS  data  for  a  significant  part  of  the  domain  covered,  in  other  words  for 
enterprises  below  a  particular  size  threshold  or  in  certain  activities.  Since  1999  four  other 
countries (Greece, Spain, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) have used such an approach or 
are planning it for the next round of data collection. At the present time eight of the sixteen 
countries considered here rely entirely on statistical surveys and estimation methods for most 
of the requirements of the SBS. 

3.2.1.2.  Using  both  administrative  and  statistical  data  for  the  same  units  in  a  co-ordinated 

way 

This approach normally involves developing survey strategies that only keep in the statistical 
questionnaires the variables that cannot be obtained from administrative sources. 

This approach can lead to improvements in the harmonisation of administrative and statistical 
definitions. 

This  approach  can  also  reinforce  co-operation  between  Statistical  and  Administrative 
authorities; this co-operation may be imposed by a legal basis: for example, changes that are 
brought  to  the  administrative  data  system  have  to  be  discussed  with  the  statisticians  before 
being implemented. 

This  approach  can  be  greatly  facilitated  by  the  existence  of  a  unique  register  number  for 
administrative and/or statistical registers. 

3.2.1.3.  Using  both  administrative  and  statistical  data  in  an  integrated  (and  sophisticated) 

way 

This  approach  uses  ratio  estimation  techniques  to  gross  the  survey  sample  results  based  on 
auxiliary variables available from administrative sources; this approach has a strong impact. 
An  alternative  is  to  build  a  fully  integrated  statistical  system  where  data  from  both 
administrative  and  statistical  sources  co-exist.  This  includes  checking  the  consistency 
between data from different sources, and implementing estimation and imputation techniques. 

Another possibility is to use an alternating strategy for the small units of certain sectors: the 
statistical survey is not conducted every year, but only every two years, for example, and the 
other year the administrative data are used for the sample which was surveyed the previous 
year. In this way surveys may not be conducted for all sectors at the same time (with half of 
the  sectors  being  surveyed  each  year)  and  this  allows  a  more  regular  work  flow  for  the 
statistical office. This approach has a strong impact on the availability of preliminary data. 

35 

 
 
  
 
3.2.1.4.  Using administrative data may involve some difficulties 

A  systematic  alignment  of  administrative  and  statistical  requirements  should  not  be  done  at 
too great a cost for the quality of the statistics (it may be useful to keep in both sources some 
double counted variables such as employment). Equally it may not be possible to align in a 
strict  way  definitions  in  both  sources  without  losing  sight  of  the  different  purposes  of  the 
administrative and statistical information.  

3.2.1.5.  Checking permanently the relevance of questionnaires and surveys 

The  implementation  of  the  SBS  regulation  in  some  Member  States  has  been  a  good 
opportunity  to  revise  significantly  existing  questionnaires  (deletion  of  variables  previously 
requested for national purposes but not required by the SBS Regulation, tailoring the form to 
the  activity  concerned;  harmonisation  of  data  collection  between  different  surveys  and 
possible deletion of some surveys or part of them, etc).  

Some  countries  have  committed  themselves  to  regular  and  systematic  checking  of  the 
relevance of questionnaires and surveys (official rolling programme). 

3.2.1.6.  Optimisation by sampling techniques 

Alongside the actions undertaken for broader use of administrative sources, several Member 
States have significantly reduced the number of enterprises directly surveyed through better 
drawing  of  samples  or  by  using  sampling  where  previously  exhaustive  surveys  had  been 
carried  out.  These  actions  have  often  had  a  great  impact  in  terms  of  reducing  the  response 
burden even if this only affects small enterprises.  

This  can  be  done  by  using  sampling  techniques  with lower chances of selection for smaller 
enterprises. It can also be done by using co-ordinated sampling. This co-ordination may come 
out when samples for (two or more) different surveys are drawn or when samples are drawn 
for different years. The co-ordination involves ensuring that the burden of replying to surveys 
is  more  evenly  spread  across  the  business  community,  particularly  between  smaller 
enterprises.  This  can  be  applied  in  a  way  that  leads  to  the  full  exclusion  of  all  units  in  the 
previous  sample  (negative  co-ordination).  In  some  cases  strict  rules  are  applied  for  small 
enterprises for which a certain period of time must elapse before an enterprise can be included 
again in a survey. 

To some extent the "rough" indicator (see chapter 3.3) can reflect in a quantitative manner the 
impact of these techniques. 

3.2.1.7.  Other methods to help enterprises to bear the statistical burden 

Improving  electronic  data  interchange  (EDI):  first  attempts  have  been  made  or  are  planned 
with  electronic  questionnaires  (incorporating  control/verification  procedures)  or  the  use  of 
EDI  for  electronic  transmission  of  data  between  the  national  statistical  authorities  and 
enterprises.  It  is  still  difficult  to  judge  the  impact  that  these  efforts  will  have  on  reducing 
response burden.  

New  ways  of  collecting  the  data  have  been  developed  since  1998,  for  example  providing 
respondents with Excel-files instead of paper questionnaires. There are also projects to collect 
data  over  the  Internet  as  from  the  reference  year  2001  in  some  countries.  In  each  case,  the 
impact on the response burden is medium. 

36 

 
 
  
 
Helping  the  respondents  by  providing  instructions  how  the  questionnaires  are  to  be  filled 
(including information on the links between questions in the forms and the basic accounting 
plans). The impact on the response burden is judged weak. 

Sending  to  selected  enterprises  a  leaflet  explaining  the  need  for  the  information  and  the 
importance  of  their  contribution  along  with  details  of  how  the  national  statistical  authority 
tries to keep their burden to a minimum. The impact on the response burden is judged weak. 

3.3. 

A summary indicator of the evolution of the statistical burden 

The  aim  here  is  to  achieve  a  quantitative  assessment  of  the  development  of  enterprises’ 
response burden at the European level due to the SBS regulation on a quantitative basis. The 
difficulty  of  providing  a  relevant  quantitative  assessment  has  to  be  underlined  and  some 
important limits stressed. However an attempt to build such an indicator has been made. 

3.3.1.  Method and limits of a quantitative indicator  

This indicator measures developments between 1990 and 2003 of the number of enterprises 
surveyed by statistical questionnaires. It has been calculated from information for the majority 
of  Member  States  (plus  Norway).  Between  10  and  12  countries  provided  information 
depending on the reference year. In most cases breakdowns by size classes were provided so 
that indicators could have been updated for each size-class. 

The calculation principle is to establish comparisons on a "constant field". In other words it is 
calculated for a stable sectoral and size coverage in the periods studied. As such the indicator 
does  not  take  into  account  the  rise  in  the  number  of  questionnaires  sent  resulting  from  an 
increased  coverage  of  the  economy.  A  gross  indicator  calculated  independently  of  the 
coverage  of  the  economy  over  the  period  analysed  would,  by  definition,  have  indicated  an 
increase in the number of enterprises surveyed, because one of the major strengths of the SBS 
Regulation has been precisely to expand coverage to the full range of economic activities. 

However, even limiting the indicator to a constant coverage – defined individually for each 
Member  State  –the  indicator  provided  does  not  take  account  of  the  significant  increase 
through the implementation of the SBS Regulation in the quantity of information provided to 
users  nor  its  quality  including  data  freshness.  Equally  it  does  not  take  account  of  the 
improvements  that  have  been  made  in  the  drafting  of  questionnaires  (headings,  explanatory 
notes, links to accounting standards and so on) nor even the use made of administrative data 
for  some  variables.  In  this  sense  it  under-reports  the  reduction  of  the  response  burden 
resulting from initiatives made by Member States as it is not compiled for a fixed quantity of 
information supplied. 

This indicator should therefore be considered rather as an indicator of the impact of measures 
taken by Member States to reduce response burden limited only to the number of enterprises 
questioned. The other limitations of this indicator are the following :  

i) as it is calculated as a global indicator from the information provided by several Member 
States  it  does  not  show  the  diversity  of  national  situations.  In  some  cases  the  impact  of 
national measures is significantly greater that that shown by this global indicator. 

ii) the extent to which Member States have access to administrative data strongly influences 
the possible impact of the efforts made by each one. 

37 

 
 
  
 
iii) as this is a very rough indicator it cannot describe the very complicated survey strategies 
which are implemented by some Member States, for example when several statistical surveys 
are combined with different administrative sources. In some cases only a few variables have 
been taken into account and not necessarily all of those in Annex 1 of the SBS Regulation. 

iv) finally, it would be meaningless and possibly misleading to try to compare this indicator 
with the situation in any individual Member State. 

3.3.2.  The main results 

The following table gives the results. Some changes happened for the early periods compared 
to the table presented in the first report to the Council and the European Parliament because 
some  countries  updated  figures  for  either  the  1995  or  2000  reference  years  and  there  were 
also contributions from countries that were not available for the first report. 

The  results  have  been  established  for  the  main  annual  enterprise  series  (series  1A).  The 
indicator is expressed with 1990 = 100. 

Employment size class 
1-19 
20-99 
100+ 
Total 

1990 
100 
100 
100 
100 

1995 
86 
98 
102 
93 

2000 
49 
69 
103 
60 

2003 
44 
65 
101 
57 

The two first lines of the table show a regular and constant effort to maintain and even reduce 
the rate for questionnaires sent to small enterprises and in some extent to medium enterprises. 

Despite  the  technical  or  even  conceptual  difficulties  which  put  some  limits  to  the 
interpretation of this indicator, it can be considered that a significant effort was made between 
1995 and 2000 to control the statistical burden for small enterprises. During that period, to a 
certain  extent,  the  aim  may  have  been  to  make  room  for  extensions  towards  new  sectors. 
These efforts seem to have since slowed down, possibly as they reach certain limits. 

3.3.3.  National efforts to measure compliance costs 

At present, for national purposes, a few Member States attempt to assess the statistical burden 
in a quantitative manner. For example, every year Statistics Denmark publishes the burden on 
enterprises.  The  time  taken  to  provide  each  compulsory  variable  is  evaluated.  On  a  yearly 
basis  Statistics  Netherlands  tracks  the  burden  on  enterprises  in  terms  of  time  and  financial 
cost. The United Kingdom produces an annual publication quantifying in financial terms the 
burden of all of its business surveys. 

38 

 
 
  
 
PART IV 

4. 

DEVELOPMENT OF STRUCTURAL BUSINESS STATISTICS 

4.1. 

Review of the pilot studies and similar work on missing definitions 

One of the main reasons for developing a new legal basis for structural business statistics was 
the lack of flexibility in the existing legal basis for industrial structural statistics. Hence, when 
the SBS Regulation was drafted, a broader flexibility was written into the legislation than the 
Directives  that  it  replaced  in  order  to  make  it  possible  for  the  legal  basis  to  adapt  to  new 
requirements. One of the ways in which this was done was to develop the idea of pilot studies. 
The choice of subjects for pilot studies was based initially on the needs perceived at that time 
that were not met by the compulsory provisions of the SBS Regulation and on the perception 
of likely needs in the medium term. Developments in the political and economic framework 
have led to additional demands for the collection of data on issues that could not be and were 
not foreseen when the Commission’s proposal was originally drafted. As a result development 
work has stopped on some of the pilot studies and those that continue have been integrated 
into a broader development programme (see chapter 4.2). 

The  pilot  studies  foreseen  in  the  SBS  Regulation  can  be  grouped  into  four  types:  i)  those 
where  development  work  was  undertaken  and  has  led  to  proposals  to  start  regular  data 
collection  (either  voluntary  or  with  a  legal  basis)  ii)  those  where  development  work  was 
started but has not yet led to a regular data collection iii) those where development work was 
started but has been discontinued and iv) those where no significant development work was 
undertaken. Each of the pilot studies is reviewed briefly below. 

4.1.1.  Development work that has lead to proposals for regular data collection 

In  accordance  with  the  provisions  of  Section  10  of  Annex  1  of  the  SBS  Regulation,  pilot 
studies have been organised on the possibility to add the financial activities in NACE Group 
65.2 and Division 67 to the coverage of Annex 1. Following this, by way of the amendment to 
the SBS Regulation adopted on 5 November 2002, these activities have been added to the list 
of  activities  covered  by  Annex  1  of  the  SBS  Regulation.  The  first  reference  year  for  the 
production of the data, as well as the exact specification of the data to be transmitted and the 
transmission  period,  will  be  laid  down  using the Comitology  procedures. Regular  voluntary 
data collections have been undertaken since 2001: the first concerned reference year 1999. 

For credit institutions (NACE Class 65.12 and part of NACE Class 65.22) regular voluntary 
data  collections  have  been  undertaken  for  a  list  of characteristics specific  to these  activities 
since  the  1997  reference  year.  Following  this,  by  way  of  the  amendment  to  the  SBS 
Regulation adopted on 5 November 2002, an annex (number 6) specific to these activities has 
been added. The first reference year for the production of the data is 2001. Data collection of 
the Annex 1 variables for the activities of NACE Class 65.12 was already mandatory since the 
reference  year  1995.  For  pension  funds  (NACE  Class  66.02)  regular  voluntary  data 
collections have also been undertaken since the 1997 reference year. Following this, by way 
of the amendment to the SBS Regulation adopted on 5 November 2002, these activities have 
been added to the list of activities covered by Annex 1 of the SBS Regulation and an annex 
(number  7)  specific  to  these  activities  has  been  added.  The  first  reference  year  for  the 
production of the data is 2002. 

39 

 
 
  
 
(“integrated 

technology”))  and  21 14 0 

For the environment variables 21 12 0 (investment in equipment and plant linked to cleaner 
(total  current  expenditure  on 
technology 
environmental  protection)  voluntary  data  collections  have  been  undertaken.  Following  this, 
by  way  of  the  amendment  to  the  SBS  Regulation  adopted  on  5  November  2002,  variable 
21 12 0 has been added to the list of variables for annual enterprise statistics listed in Annex 2 
of  the  SBS  Regulation  and  variable  21 14 0  to  the  list  of  multi-yearly  statistics  of  the  same 
Annex (this variable has to be compiled every three years). A threshold has been applied to 
these  variables  such  that  smaller  Member  States  will  not  be  required  to  provide  these 
variables. The first reference year for the production of data for these variables is 2001. These 
variables  and  the  variable  21 11 0  (investment  in  equipment  and  plant  for  pollution  control, 
and special anti-pollution accessories (mainly end-of-pipe equipment)) will be produced with 
a breakdown by type of environmental domain and by size class. 

Work in the area of Foreign Affiliates Statistics (FATS) started in 1995, before the adoption 
of  the  SBS  Regulation,  with  nine  Member  States  studying  Inward  FATS.  The  two  main 
objectives were to test the methodology and the start of voluntary data collection. A second 
round of data collection was launched in 1998 with data supplied and results published during 
1999.  Eight  Member  States  participated  in  this  second  round,  which  concluded  that  it  was 
feasible  to  compile  FATS  data  defining  foreign  ownership  on  the  basis  of  the  ultimate 
beneficial owner (UBO method). A third round of data collection was launched for the 1999 
reference year with 10 Member States participating and a further round of data collection for 
the  2000  and  2001  reference  years  has  also  been  launched  with  12  Member  States 
participating.  Eurostat  is  presently  finalising  a  draft  regulation  on  statistics  on  foreign 
affiliates, which will give the necessary legal basis for a regular data collection. 

As  to  other  service  activities  -  NACE  Sections  M  to  O  (annex  1),  a  feasibility  study  was 
started on these activities concentrating on an assessment of user needs and a survey of the 
availability  of  data  in  the  Member  States.  The  results  of  this  were  analysed  in  a  report 
presented in April 1999. Work on data availability and usability continued in 2000. Outside 
the  SBS  framework,  regular  voluntary  data  collection  continued  for  Division  90  and  for 
Groups 92.1 and 92.2 a first round of surveys was launched for the 2001 reference year (with 
results  for  the  end  of  2002)  and  a  second  round  is  planned  for  the  2002  reference  year. 
Inclusion of these NACE activities into the SBS regulation is now being considered, while for 
other parts of sections M to O additional pilot actions are necessary. 

Although  variable  18 21 0  (breakdown  of  turnover  by  product)  is  a  compulsory  variable  in 
Annex 3 of the SBS Regulation there was no clear agreement on the precise breakdown and 
methodology to be used for compiling data for this variable and the development work in this 
area  has  been  conducted  in  a  similar  manner  to  the  pilot  studies.  This  variable  is  a  multi-
yearly variable collected on a five-yearly basis. Retail trade was covered in the 1997 reference 
year, wholesale trade in the 1998 reference year and motor trades in the 2000 reference year. 
For each of these years a proposal for the coverage and level of detail of the breakdown has 
been proposed and discussed. For each of the sectors the breakdown has been agreed by most 
of the countries although it has not always been unanimous. 

4.1.2.  Development work started but no regular data collection 

Intangible  investment  -  variables  15 43 0  (annexes  2  and  4),  15 41 0  (annex  3),  15 42 0  and 
15 44 2 (annex 4). Following the adoption of the SBS Regulation a task force was set up to 
develop  definitions  in  this  area  and  to  look  at  feasibility.  Data  availability  varies  greatly 

40 

 
 
  
 
between  variables  and  between  Member  States  with  the  characteristics  on  marketing 
expenditure and purchased software being the most readily available. 

In  1997  and  1998  a  set  of  theoretical  (but  not  operational)  definitions  for  expenditure  on 
individual  intangible  items  was  established.  As  well  as  the  pilot  survey  variables  this  work 
also  tried  to  develop  definitions  for  the  compulsory  intangible  investment  variables  in 
Annexes 2 and 4. In the project on statistics on demand for services (see 4.2.), the inclusion of 
such  data  was  discussed,  but  further  work  showed  that  it  was  too  difficult  to  capture  such 
data. 

4.1.3.  Development work started but discontinued 

In Annex 3 a number of pilot studies concerning variables specific to the distribution sector 
were  proposed:  breakdown  of  operating  costs  -  variables  13 41 0,  13 42 0,  13 43 0;  co-
operation  agreements  -  variable  17 11 0;  trading  forms  -  variable  17 31 0;  breakdown  of 
suppliers  and  customers  by  type  -  variables  25 11 1  to  25 11 3  and  25 21 1  and  25 21 2. 
Definitions  have  been  established  for  these  variables.  Data  was  collected  for  the  1997 
reference year for eight Member States.  

Geographical  breakdown  of  turnover  and  purchases-variables  14 11 0,  14 12 0,  14 21 0, 
14 22 0 (annexes 1 to 4). These variables were included in the first round of collection of data 
on FATS but were dropped from later rounds.  

Variables related to the financial and extra-ordinary accounts of a profit and loss statement- 
variables  12 18 0  (annex  1),  12 16 0,  12 19 0  and  12 20 0  (annexes  2  and  4)  and  financial 
investment - variables 15 61 0, 15 62 0 (annexes 2 and 4). In 1997 a task force was set-up to 
look at the current practices and data availability of these variables in the sectors of industry 
and  construction  and  discussed  related  methodological  issues.  An  analysis  of  current  data 
availability  for  the  profit  and  loss  variables  showed  that,  depending  on  the  sector  of  the 
economy covered, many of the 15 Member States already collected this information. The two 
remaining variables, concerning the purchases and sales of shares and participating interests, 
showed a much weaker data availability. 

Income from sub-contracting - variable 23 12 0 (annex 2). Work was carried out by Eurostat 
and the national statistical authorities in a number of Member States concentrating mainly on 
the feasibility of data collection in this area. This has looked in particular at the development 
of a practical definition of sub-contracting which could be understood in a similar fashion by 
all parties to subcontracting regardless of the country and the sector concerned. The result of 
this work has been the refinement of a definition for statistical purposes which can be used for 
most industrial sectors and on which there is general agreement. Voluntary data collection of 
existing  data  was  launched  for  industrial  activities  for  the  1999  reference  year  with  the 
proposal that this information should be broken down by size class. 

4.1.4.  Areas where no significant development work has been carried out 

Among the pilot studies foreseen in the SBS Regulation the only one for which no work has 
been done is for the compilation of regional investment data - variable 15 11 0 (annex 1 - not 
relevant for NACE Sections C to E where this variable is already compulsory). 

41 

 
 
  
 
4.2. 

Integration of pilot studies in the rolling development programme 

Since  the  first  report  to  the  Council  and  European  Parliament  on  the  implementation  of  the 
SBS Regulation, Eurostat, in co-operation with the Member States has set up a development 
programme for structural business statistics. This programme is based on a three-year rolling 
programme, established after consultation with main users and national statistical authorities. 
The  programme  is  annually  presented  for  approval  to  the  SBS  Steering  Group  and  is  then 
implemented  under  the  condition  of  availability  of  resources.  The  current  three-year  work 
programme (2003 to 2005) concerns the projects listed in the following table 7. 

Table 7: the current three-year SBS work programme (2003 to 2005)  

2003 

 2004 

2005 

Business services 

Breakdown  by  product  and 
client  -  current  development 
project finalised 

Evaluation  of 
project  and  decision  on 
continuation 
collection for business services 

the  development 
the 
data 

the 

of 

Establishment  of  a 
regular data collection 

In  case  of  positive  evaluation, 
continuation of data collection  on 
a  voluntary  basis  of  by 
introducing  breakdowns  of 
turnover  by  product  and  by 
client into the SBS Regulation 

Business 
demography 

Evaluation  of  phase  1  of  the 
and 
development 
decision  on  the  continuation  of 
the  data  collection  on 
the 
respective variables  

project 

Start  of  project  with 
Accession/Acceding countries 

the 

In  case  of  positive  evaluation, 
new  round  of  data  collection 
all Member States. 

Establishment  of  a 
regular data collection

Adaptation of SBS Regulation 

Foreign  Affiliates 
Statistics (FATS) 

Preparation  of  a  separate  FATS 
Regulation 

Evaluation of Phase 4 

Establishment  of  a 
regular data collection

Phase 4 of data collection 

Employment  data 
different 
from 
and 
sources 
linking 
to  SBS 
data 

Survey 

Evaluation of linkability of SBS, 
Labour  Cost 
and 
Structure  of  Earnings  Survey 
continued.  In  case  of  positive 
of 
evaluation: 
employment data and SBS data 

linking 

Start of the data collection if a 
regulation is adopted. 

Action  depending  on  outcome 
of  the  SBS  Steering  Group 
meeting 

Possible extension of Annex 1 
variables 
to 
employment 

related 

Ad hoc surveys 

Implementation 
framework 

of 

legal 

Second 
prepared 

ad-hoc 

survey 

Second 
conducted. 

survey 

Execution  of  the  first  ad-hoc 
survey and publication of results 

Methodological  development  / 
testing phase 

Data collection 

Demand 
services 
purchases 
investments 

for 
– 
and 

42 

 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Methodological development 

First data collection 

Business 
demography: 
factors  of  business 
success 

and 
Publication 
evaluation  of  results 
of 
data 
first 
collection.  Decisions 
for future taken.  

4.2.1.  Notes on earlier development programmes 

The  business  services  project  started  in  1999.  For  reference  year  1999,  computer  services 
(NACE Division 72) were covered by a voluntary data collection. Ten countries participated. 
For reference year 2000, accounting and management consultancy activities (NACE Classes 
74.12  and  74.14),  market  research  (NACE  Class  74.13),  architectural  and  engineering 
services (NACE Group 74.2) and advertising (NACE Group 74.4) will be covered. Variables 
collected concern the breakdown of turnover by client and by product. 

The  business  demography  project  was  started  in  2000  and  covers  enterprise  births,  their 
survival,  growth,  the  related  turnover  and  employment  as  well  as  enterprise  deaths.  An 
exercise  in  methodological  harmonisation  was  undertaken  by  Eurostat  and  many  national 
statistical authorities and this methodology was tested in a feasibility study in 2001. The first 
harmonised  data  collection  has  taken  place  during  the  third  and  fourth  quarter  of  2002  and 
covers reference years 1997 to 2000. NACE coverage is Sections C to K and M to O. Most 
Member States have participated. It is planned to establish a regular data collection exercise 
in this area and to extend the work in 2003 to study factors of business success. 

So  far  one  project  has  been  finalised  under  a  previous  programme  and  this  concerned  the 
"social economy and a breakdown by legal form". The final report on this project proposed to 
discontinue work in this area. 

4.3. 

Continuing  the  progress  towards  better  services  statistics  –  a  strategy  for 
services statistics 

Some Member States have produced annual business statistics in service activities for many 
years, some covering a narrow range of activities (for example just distribution) and others a 
much wider range. Prior to the adoption of the SBS Regulation, the legal basis for EU-wide 
annual  business  statistics  was  focused  entirely  on  industry  and  construction,  although  a 
considerable  amount  of  development  work  in  the  service  sectors  had  been  undertaken, 
particularly since the end of the 1980s. 

The adoption of the SBS Regulation signified a major change in this respect, providing a legal 
basis  for  the  first  time  for  harmonised  EU  wide  statistics  for  a  very  large  range  of  service 
activities and encouraging further development in others, notably in NACE Sections J and M 
to  O.  Although  the  SBS  Regulation  clearly  concentrated  more  on  the  traditional  areas  of 
industry  and  construction,  where  statistical  systems  were  more  established,  the  SBS 
Regulation  provided  the  essential  step-up  from  pilot  surveys  in  services  to  regular, 
harmonised, EU-wide services statistics. 

Despite  the  enormous  progress  made  through  the  implementation  of  the  SBS  Regulation 
demand for more statistical information about the business services remains strong, whether 
for  general  cross-sector  business  statistics  or  sector-specific  information.  To  continue  this 
progress  towards  a  more  balanced  and  relevant  production  of  structural  business  statistics, 
Eurostat has developed a proposal for a strategy on the improvement of data availability on 
services in the area of structural business statistics. This proposal was generally approved by 

43 

 
 
  
 
the Statistical Programme Committee in September 2002. The time horizon for this proposal 
is 3 – 5 years, thus in line with the 5 year Statistical Programme. 

4.3.1.  The proposed strategy 

As  a  result  of  the  action  plan,  the  following  data  availability  can  be  expected  for  the  year 
2007: 

•  An  extended  set  of  basic  SBS  variables  available  for  a  larger  range  of  services,  broken 

down to more distinct services activities 

•  Statistics  on  the  turnover-,  product-  and  client-  breakdowns  and  finer  detail  for  selected 

services activities 

•  Statistics  on  both  the  human  and  other  intangible  production  factors  relevant  for  the 

services economy 

•  Statistics  on  new  crosscutting  topics  (such  as  foreign  affiliates,  inter-enterprise  relations, 

business demography) that do no longer discriminate against the services sector 

The necessary changes of the SBS legal framework would take place through an amendment 
of the regulation, which would cover mainly changes of Annex 1. 

•  A set of variables would be transferred Annexes 2, 3 and 4 to Annex 1, thus also collected 
for  the  services  sector.  Such  variables  are  for  example  12  17  0  Gross  operating  surplus, 
16 13 1 Number of part-time employees and 16 15 0 Number of hours worked. 

•  As  a  result  of  the  development  project  on  “Business  Demography”,  introduction  of  a 

breakdown of Annex 1 variables: 

(cid:57)  11 11 0 
(cid:57)  12 11 0 
(cid:57)  16 11 0 
(cid:57)  16 13 0 

Number of enterprises 
Turnover 
Number of persons employed 
Number of employees 

into the following new reference populations: 

(cid:57)   enterprise births 
(cid:57)  enterprise deaths 
(cid:57)  surviving enterprises (out of newly born enterprises, to be followed from t until t+5 

•  Extension of Annex 1 with a finer detail of services activities for NACE divisions 72 and 

74 and a breakdown of the turnover by products and by clients  

•  Extension  of  data  collection  in  Annex  1  by  applying  a  4-digit  breakdown  of  NACE 
division 90 (environmental services) and thus acknowledging that these activities are now 
mainly  market  activities  and  also  making  data  from  divisions  41  (water  supply)  and  37 
(recycling) comparable across countries 

•  Extension of data collection in Annex 1 by applying a 4-digit breakdown of NACE classes 
92.1  (Motion  picture  and  video  activities)  and  92.2  (Radio  and  television  activities)  and 

44 

 
 
  
 
thus  taking  account  of  the  increased  market  activities  in  these  formerly  mainly 
government-operated services 

•  Changing section 10 of Annex 1 to allow further pilot studies, especially on parts of NACE 

sections M, N and O to determine where market activities prevail  

•  Introduction of a detailed ad hoc module into the SBS regulation, probably as a separate 
annex,  allowing  for  a  biennial  survey  on  new  data  of  emerging  economical  of 
political/societal interest.  

At the same time, the effort to find simplifications of the SBS should continue, to minimise 
additional burden on enterprises and on the statistical system.  

The  proposals  are  planned  to  be  submitted  to  the  Council  and  the  Parliament  in  2004. 
Together  with  the  proposal  for  a  regulation  on  statistics  on  foreign  affiliates,  these  changes 
will  considerably  improve  the  availability  of  data  for  the  services  sector.  Meanwhile,  the 
voluntary data collection will continue as set out in the three-year rolling programme. 

45 

 
 
  
 
ANNEXES  

Annex 1 - Detailed information on publications...................................................................... 47 

Annex 2 - Detailed information on availability ....................................................................... 48 

Annex 3 - Detailed information on timeliness ......................................................................... 56 

Annex 4 - Detailed information on accuracy: coefficients of variation................................... 59 

Annex 5 - Detailed information on comparability: thresholds................................................. 60 

Annex 6 - Detailed information on comparability: definitions ................................................ 61 

Annex 7 - SBS data for credit institutions and pension funds ................................................. 63 

Annex 8 - Structural Business Statistics in Acceding and Candidate countries ...................... 65 

Annex 9 - Summary of NACE activities.................................................................................. 70 

Annex 10 - Glossary................................................................................................................. 71

46 

 
 
  
 
Annex 1 

DETAILED INFORMATION ON PUBLICATIONS 

In addition to the main dissemination products listed in chapter 2.1 Eurostat has released the 
following publications  based principally  on SBS data  between January  1999  and  the end of 
April 2002. 

Title 

Contents 

Special feature on 
country profiles in 
European manufacturing 

Describes the structure of the manufacturing 
industry in the EU Member States. 

Special feature on 
publishing and printing 

Overview of the publishing and printing industry, 
including publishing of books and newspapers. 

Special feature on 
chemicals, rubber and 
plastics 

Overview of the chemicals, rubber and plastics 
sector. 

Services in Europe 

Two editions. Overview of Services in Europe. 

Format 

Paper 

PDF 

PDF 

Paper and 
CD-ROM 

Distributive trades in 
Europe 

Distributive trades sector in Member States. Data 
1995-1997. 

Paper and 
CD-ROM 

Distributive trades in 
Europe – Pocketbook 

Two editions. Business Statistics for motor trade, 
wholesale trade and retail trade activities. 

Transport business 
statistics,  

Transport Business Statistics for the Member 
States. Data 1993-1996. 

Paper 

Paper 

Special feature on road 
transport 

Road transport industry analysed by mode. 

Paper 

Insurance in Europe. 

Two editions. European trends in insurance. 

Paper or PDF 

47 

 
 
  
 
Annex 2 

DETAILED INFORMATION ON AVAILABILITY 

The tables below give an overview of data availability for each country. This assessment is 
based on the situation in reference years 1996 and 2000 (in many cases 1999 is used instead 
of 2000 for regional series). The analysis shows the proportion (in percentage terms) of the 
data that is available, compared to the compulsory requirements of the SBS Regulation. This 
has been evaluated by taking account of all compulsory variables27, the finest level of activity 
breakdown  required  by  the  Regulation  (and  where  appropriate  the  regional  and  size  class 
breakdowns). Where exemptions are permitted on the grounds of size these have been taken 
into account in the calculation of the proportions. 

The maximum number of records expected for each country, for each series, for each Section 
is specified in the tables below. 

NACE Section s 

C 

D 

E 

F 

G 

H 

I 

J-part

K 

Annual enterprise series 

BE,  DK,  DE,  EL,  ES,  FR,  IT, 
NL, AT, PT, FI, SE, UK, NO 

544  8,194 

132 

561  2,079 

20 

120 

362 

140 

IE, LU 

512  7,712 

124 

170 

770 

20 

120 

362 

140 

Annual size class series 

BE,  DK,  DE,  EL,  ES,  FR,  IT, 
NL, AT, PT, FI, SE, UK, NO 

IE, LU 

Regional data 

624  4,944 

192 

200 

304 

32 

192 

24 

224 

520  4,120 

160 

200 

304 

32 

192 

24 

224 

NACE Sections 

C 

D 

BE 

DK 

DE 

EL 

ES 

FR 

IE 

IT 

LU 

NL 

220 

1,012 

20 

800 

260 

360 

520 

30 

92 

3,680 

1,196 

1,656 

2,392 

138 

400 

1,840 

15 

69 

240 

1,104 

E 

88 

8 

320 

104 

144 

208 

12 

160 

6 

96 

F 

33 

3 

G 

627 

57 

H 

33 

3 

120 

2,280 

120 

39 

54 

78 

6 

60 

3 

36 

741 

1,026 

1,482 

18 

1,140 

9 

684 

39 

54 

78 

6 

60 

3 

36 

I 

165 

15 

600 

195 

270 

390 

30 

300 

15 

180 

K 

165 

15 

600 

195 

270 

390 

30 

300 

15 

180 

27 

For  insurance  only  list  A  variables  have  been  considered,  despite  2000  being  the  first  year  of 
compulsory transmission of List B variables. 

48 

 
 
  
 
                                                 
AT 

PT 

FI 

SE 

UK 

NO 

180 

140 

120 

160 

700 

140 

828 

644 

552 

736 

3220 

644 

72 

56 

48 

64 

280 

56 

27 

21 

18 

24 

105 

21 

513 

399 

342 

456 

1995 

399 

27 

21 

18 

24 

105 

21 

135 

105 

90 

120 

525 

105 

135 

105 

90 

120 

525 

105 

Section C of the Nace Rev1: Mining and quarrying 
Section E: Electricity, gas and water supply 
Section G: Distribution 
Section I: Transport, storage and communication 
Section K: Real estate, renting and business activities. 

Section D: Manufacturing 
Section F: Construction 
Section H: Hotels and restaurants 
Section J (part): Insurance 

All of the analyses are based on the amount of data that is available, regardless of whether the 
data  are  confidential  or  not.  The  results  of  the  analysis  are  summarised  for  each  NACE 
Section (insurance for NACE Section J) in order to provide some information on the sectoral 
nature of any problems of data availability. 

The  analysis  of  data  availability  was  done  based  on  the  contents  of  Eurostat's  reference 
database  "NewCronos".  The  dates  at  which  the  data  was  extracted  for  the  analysis  were 
11th of November  2002  for  size  class  and  regional  data  and  16th  of  January  2003  for  the 
enterprise  data.  It  should  be  noted  that  there  is  a  delay  between  the  delivery  of  data  to 
Eurostat  and  its  inclusion  in  the  NewCronos  database  due  to  validation  procedures  and  the 
treatment of confidentiality. Data that had been delivered by the above mentioned dates but 
not treated and available on NewCronos are indicated with an asterisk *. 

Availability tables by country 

Belgium 

Reference 
Years 

Mining 
and 
quarrying 

Manu 
facturing 

Electricity 
gas 
& water 
supply 

Construc
tion 

Distribu
tion 

Hotels  
and 
restau 
rants 

Transport, 
storage 
and 
communi
cation 

Insurance  Real 
estate, 
renting & 
business 
activities

Annual enterprise series 

1996 
2000 

41 
65 

Annual size-class series 

1996 
2000 

83 
100 

Annual regional series 

1996 
1999 

16 
100 

41 
65 

83 
100 

66 
100 

39 
64 

83 
100 

65 
100 

39 
63 

80 
100 

100 
100 

41 
96 

75 
75 

60 
100 

75 
100 

60 
100 

75 
69 

60 
100 

75 
93 

79 
* 

100 

Not 

100 

100 

100  measured 

100 

49 

 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Denmark  

Reference 
Years 

Mining 
and 
quarrying 

Manu 
facturing 

Electricity 
gas 
& water 
supply 

Construc
tion 

Distribu
tion 

Hotels  
and 
restau 
rants 

Transport, 
storage 
and 
communi
cation 

Insurance  Real 
estate, 
renting & 
business 
activities

Annual enterprise series 

1996 
2000 

59 
88 

Annual size-class series 

1996 
2000 

63 
75 

Annual regional series 

1996 
1999 

60 
* 

Germany  

68 
88 

75 
75 

75 
* 

61 
85 

75 

* 

68 
94 

90 
90 

67 
* 

30 
100 

37 
100 

25 
* 

100 

42 
100 

100 

100 

52 
61 

75 
75 

* 

Not 
*  measured 

100 

100 

* 

Reference 
Years 

Mining 
and 
quarrying 

Manu 
facturing 

Electricity 
gas 
& water 
supply 

Construc
tion 

Distribu
tion 

Hotels  
and 
restau 
rants 

Transport, 
storage 
and 
communi
cation 

Insurance  Real 
estate, 
renting & 
business 
activities

Annual enterprise series 

1996 
2000 

100 

100 

Annual size-class series 

1996 
2000 

38 
92 

Annual regional series 

1996 
1999 

100 
100 

38 
92 

100 
100 

Greece  

* 

* 

100 
* 

98 

45 
100 

93 
93 

41 
* 

20 
* 

16 
100 

* 

62 
62 

50 
50 

19 
100 

* 

* 

100 

Not 
  measured 

Reference 
Years 

Mining 
and 
quarrying 

Manu 
facturing 

Electricity 
gas 
& water 
supply 

Construc
tion 

Distribu
tion 

Hotels  
and 
restau 
rants 

Transport, 
storage 
and 
communi
cation 

Insurance  Real 
estate, 
renting & 
business 
activities

Annual enterprise series 

1996 
2000 

Annual size-class series 

1996 
2000 

Annual regional series 

1996 
1999 

* 

* 

* 

3 

Not 
  measured 

50 

 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Spain  

Reference 
Years 

Mining 
and 
quarrying 

Manu 
facturing 

Electricity 
gas 
& water 
supply 

Construc
tion 

Distribu
tion 

Hotels  
and 
restau 
rants 

Transport, 
storage 
and 
communi
cation 

Insurance  Real 
estate, 
renting & 
business 
activities

Annual enterprise series 

1996 
2000 

65 
93 

Annual size-class series 

1996 
2000 

83 
89 

Annual regional series 

65 
94 

83 
85 

64 
91 

2 

100 

10 
100 

29 
100 

83 
85  See note 

100 

100 

100 

46 
96 

100 
100 

1996 
1999 

100 
83 

100 
80 

100 
81 

100 

* 

Not 
*  measured 

23 
100 

100 

* 

Note: For size class data (1999) for construction sector, 2-digit level data has been provided 
for half of the required variables. 

France  

Reference 
Years 

Mining 
and 
quarrying 

Manu 
facturing 

Electricity 
gas 
& water 
supply 

Construc
tion 

Distribu
tion 

Hotels  
and 
restau 
rants 

Transport, 
storage 
and 
communi
cation 

Insurance  Real 
estate, 
renting & 
business 
activities

Annual enterprise series 

1996 
2000 

58 
92 

Annual size-class series 

1996 
2000 

75 
42 

Annual regional series 

60 
95 

75 
81 

61 
97 

75 
83 

1996 
1999 

97 
100 

99 
100 

99 
100 

70 
93 

90 
100 

100 
100 

67 
100 

88 
100 

100 
100 

100 
100 

100 
100 

100 
100 

100 
100 

83 
83 

92 
99 

100 
100 

Not 

100 
100  measured 

100 
100 

100 
100 

100 
100 

Ireland  

Reference 
Years 

Mining 
and 
quarrying 

Manu 
facturing 

Electricity 
gas 
& water 
supply 

Construc
tion 

Distribu
tion 

Hotels  
and 
restau 
rants 

Transport, 
storage 
and 
communi
cation 

Insurance  Real 
estate, 
renting & 
business 
activities

Annual enterprise series 

1996 
2000 

97 
* 

Annual size-class series 

1996 
2000 

100 
* 

Annual regional series 

1996 
1999 

100 
100 

97 
* 

100 
* 

96 
100 

97 
* 

100 
* 

100 
100 

90 
* 

91 

45 

75 

50 

50 

22 
* 

75 
* 

90 

82 

Not 
  measured 

45 

51 

 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Italy  

Reference 
Years 

Mining 
and 
quarrying 

Manu 
facturing 

Electricity 
gas 
& water 
supply 

Construc
tion 

Distribu
tion 

Hotels  
and 
restau 
rants 

Transport, 
storage 
and 
communi
cation 

Insurance  Real 
estate, 
renting & 
business 
activities

Annual enterprise series 

1996 
2000 

89 
94 

Annual size-class series 

1996 
2000 

83 
83 

Annual regional series 

86 
94 

83 
83 

95 
91 

83 
83 

1996 
1999 

100 
100 

100 
100 

100 
100 

Luxembourg  

78 
99 

100 
100 

100 
100 

93 
100 

78 
100 

100 
100 

100 
90 

100 
100 

100 
100 

100 
90 

67 
67 

57 
98 

100 
125 

Not 

100 
100  measured 

100 
90 

86 
86 

100 
100 

Reference 
Years 

Mining 
and 
quarrying 

Manu 
facturing 

Electricity 
gas 
& water 
supply 

Construc
tion 

Distribu
tion 

Hotels  
and 
restau 
rants 

Transport, 
storage 
and 
communi
cation 

Insurance  Real 
estate, 
renting & 
business 
activities

Annual enterprise series 

1996 
2000 

84 
38 

84 
38 

81 
39 

100 
90 

90 
90 

90 
90 

91 
84 

Annual size-class series 

1996 
2000 

Annual regional series 

90 
88 

87 
65 

100 
75 

1996 
1999 

* 

* 

* 

* 

* 

* 

Not 
*  measured 

* 

The Netherlands 

Reference 
Years 

Mining 
and 
quarrying 

Manu 
facturing 

Electricity 
gas 
& water 
supply 

Construc
tion 

Distribu
tion 

Hotels  
and 
restau 
rants 

Transport, 
storage 
and 
communi
cation 

Insurance  Real 
estate, 
renting & 
business 
activities

Annual enterprise series 

1996 
2000 

53 
88 

Annual size-class series 

1996 
2000 

31 
20 

Annual regional series 

1996 
1999 

35 
43 

85 
82 

44 
59 

75 
99 

19 
20 

1 
8 

50 
75 

81 
72 

13 
70 

67 
91 

30 
100 

13 
100 

67 
67 

100 
100 

10 
59 

38 
42 

75 
75 

Not 

67 
99  measured 

30 
90 

13 
79 

67 
67 

80 
* 

5 
2 

67 
100 

52 

 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Austria 

Reference 
Years 

Mining 
and 
quarrying 

Manu 
facturing 

Electricity 
gas 
& water 
supply 

Construc
tion 

Distribu
tion 

Hotels  
and 
restau 
rants 

Transport, 
storage 
and 
communi
cation 

Insurance  Real 
estate, 
renting & 
business 
activities

Annual enterprise series 

1996 
2000 

3 
99 

3 
100 

6 
100 

3 
100 

4 
100 

10 
100 

13 
100 

Annual size-class series 

1996 
2000 

100 

100 

100 

100 

100 

100 

100 

Annual regional series 

19 
100 

100 

97 
96 

100 
100 

Not 

1996 
1999 

Portugal 

Reference 
Years 

100 

100 

100 

100 

100 

100 

100  measured 

100 

Mining 
and 
quarrying 

Manu 
facturing 

Electricity 
gas 
& water 
supply 

Construc
tion 

Distribu
tion 

Hotels  
and 
restau 
rants 

Transport, 
storage 
and 
communi
cation 

Insurance  Real 
estate, 
renting & 
business 
activities

Annual enterprise series 

1996 
2000 

35 
99 

Annual size-class series 

1996 
2000 

75 
100 

Annual regional series 

1996 
1999 

100 
100 

35 
99 

74 
100 

100 
100 

33 
97 

77 
100 

100 
100 

39 
100 

80 
82 

100 
100 

44 
100 

42 
100 

100 
100 

90 
100 

50 
100 

100 
100 

90 
100 

50 
98 

69 
94 

100 
100 

Not 

100 
100  measured 

90 
100 

50 
100 

100 
100 

Finland  

Reference 
Years 

Mining 
and 
quarrying 

Manu 
facturing 

Electricity 
gas 
& water 
supply 

Construc
tion 

Distribu
tion 

Hotels  
and 
restau 
rants 

Transport, 
storage 
and 
communi
cation 

Insurance  Real 
estate, 
renting & 
business 
activities

Annual enterprise series 

1996 
2000 

88 
97 

Annual size-class series 

1996 
2000 

100 
100 

Annual regional series 

1996 
1999 

83 
83 

88 
98 

100 
100 

83 
83 

89 
97 

100 
100 

83 
83 

91 
97 

100 
100 

83 
83 

63 
100 

76 
100 

83 
83 

90 
100 

100 
100 

83 
83 

90 
100 

100 
100 

52 
65 

75 
75 

Not 

83 
83  measured 

90 
100 

100 
99 

83 
83 

Note: For annual enterprise insurance data (2000) the availability would be 100% except that 
some records with a "0" value have been wrongly coded as not available. 

53 

 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Sweden 

Reference 
Years 

Mining 
and 
quarrying 

Manu 
facturing 

Electricity 
gas 
& water 
supply 

Construc
tion 

Distribu
tion 

Hotels  
and 
restau 
rants 

Transport, 
storage 
and 
communi
cation 

Insurance  Real 
estate, 
renting & 
business 
activities

Annual enterprise series 

1996 
2000 

38 
88 

Annual size-class series 

1996 
2000 

58 
83 

Annual regional series 

38 
86 

58 
83 

1996 
1999 

100 
100 

100 
100 

The United Kingdom 

89 

94 

83 

100 

37 
96 

100 
100 

60 
100 

81 
100 

60 
100 

83 
100 

56 
100 

79 
100 

17 
64 

75 
75 

Not 

100 

100 

100 

100  measured 

100 

Reference 
Years 

Mining 
and 
quarrying 

Manu 
facturing 

Electricity 
gas 
& water 
supply 

Construc
tion 

Distribu
tion 

Hotels  
and 
restau 
rants 

Transport, 
storage 
and 
communi
cation 

Insurance  Real 
estate, 
renting & 
business 
activities

Annual enterprise series 

1996 
2000 

43 
80 

Annual size-class series 

1996 
2000 

40 
58 

Annual regional series 

69 
97 

75 
85 

56 
96 

57 
78 

65 
97 

90 
90 

21 
100 

60 
100 

54 
100 

96 

100 

88 

67 
67 

100 
100 

1996 
1999 

60 
* 

100 
* 

100 
* 

* 

* 

* 

Not 
*  measured 

47 
100 

99 

* 

Norway 

Reference 
Years 

Mining 
and 
quarrying 

Manu 
facturing 

Electricity 
gas 
& water 
supply 

Construc
tion 

Distribu
tion 

Hotels  
and 
restau 
rants 

Transport, 
storage 
and 
communi
cation 

Insurance  Real 
estate, 
renting & 
business 
activities

* 

100 

Annual enterprise series 

1996 
2000 

62 
64 

Annual size-class series 

1996 
2000 

67 
71 

Annual regional series 

71 
74 

80 
83 

1996 
1999 

* 

* 

* 

100 

100 
100 

54 

100 
99 

71 
81 

100 
100 

100 

83 

11 
61 

100 

83 

75 

* 

Not 
*  measured 

79 
100 

62 
100 

100 
* 

 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Note: For size class data all data should be available for distribution (2000) except that many 
records with a "0" value have been wrongly coded as not available. 

55 

 
 
  
 
Annex 3 

DETAILED INFORMATION ON TIMELINESS 

The tables below indicate the timeliness of data transmission for each country for 2000 (2001 
for preliminary data). Delays are expressed in months beyond the maximum delay permitted 
by  the  SBS  Regulation  and  implementing  Commission  Regulations.  Where  2000  data  (or 
2001 preliminary data) have not yet been received, a dash "-" is shown or an estimated delay 
is  shown  with  a  "*".  If  revisions  were  sent  the  mid-point  between  the  first  and  last 
transmissions was used. In one exceptional case when a country sent a first set of data much 
before the deadline and a revised version much later the transmission delay has been indicated 
as 0, neither early nor late. The timeliness was analysed on the 15th of January 2003. 

Belgium 

Industry 
Construction 
Distribution 
Services 
Insurance 

Denmark 

Industry 
Construction 
Distribution 
Services 
Insurance 

Germany 

Industry 
Construction 
Distribution 
Services 
Insurance 

Greece 

Industry 
Construction 
Distribution 
Services 
Insurance 

Main enterprise data 

Size class data 

Regional data 

Preliminary data 

2 
2 
1 
1 
- 

3 
3 
1 
1.5 
- 

3 
3 
3 
3 

0.5 
0.5 
0.5 
0.5 

Not measured 

Main enterprise data 

Size class data 

Regional data 

Preliminary data 

1 
1 
1 
1 
3 

1 
1 
1 
1 
3 

1 
1 
1 
1 

0 
1 
0 
0 

Not measured 

Main enterprise data 

Size class data 

Regional data 

Preliminary data 

0 
0 
6.5 
1 
1 

0 
0 
7 
4 
1 

0 
0 
7 
3 

0 
0 
0 
1.5 

Not measured 

Main enterprise data 

Size class data 

Regional data 

Preliminary data 

5 
- 
- 
- 

- 
- 
- 
- 
Not measured 

5 
- 
- 
- 
- 

5 
- 
- 
- 
- 

56 

 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
Spain 

Industry 
Construction 
Distribution 
Services 
Insurance 

France 

Industry 
Construction 
Distribution 
Services 
Insurance 

Ireland 

Industry 
Construction 
Distribution 
Services 
Insurance 

Italy 

Industry 
Construction 
Distribution 
Services 
Insurance 

Luxembourg 

Industry 
Construction 
Distribution 
Services 
Insurance 

Main enterprise data 

Size class data 

Regional data 

Preliminary data 

0 
7.5 
0 
0 
0 

0 
7.5 
0 
0 
0 

0 
7.5 
0 
0 

0 
- 
0 
0 

Not measured 

Main enterprise data 

Size class data 

Regional data 

Preliminary data 

3 
3 
3 
3 
0.5 

3 
3 
3 
3 
0.5 

3 
3 
3 
3 

0.5 
0.5 
0.5 
0.5 

Not measured 

Main enterprise data 

Size class data 

Regional data 

Preliminary data 

7.5 
7.5 
7.5 
7.5 
6.5 

7.5 
7.5 
7.5 
7.5 
6.5 

7.5 
7.5 
7.5 
7.5 

16* 
- 
16* 
- 

Not measured 

Main enterprise data 

Size class data 

Regional data 

Preliminary data 

0.5 
0.5 
0.5 
0.5 
0 

0.5 
0.5 
0.5 
0.5 
0 

3.5 
3.5 
3.5 
3.5 

1.5 
1.5 
1.5 
1.5 

Not measured 

Main enterprise data 

Size class data 

Regional data 

Preliminary data 

0 
0 
0 
0.5 
0 

- 
- 
- 
- 
0 

0 
0 
0 
0 

0 
0 
0 
0 

Not measured 

The Netherlands 

Main enterprise data 

Size class data 

Regional data 

Preliminary data 

Industry 
Construction 
Distribution 
Services 
Insurance 

1 
1 
1 
1 
0 

1 
1 
1 
1 

0.5 
0.5 
0.5 
0.5 

Not measured 

1 
1 
1 
1 
0 

57 

 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Austria 

Industry 
Construction 
Distribution 
Services 
Insurance 

Portugal 

Industry 
Construction 
Distribution 
Services 
Insurance 

Finland 

Industry 
Construction 
Distribution 
Services 
Insurance 

Sweden 

Industry 
Construction 
Distribution 
Services 
Insurance 

Main enterprise data 

Size class data 

Regional data 

Preliminary data 

0 
0 
0 
0 
1 

0 
0 
0 
0 
1 

0 
0 
0 
0 

0 
0 
0 
0 

Not measured 

Main enterprise data 

Size class data 

Regional data 

Preliminary data 

0 
0 
0 
0 
0 

0 
0 
0 
0 
0 

0 
0 
0 
0 

0 
0 
0 
0 

Not measured 

Main enterprise data 

Size class data 

Regional data 

Preliminary data 

0 
0 
0 
0 
0 

0 
0 
0 
0 
0 

0 
0 
0 
0 

0 
0.5 
0 
0 

Not measured 

Main enterprise data 

Size class data 

Regional data 

Preliminary data 

0 
0 
0 
0 
0 

0 
0 
0 
0 
0 

0 
- 
0 
0 

0 
0 
0 
0 

Not measured 

The United Kingdom 

Main enterprise data 

Size class data 

Regional data 

Preliminary data 

Industry 
Construction 
Distribution 
Services 
Insurance 

Norway 

Industry 
Construction 
Distribution 
Services 
Insurance 

1 
0 
1 
1 
4.5 

2 
2 
2 
2 
4.5 

2 
2 
2 
2 

1 
1 
1 
1 

Not measured 

Main enterprise data 

Size class data 

Regional data 

Preliminary data 

0 
0 
3.5 
0 
3 

0 
0 
3.5 
0 
3 

58 

3 
3 
3 
3 

0.5 
0.5 
0.5 
0.5 

Not measured 

 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Annex 4 

DETAILED INFORMATION ON ACCURACY: COEFFICIENTS OF VARIATION. 

The  following  table  shows  the  coefficient  of  variation  for  EU  (excluding  France)  turnover 
data  for  the  1999  reference  year.  They  are  shown  at  the  3-digit  level  of  NACE.  The 
coefficient of variation (CV) is the ratio of the square root of the estimated variance (in other 
words the standard error) to the estimation (in other words the calculated value). It is a non-
dimensional number, independent of the units used that measures the relative dispersion. 

NACE  CV 
0.5 
0.0 
1.3 
3.9 
5.7 
N/A 
0.0 
0.3 
1.8 
1.1 
6.2 
1.6 
2.6 
0.6 
1.4 
1.2 
5.0 
0.8 
1.8 
0.9 
0.4 
0.8 
N/A 
1.2 
1.7 
2.2 
1.9 
1.2 
3.7 
2.4 
8.5 
2.3 
8.5 
3.4 
3.3 
3.0 
0.9 

10.1 
10.2 
10.3 
11.1 
11.2 
12.0 
13.1 
13.2 
14.1 
14.2 
14.3 
14.4 
14.5 
15.1 
15.2 
15.3 
15.4 
15.5 
15.6 
15.7 
15.8 
15.9 
16.0 
17.1 
17.2 
17.3 
17.4 
17.5 
17.6 
17.7 
18.1 
18.2 
18.3 
19.1 
19.2 
19.3 
20.1 

  NACE  CV 
0.8 
1.1 
1.5 
1.7 
0.2 
0.6 
0.6 
0.9 
3.2 
4.3 
0.2 
0.2 
0.2 
0.2 
0.4 
0.6 
0.5 
0.7 
1.5 
0.7 
0.6 
1.0 
0.7 
2.0 
0.7 
1.1 
0.6 
2.0 
1.0 
0.5 
0.5 
1.5 
0.4 
1.4 
0.8 
0.6 
0.7 

20.2 
20.3 
20.4 
20.5 
21.1 
21.2 
22.1 
22.2 
22.3 
23.1 
23.2 
23.3 
24.1 
24.2 
24.3 
24.4 
24.5 
24.6 
24.7 
25.1 
25.2 
26.1 
26.2 
26.3 
26.4 
26.5 
26.6 
26.7 
26.8 
27.1 
27.2 
27.3 
27.4 
27.5 
28.1 
28.2 
28.3 

  NACE  CV 
1.7 
5.4 
N/A 
1.4 
1.7 
N/A 
2.2 
N/A 
2.8 
N/A 
10.8 
1.2 
8.3 
9.7 
6.6 
4.1 
N/A 
2.4 
2.2 
8.0 
2.6 
4.3 
8.0 
5.2 
5.9 
3.9 
6.2 
1.7 
2.6 
N/A 
2.0 
2.3 
1.3 
3.4 

61.1 
61.2 
62.0 
62.1 
62.2 
62.3 
63.1 
63.2 
63.3 
63.4 
64.1 
64.2 
70.1 
70.2 
70.3 
71.1 
71.2 
71.3 
71.4 
72.1 
72.2 
72.3 
72.4 
72.5 
72.6 
73.1 
73.2 
74.1 
74.2 
74.3 
74.4 
74.5 
74.7 
74.8 

  NACE CV 
1.6 
2.1 
2.1 
2.1 
1.9 
2.2 
1.4 
1.5 
1.2 
3.3 
4.4 
1.6 
1.6 
3.9 
1.6 
2.5 
3.4 
1.3 
1.6 
1.8 
2.5 
2.4 
0.6 
1.1 
3.0 
0.9 
4.4 
1.5 
2.6 
1.8 
N/A 
1.5 
N/A 
N/A 
0.9 
2.2 
2.4 

36.4 
36.5 
36.6 
37.1 
37.2 
45.1 
45.2 
45.3 
45.4 
45.5 
50.1 
50.2 
50.3 
50.4 
50.5 
51.1 
51.2 
51.3 
51.4 
51.5 
51.6 
51.7 
52.1 
52.2 
52.3 
52.4 
52.5 
52.6 
52.7 
55.1 
55.2 
55.3 
55.4 
55.5 
60.1 
60.2 
60.3 

  NACE CV 
3.2 
1.8 
0.8 
2.3 
0.5 
0.9 
0.8 
0.8 
0.9 
0.9 
0.3 
N/A 
0.9 
0.2 
0.9 
1.2 
1.4 
0.9 
0.9 
0.5 
5.8 
0.8 
0.6 
1.3 
2.9 
1.6 
0.0 
1.0 
0.3 
0.9 
0.4 
1.3 
0.7 
2.3 
1.0 
2.9 
4.0 

28.4 
28.5 
28.6 
28.7 
29.1 
29.2 
29.3 
29.4 
29.5 
29.6 
29.7 
30.0 
31.1 
31.2 
31.3 
31.4 
31.5 
31.6 
32.1 
32.2 
32.3 
33.1 
33.2 
33.3 
33.4 
33.5 
34.1 
34.2 
34.3 
35.1 
35.2 
35.3 
35.4 
35.5 
36.1 
36.2 
36.3 

59 

 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Annex 5 

DETAILED INFORMATION ON COMPARABILITY: THRESHOLDS 

The following tables show the extent to which thresholds have been used by many Member 
States  to  exclude  part  of  the  population  from  the  SBS  data  that  they  compiled  and  thus 
reducing the comparability. The table indicates which reference years were affected by these 
thresholds and which part of the population was covered by the data compiled in the specified 
sectors.  Hence  for  example  construction  data  in  Germany  for  the  1997  and  1998  reference 
years only covered enterprises with 20 persons employed or more. 

Annual enterprise series 

Industry 

DE 

1997 and 1998 (1997 only 
for NACE Section E) 

Construction 

1997 and 1998 

Enterprises with 20 persons 
employed or more 

Enterprises with 20 persons 
employed or more 

Distribution and services 

EL 

1997 onwards 

1997 onwards 

1997 onwards 

Enterprises with 10 persons 
employed or more 

Enterprises with 10 persons 
employed or more 

Enterprises with a turnover 
of 15 million GDR or more. 

ES 

1997 and 1998 

1997 and 1998 

Enterprises with 1 employee 
or more 

Enterprises with 1 employee 
or more 

FR 

IE 

1997 onwards 

1997 onwards 

Enterprises with 3 persons 
employed or more 

Enterprises with 20 persons 
employed or more 

NL 

1997 onwards 

NACE Section E only 
available for enterprises with 
20 employees or more 

Variables 22 11 0 and 22 12 
0 only available for 
enterprises with 10 
employees or more 

Regional data 

All activities 

1997 onwards 

In parts of NACE Group 
61.2 only available for 
enterprises with 6 employees 
or more 

1997 onwards 

NACE Class 74.15 only 
available for enterprises with 
5 employees or more 

BE 

DE 

IE 

1997 and 1998: Local units of enterprises with 20 or more persons employed 

1997 and 1999: Local units of enterprises with 20 or more persons employed 

1997 to 1999: Local units of enterprises with 20 or more persons employed 

60 

 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Annexe 6 

DETAILED INFORMATION ON COMPARABILITY: DEFINITIONS 

Many  Member  States  have  provided  data  for  some  variables  according  to  non-standard 
definitions thus reducing the comparability between countries. The main problems identified 
covering the reference periods since 1997 (inclusive) are shown in the table below. 

Years  Variable 

BE 

97-98  Production value 

DE 

99 

Value added at factor cost 

ES 

97-98  Gross investment in tangible goods 

IE 

98 

Personnel costs 

UK 

97-98  Gross 

investment 

in 

existing 

97 

NO 

97 

from 

trading 

buildings and structures 
Turnover 
intermediary activities 
Gross  investment  in  buildings  and 
structures 
Gross investment in the construction 
and alteration of buildings 

and 

for 

from 

standard 

especially 

estimated, 

Divergence 
definition 
The  value  of  goods  and  services 
purchased 
resale  are  not 
subtracted  and  hence  the  figure  is 
over 
in 
distribution. 
For  NACE  Sections  I  to  K  this 
does not include subsidies. 
Only  includes  investment  in  land, 
machinery and equipment. 
For  NACE  Sections  H,  I  and  K 
this  covers  only  wages  and 
salaries. 
Includes  also  gross  investment  in 
land. 
Excludes 
turnover 
intermediary activities. 
For NACE Sections C and D these 
two  variables  have  non-standard 
definitions,  but  their  sum  is  the 
same. 

from 

INFORMATION  ON  COMPARABILITY:  EXAMPLES  OF  INTERPRETATION  DIFFICULTIES  LINKED 
TO CLASSIFICATION ISSUES 

Although the SBS data of the Member States are based upon a common legal basis in the SBS 
Regulation, and this in turn builds upon common statistical legislation in the area of activity 
classifications, statistical units and business registers the SBS data may show some surprising 
results  which  it  is  assumed  are  due  to  differences  in  the  interpretation  of  this  legislation  or 
major differences in the industrial organisation or performance of the sectors concerned. Two 
examples are given below. 

1) 
NACE Class 50.50 concerns the retail sale of automotive fuel. An analysis of the 1999 
SBS turnover data for this Class provides data for all Member States except for Greece. The 
ratio of turnover to population for the Member States shows a relatively continuous range of 
values  with  the  exception  of  Luxembourg  with  very  high  values  and  Germany  and  France 
where the values are unusually low.  

NACE 50.50 (1999) 

EU15 

DE 

FR 

LU 

Turnover/inhabitant. 

100 

26,2 

30.7 

727.7 

61 

 
 
  
 
 
An  investigation  of  the  causes  of  this  shows  how  data  from  seemingly  comparable  sources 
can lead to difficulties in interpretation : unusual data can result from country specific policies 
(low  taxes  in  a  small  country  in  the  case  of  Luxembourg),  atypical  industrial  organisations 
(petrol retailers acting as agents rather than own-account retailers in the case of Germany) and 
atypically high proportions of a market being supplied as a secondary activity of enterprises 
(enterprises  that  are  food  retailers  by  their  principal  activity  selling  a  large  proportion  of 
automotive fuels in the case of France). 

2)  NACE  Class  64.11  concerns  national  post  activities  and  NACE  Class  64.20  concerns 
telecommunications.  In  many  Member  States  these  two  services  have  traditionally  been 
provided  by  a  common  supplier,  normally  state  owned  and  often  a  near  monopoly.  This 
situation has changed in many countries during the 1990s. A naïve analysis of the data over 
time  for  these  two  activities  can  lead  to  some  strange  results.  Up  to  1997  (inclusive)  in 
Austria the combined post and telecommunication enterprise was, quite correctly, classified to 
its  principal  activity,  namely  telecommunications.  Following  a  reorganisation,  two  separate 
enterprises  were  created.  The  Austrian  SBS  data  show  a  dramatic  fall  in  activity  in  the 
telecommunications sector in 1998 and an absence of a national post activities sector prior to 
1998.  

Austria (turnover in million euros) 

1998  

1997  

NACE 64 Post and telecommunications 

3667,6 

NACE 64.1 Post and courier activities 

1311,6 

3531 

29,5 

NACE 64.2 Telecommunications 

2356 

3501,6 

This situation results from the choice of the enterprise as the statistical unit with this rather 
particular economic structure. An analysis of the telecommunications sector would lead to the 
conclusion that this sector developed strongly in nearly all Member States in the second half 
of  the  1990s  except  in  Austria.  Technically  this  is  true  but  it  is  easily  open  to 
misinterpretation. 

Recommendation: in extreme cases such as that found in these two examples it is possible to 
observe that a problem exists and to investigate its origins. As and when cases such as these 
are discovered and researched the results should be made available to users such that they are 
aware of the limits of the analysis that can be made with the data. 

62 

 
 
  
 
Annex 7 

SBS DATA FOR CREDIT INSTITUTIONS AND PENSION FUNDS 

Responsibility for data collection and transmission.  

For credit institutions and pension funds, the tasks for collection and transmission of data to 
Eurostat  are  often  shared  between  the  national  statistical  authority  and  the  regulatory 
authorities.  

— In  Belgium,  Denmark,  Italy  and  Spain  the  relevant  regulatory  authorities  are  responsible 
for the collection and transmission of data. 

— In  Ireland,  Luxembourg,  the  Netherlands  and  Austria  the  data  collection  is  done  by  the 
regulatory authorities but the data transmission is assured by the national statistical authority. 

— In Portugal some data collection is done by the regulatory authorities in each of the sub-
sectors  but  the  data  transmission  is  assured  by  the  national  statistical  authority  who  also 
collects further data for credit institutions. 

— In Finland and Sweden the regulatory authorities are responsible for statistics for pension 
funds and the national statistical authority is responsible for statistics for credit institutions. 

— In  Germany,  Greece,  France  and  the  United  Kingdom  the  regulatory  authorities  are 
responsible  for  statistics  for  credit  institutions  and  the  national  statistical  authority  is 
responsible for statistics for pension funds. 

— In  Norway  the  regulatory  authorities  collect  data  and  the  national  statistical  authority 
transmits it to Eurostat as well as collecting further data for pension funds. 

Availability.  

Data on credit institutions and on pension funds have been provided by many Member States 
on a voluntary basis for some years. The tables below give an overview of data availability 
for  each  country.  In  order  to  provide  a  comparison  with  the  similar  analysis  carried  out  for 
other activities this assessment is based on the situation in reference years 1997 and 2000. It 
should be noted that for both of these years the data collection was voluntary. 

The  analysis  shows  the  proportion  (in  percentage  terms)  of  the  data  that  is  available, 
compared to the requirements of the new annexes 6 and 7 of the SBS Regulation – variables 
that  have  been  included  in  the  annexes  that  did  not  figure  in  the  voluntary  data  collections 
have not been taken into account. All of the analyses are based on the amount of data that is 
available, regardless of whether the data are confidential or not. 

For credit institutions there is a maximum number of 68 records for any country for any year 
and  for  pension  funds  the  maximum  number  is  53.  For  some  countries  where  there  are  no 
enterprises in the NACE Class 65.22, the maximum number of records considered for credit 
institutions  has  been  lowered  to  34;  this  is  the  case  for  Belgium,  Denmark,  Greece,  Italy, 
Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and the United Kingdom. 

63 

 
 
  
 
The  analysis  of  data  availability  was  done  based  on  the  contents  of  Eurostat's  reference 
database  "NewCronos"  on  11th  of  November  2002.  It  should  be  noted  that  there  is  a  delay 
between the delivery of data to Eurostat and its inclusion in the NewCronos database due to 
validation procedures and the treatment of confidentiality. 

BE  DK  DE  EL ES FR IE 

IT  LU NL AT PT  FI  SU  UK NO

Credit 
institutions 

1997  97  100  85  88 100 100 See 94

2000  100  100  82  88 100 100 note 97

Pension 
funding 

1997  77  68  32 

2000 

70  28 

81

83

15

26

43

82

82

2 

91 100 100  94  81  76

88

74

74

97

51

68

97  97  88  91

55  75  21  47

70  81  42  58

98

91

91

89

55 See 
note

All pension funding data for Luxembourg is confidential. For Ireland credit institution data is 
available for all credit institutions together without an activity breakdown. 

Timeliness.  

From  the  2001  reference  year  data  on  credit  institutions  will  be  required  within  10  months 
from the end of the reference period. Data on pension funds will be required within 12 months 
from the end of the reference period from the 2002 reference year. To see how close Member 
States  already  are  to  this  position,  the  following  table  shows  the  delays  (in  months)  in  the 
availability of data for the 2000 reference year. 

Credit 
institutions 

Pension 
funds 

Credit 
institutions 

Pension 
funds 

BE 

DK 

DE 

EL 

ES 

FR 

IE 

IT 

0 
0 
1 
0.5 
0.5 
0 
1 
0 

Dissemination.  

- 
3 
1 
- 
0.5 
- 
4.5 
2.5 

LU 

NL 

AT 

PT 

FI 

SE 

UK 

NO 

1 
4.5 
2.5 
0 
8 
1 
1 
2 

- 
2 
0 
0.5 
0.5 
0 
0.5 
0.5 

A number of publications have been produced from these voluntary data collections between 
January 1999 and the end of April 2002. 

Title 

Contents 

Special  feature  on  insurance 
and pension funds 

Review  of  the  situation  of  the  European 
insurance  market  and  autonomous  pension 
funds. 

Format 

PDF 

Special  feature  on  banking, 
banking in Europe 

Three editions. Comprehensive publication on 
credit  institutions  in  the  European  Economic 
Area and Switzerland. 

Paper 
or PDF 

64 

 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Annex 8 

STRUCTURAL BUSINESS STATISTICS IN ACCEDING AND CANDIDATE COUNTRIES 

The  SBS  Council  and  Commission  Regulations  are  part  of  the  "acquis  communautaire"  in 
statistics and Candidate countries will therefore need to comply with their provisions. As part 
of  a  PHARE  project  agreements  were  concluded  with  Candidate  countries  to  provide  SBS 
data. The project consisted of two phases. 

Among  the  Candidate  countries  Bulgaria,  Czech  Republic,  Estonia,  Hungary,  Latvia, 
Lithuania,  Poland,  Romania,  Slovak  Republic  and  Slovenia  took  part  in  the  first  phase. 
Priority was given to the main "enterprise" series. Data for distribution (Section G of NACE 
Rev. 1) were treated by a specific project for this sector). Data was collected for the reference 
years 1995 to 1998, although some countries already provided 1999 data. 

The  second  phase  of  the  project  started  in  July  2001.  It  concerned  all  annexes  of  the  SBS 
Regulation,  as  well  as  the  (at  that  time  draft)  annexes  6  and  7.  The  data  collected  covered 
definitive  1999  reference  year  data  as  well  as  2000  reference  year  preliminary  results.  The 
deadline for sending the 1999 reference year data was 28/2/2002 with some exceptions agreed 
on  a  bilateral  basis.  Preliminary  data  for  the  2000  reference  year  was  set  the  deadline  of 
30/4/2002.  Furthermore  countries  agreed  to  provide  a  quality  report  in  a  similar  manner  to 
that done by Member States (in line with Commission Regulation No 1618/99) by 30/4/2002. 
Countries were also asked to complete a report on their methods before the end of April 2002. 

The SBS project is not included in the PHARE budget 2000-2001-2002. Data collection will 
however  continue  on  a  voluntary  basis.  At  the  moment  of  their  accession  the  Candidate 
countries  will  need  to  comply  fully  with  the  provisions  of  the  SBS  Regulations.  To  work 
towards this goal a timetable has been agreed with the Candidate countries for the provision 
of SBS data on a voluntary basis. As can be seen the aim is to move to a position in line with 
the requirements of the SBS Regulation for the 2002 reference year. 

Date of delivery 

Reference year 

Preliminary 
data 

Final data 
annexes 1 to 4 

Final data 
annexes 5 and 7 

Final data 
annexe 6 

2000 

2001 

2002 

2003 

28/2/02 

31/12/02 

29/10/03 

31/10/04 

31/10/02 

29/8/03 

30/6/04 

30/6/05 

31/10/02 

28/02/03 

31/12/03 

31/12/04 

31/10/02 

31/01/03 

31/10/03 

31/10/04 

For Cyprus and Malta there were no contracts to provide data to Eurostat. Nevertheless 1999 
reference year data has been provided. No data has been collected for Turkey. 

Availability  

As can be seen from the table below (delivered data marked with an X) all PHARE countries, 
Cyprus and Malta have provided 1999 annual enterprise data for annexes 1 to 4. Many have 
also provided data for insurance and credit institutions and two for pension funds. More than 

65 

 
 
  
 
 
half  have  provided  size  class  data.  It  should  be  noted  that  the  data  series  provided  are  not 
necessarily complete and some characteristics and some activities may be missing. 

Enterprise data 

Size class data 

1A  2A  3B  4A  5A  6A  1B  2D  3C  4D  Notes 

BG 

CZ 

CY 

EE 

HU 

LV 

LT 

MT 

PL 

RO 

SK 

SI 

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

Accuracy 

Implementation of the quality Regulation 

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX   Also annex 7 data. 

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX  

XX   Also annex 7 data. 

XX  

Commission Regulation (EC) No 1618/1999 of 23 July 1999 concerning the criteria for the 
evaluation of quality of structural business statistics requires information on the coefficient of 
variation, non-response rate, survey strategy and method of determining the principal activity 
to be provided annually, within a delay of 24 months from the end of the reference year. As 
part of the PHARE exercise undertaken by the Candidate countries it was agreed to provide 
similar information for the 1998 reference year. The following table provides an overview of 
which countries provided which parts of the report.  

Elements of the report provided 

Reference 
year 

Coefficient of 
variation 

Unit non-
response 

Item non-
response 

Survey 
strategy 

Principal 
activity 

BG 

CZ 

EE 

HU 

LV 

LT 

PL 

RO 

SK 

SI 

1998 

1998 

1998 

1998 

1998 

1998 

1998 

1998 

1998 

1998 

See note below 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

See note below 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

Yes 

66 

 
 
  
 
 
 
 
  
  
  
  
 
  
  
  
  
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
  
  
  
  
 
  
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Note  that  in  many  cases  the  part  of  the  report  concerning  the  coefficients  of  variation  was 
incomplete in the sense that information was not always given for all activities, at the level of 
activity  detail  requested,  for  all  size  classes  or  for  all  of  the  variables.  The  information 
provided for the other parts of the report were generally more complete. 

Note also that: 

Bulgaria  did  not  send  coefficients  of  variation as a census had  been conducted  with quite a 
negligible non response rate. 

Poland  conducts  a  census  for  large  enterprises  and  in  its  first  data  set  did  not  treat  non-
response hence there was no issue of variance estimation. 

Malta has indicated that it will not provide these reports on the grounds that the size threshold 
in the Commission Regulation will exempt them when it becomes applicable. Equally Cyprus 
has not provided a report. 

Accuracy of the SBS data 

One  of  the  aims  of  the  quality  reports  is  to  provide  input  to  an  aggregated  measure  of  the 
coefficient of variation across countries, explicitly across the EU. For the Candidate countries 
an  attempt  has  been  made  to  compile  a  similar  aggregate  for  the  Candidate  countries  as  a 
whole.  From  the  1998  quality  reports  this  has  not  really  been  possible  for  a  number  of 
reasons.  One  country,  with  a  high  weight  in  the  Candidate  country  total  did  not  provide 
information. Of the countries that did provide information, just within the range of NACE in 
Sections C to G, this was provided at different levels of activity detail, namely 2-digit by the 
Czech republic, Estonia, Latvia and Romania (Sections C to F), 3-digit by the Czech republic, 
Hungary,  Romania  (Section  G)  and  Slovakia,  4-digit  by  Latvia.  Hence  in  the  best  case  a 
composite indicator could be calculated for 4 countries. Before an aggregated analysis can be 
compiled  data  availability  needs  to  improve  and  the  data  that  is  provided  needs  to  be  more 
standardised. Similar problems exist to produce an aggregated indicator of unit non-response. 

No  deadline  has  been  established  for  the  provision  of  a  quality  report  for  1999  data.  The 
deadlines for the quality reports for the next few years are as shown in the following table. 

Reference year 

2000 

2001 

2002 

2003 

Deadline 

30/4/2003 

28/2/2004 

31/12/2004 

31/12/2005 

Comparability 

Thresholds and statistical units 

As can be seen in the table below some Candidate countries applied thresholds excluding part 
of the population from the SBS data that they compiled and thus reducing the comparability 
between countries, as well as between sectors. 

67 

 
 
  
 
 
 
Thresholds 

EE 

1995 
Manufacturing  data  at  the  2-digit  level  only  cover  enterprises  with  20  employees  or 
more  (50  or  more  for  investment  variables).  Data  about  manufacturing  enterprises 
with  less  than  20  employees  (less  than  50  employees  for  investment  variables)  are 
only available at the Section level. 

HU  Until 1999 (inclusive) 

Only covers enterprises with 5 persons employed or more. 

PL  Until 2000 (inclusive) 

Main  variables  (those  in  annex  1)  have  no  threshold.  Other  variables  (specific  to 
annexes  2,  3  and  4)  cover  enterprises  with  10  persons  employed  or  more.  However 
data for micro-enterprises may be available at a national level. 

SK 

1995 to 1999 
Only covers enterprises with 20 persons or more employed and those enterprises with 
less than 20 persons employed that were  

i) considered statistically important, based on expert judgement  
or ii) had a turnover exceeding 100 million SKK. 

Poland has already resolved this problem for the main variables (those in annex 1 of the SBS 
Regulation). Hungary and Slovakia have indicated plans to remove the threshold, in the case 
of Hungary for the 2000 reference year data. 

The  question  of  the  comparability  of  statistical  units  is  more  complicated.  No  Candidate 
country has reported using a unit other than the enterprise. As already noted for the Member 
States this may give a false impression of comparability as the manner that the enterprise is 
implemented as a statistical unit in each country may vary greatly in practice – the situation 
for  the  Candidate  countries  is  however  not  clear  as  the  detailed  study  of  practices  for 
delimiting enterprises in the Member States has not been done for the Candidate countries. 

Definitions 

As can be seen in the table below some Candidate countries provided data according to non-
standard definitions thus reducing the comparability between countries. Until such time that a 
country  becomes  a  Member  State  and  all  of  the  SBS  legislation  (Council  and  Commission 
Regulations) enter into force the use of non-standard definitions can be regarded as an attempt 
by  Candidate  countries  to  provide  at  least  some  data  to  users,  even  if  not  completely 
harmonised.  As  noted  for  the  Member  States  it  is  likely,  and  even  probable,  that  other 
problems remain of which Eurostat is not aware. 

68 

 
 
  
 
 
 
 
  Years 

Variable 

Divergence from standard definition 

BG  1996/99  Gross 

investment 

in  existing 

buildings and structures 

Includes  also  gross  investment  in  construction 
and alteration of buildings 

1996/99  Turnover and production value 

Do not include taxes on products 

CY  1995/98  Change  in  stocks  of  finished 
products  and  work  in  progress 
manufactured by the unit 

CZ  1995/98  Number of enterprises 

Includes all changes in stocks 

Calculated  as  "full-year  equivalents"  weighting 
each  enterprise  by  the  proportion  of  the  year  it 
was active 

1995/98 

Personnel costs 

Includes other labour costs 

1995/98 

Social security charges 

HU  1998 

Total  purchases  of  goods  and 
services 

Unspecified  deviations 
definitions 

from 

the 

standard 

Double counts payments to sub-contractors 

RO  1997/99  Gross operating surplus 

Excludes twice taxes linked to production 

SK  1995/99  Turnover 

Does not include excise duty. 

SI  1995/98  Value added 

Unspecified  deviations 
definitions 

from 

the 

standard 

Publications 

Eurostat has prepared two publications dedicated to Candidate country SBS data: 

Title 

Contents 

Business 
Candidate 
in 
countries,  Facts  and  figures 
(not  released  at  the  time  of 
writing) 

SBS data for all sectors collected as part of 
the PHARE project 

Format 

Paper 
and 
PDF 

Distributive  trade  statistics  in 
the PHARE countries 

Survey  on  wholesale 
reference year. 

trade 

in  1996 

Paper 

Development of Structural Business Statistics 

The Candidate countries will be integrated gradually into the projects included in the current 
three-year  work  programme  on  the  development  of  the  Structural  Business  Statistics  (see 
chapter 4.2) according to their priorities. The Candidate Countries are already participating in 
the business demography project and a Phare-project is planned to be launched on FATS in 
2004.

69 

 
 
  
 
 
 
 
Annex 9 

SUMMARY OF NACE ACTIVITIES 

Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community 

NACE  Rev. 1  ("Nomenclature  générale  des  Activités  économiques  dans  les  Communautés 
Européennes" - Statistical classification of economic activities in the European Community) 
was  adopted  in  order  to  establish  a  common  statistical  classification  of  economic  activities 
within  the  European  Community  in  order  to  ensure  comparability  between  national  and 
community classifications and hence national and community statistics. 

NACE  Rev.  1  replaced  NACE  1970.  In  so  doing  it  established  a  direct  link  between  the 
European  classification  and  the  internationally  recognised  ISIC  Rev.  3  developed  under  the 
auspices of the United Nations. These two classifications are directly compatible at the 2-digit 
level. 

NACE Rev. 1  

17 Sections 
31 Subsections 
60 Divisions 
222 Groups 
503 Classes 

letters A to Q 
2-character alphabetical codes 
2-digit codes 
3-digit codes 
4-digit codes 

The  NACE  Rev.  1  Regulation  was  amended  by  a  Commission  Regulation  in  1993  which 
modified the classification and a corrigendum was published in 1995. 

Section A 
Section B 
Section C 
Section D 
Section E 
Section F 
Section G 

Section H 
Section I 
Section J 
Section K 
Section L 
Section M 
Section N 
Section O 
Section P 
Section Q 

Agriculture, hunting and forestry (divisions 01 and 02) 
Fishing (division 05) 
Mining and quarrying (divisions 10 to 14) 
Manufacturing (divisions 15 to 37) 
Electricity, gas and water supply (divisions 40 and 41) 
Construction (division 45) 
Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles, motorcycles and personal 
and household goods (divisions 50 to 52) 
Hotels and restaurants (division 55) 
Transport, storage and communication (divisions 60 to 64) 
Financial intermediation (divisions 65 to 67) 
Real estate, renting and business activities (divisions 70 to 74) 
Public administration and defence; compulsory social security (division 75) 
Education (division 80) 
Health and social work (division 85) 
Other community, social and personal service activities (divisions 90 to 93) 
Private households with employed persons (division 95) 
Extra-territorial organisations and bodies (division 99) 

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Annex 10 

GLOSSARY 

Activity 

An  activity  is  said  to  take  place  when  resources  such  as  equipment,  labour,  manufacturing 
techniques, information networks or products are combined, leading to the creation of specific 
goods or services. 

In practice the majority of units carry on activities of a mixed character. One can distinguish 
between three types of economic activity: 

— Principal  activity:  The  principal  activity  is  identified  by  the  top-down  method  as  the 
activity which contributes most to the total value added of the entity under consideration. The 
principal  activity  so  identified  does  not  necessarily  account  for  50%  or  more  of  the  entity's 
total value added. 

— Secondary  activity:  A  secondary  activity  is  any  other  activity  of  the  entity  that  produces 
goods or services. 

— Ancillary  activity:  Ancillary  activities  are  those  that  exist  solely  to  support  the  main 
productive  activities  of  an  entity  by  providing  non-durable  goods  or  services  for  the  use  of 
that  entity  (accounting,  transportation,  storage,  purchasing,  sales  promotion,  repair  and 
maintenance etc). 

Confidential cells 

The  cells  of  a  table  which  are  non-publishable  due  to  the  risk  of  statistical  disclosure  are 
referred  to  as  confidential  cells.  There  are  three  types  of  confidential  data  where  disclosure 
might happen and therefore cells that are confidential: 

— Small  counts.  A  tabular  cell  is  confidential  if  less  than  a  certain  number  of  entities 
contribute to the total of that cell. 

— Dominance or case of predominance. (a) dominance rule, concentration rule, (n,k) rule: A 
cell is regarded as confidential, if the n largest units contribute more than k% to the cell total. 
The  n  and  k  are  given  by  the  statistical  authority  and  differ  quite  a  lot.  (b)  prior  posterior 
ambiguity  rule,  p/q  rule:  it  is  assumed  that  out  of  publicly  available  information  the 
contribution of one individual to the cell total can be estimated to within p per cent (p=error 
before publication); after the publication of the statistic the value can be estimated to within q 
percent (q=error after publication). In the p/q rule the ratio p/q represents the information gain 
through  publication  and  in  the  prior  posterior  ambiguity  rule  the  difference  p-q.  If  the 
information gain is unacceptable the cell is declared as confidential. P and q are given by the 
statistical authority and thus the definition of the acceptable level of information gain. 

— Secondary confidentiality/derivation: Even if all confidential cells containing small counts 
or cases of predominance are protected by disclosure control methods (=primary protection), 
disclosure  might  be  possible  by  recalculating  confidential  cells  as  the  difference  between  a 

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total and the sum of cells corresponding to that total. This recalculation of primary protected 
cells is called derivation. Derivation can occur  

(a)  within  one  two-dimensional  table  or  higher-dimensional  tables,  when  margin  totals  are 
given in the lines, the columns or in a set of lines or columns;  

(b)  between  tables  and  sub-tables  in  the  case  of  three  or  more  dimensions  e.g.  between 
geographic levels or between aggregation levels (total economy, sector);  

(c)  between  different  tables  on  the  same  aggregation  or  geographical  level  containing 
different sorts of information. 

Note: Small counts and dominance are collectively primary confidentiality. 

EEA 

European Economic Area 

Employees 

Employees are defined as those persons who work for an employer and who have a contract 
of  employment  and  receive  compensation  in  the  form  of  wages,  salaries,  fees,  gratuities, 
piecework pay or remuneration in kind. 

A worker is considered to be a wage or salary earner of a particular unit if he or she receives a 
wage  or  salary  from  the  unit  regardless  of  where  the  work  is  done  (in  or  outside  the 
production  unit).  A  worker  from  a  temporary  employment  agency  is  considered  to  be  an 
employee of the temporary employment agency and not of the unit (customer) in which they 
work. 

In particular the following are considered as employees: 

— paid working proprietors; 

— students who have a formal commitment whereby they contribute to the unit's process of 
production in return for remuneration and/or education services; 

— employees engaged under a contract specifically designed to encourage the recruitment of 
unemployed persons; 

— home-workers if there is an explicit agreement that the home-worker is remunerated on the 
basis of the work done and they are included on the pay-roll. 

Employees  include  part-time  workers,  seasonal  workers,  persons  on  strike  or  on  short-term 
leave,  but  excludes  those  persons  on  long-term  leave.  Employees  do  not  include  voluntary 
workers. 

Enterprise 

The  enterprise  is  the  smallest  combination  of  legal  units  that  is  an  organisational  unit 
producing goods or services, which benefits from a certain degree of autonomy in decision-
making, especially for the allocation of its current resources. An enterprise carries out one or 
more activities at one or more locations. An enterprise may be a sole legal unit. 

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EUROSTAT 

Statistical Office of the European Communities 

FATS 

Foreign Affiliates Statistics 

KAU (Kind-of-activity unit) 

The  kind  of  activity  unit  (KAU)  groups  all  the  parts  of  an  enterprise  contributing  to  the 
performance of an activity at class level (4-digits) of NACE Rev. 1 and corresponds to one or 
more operational subdivisions of the enterprise. The enterprise's information system must be 
capable of indicating or calculating for each KAU at least the production value, intermediate 
consumption, manpower costs, the operating surplus and employment and gross fixed capital 
formation. 

Legal unit 

Legal units include: 

— legal  persons  whose  existence  is  recognised  by  law  independently  of  the  individuals  or 
institutions which may own them or are members of them. 

— natural persons who are engaged in an economic activity in their own right. 

The  legal  unit  always  forms,  either  by  itself  or  sometimes  in  combination  with  other  legal 
units, the legal basis for the statistical unit known as the ‘enterprise’. 

Local unit 

The  local  unit  is  an  enterprise  or  part  thereof  (e.g.  a  workshop,  factory,  warehouse,  office, 
mine or depot) situated in a geographically identified place. At or from this place economic 
activity  is  carried  out  for  which  -  save  for  certain  exceptions  -  one  or  more  persons  work 
(even if only part-time) for one and the same enterprise. 

NACE Rev. 1 

Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community (see Annex 9) 

NewCronos 

NewCronos is a Eurostat reference database (replaces CRONOS) - all EU macro-economic, 
regional, business, social, and demographic data. The NewCronos reference database contains 
around  100  million  statistical  data  covering  every  economic  and  social  sector.  The 
information  normally  covers  all  European  Union  Member  States;  in  many  cases  it  is  also 
available for Japan, the United States of America and other Union trade partners. 

NSI/NSO 

National Statistical Institute/Office 

Number of persons employed 

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The number of persons employed is defined as the total number of persons who work in the 
observation unit (inclusive of working proprietors, partners working regularly in the unit and 
unpaid family workers), as well as persons who work outside the unit who belong to it and are 
paid  by  it  (e.g.  sales  representatives,  delivery  personnel,  repair  and  maintenance  teams).  It 
includes  persons  absent  for  a  short  period  (e.g.  sick  leave,  paid  leave  or  special  leave),  and 
also  those  on  strike,  but  not  those  absent  for  an  indefinite  period.  It  also  includes  part-time 
workers who are regarded as such under the laws of the country concerned and who are on the 
pay-roll, as well as seasonal workers, apprentices and home workers on the pay-roll. 

The  number  of  persons  employed  excludes  manpower  supplied  to  the  unit  by  other  enter-
prises,  persons  carrying  out  repair  and  maintenance  work  in  the  enquiry  unit  on  behalf  of 
other enterprises, as well as those on compulsory military service. 

NUTS 

Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics 

Principal activity 

The principal (or main) activity is identified as the activity which contributes most to the total 
value  added  of  a  unit  under  consideration.  The  principal  activity  so  identified  does  not 
necessarily  account  for  50%  or  more  of  the  unit's  total  value  added.  The  classification  of 
principal  activity  is  determined  by  reference  to  NACE  Rev.  1,  first  at  the  highest  level  of 
classification and then at more detailed levels ("top-down" method). 

Quality 

Quality is defined in the ISO 8402 - 1986 as: ‘the totality of features and characteristics of a 
product  or  service  that  bear  on  its  ability  to  satisfy  stated  or  implied  needs’.  Quality  of 
statistics can be defined with reference to several criteria. 

— Relevance: an inquiry is relevant if it meets users’ needs. The identification of users and 
their expectations is therefore necessary. 

— Accuracy:  accuracy  is  defined  as  the  closeness  between  the  estimated  value  and  the 
(unknown) true value. 

— Timeliness  and  punctuality  in  disseminating  results:  most  users  want  up-to-date  figures 
which are published frequently and on time at pre-established dates. 

— Accessibility and clarity of the information: statistical data have most value when they are 
easily  accessible  by  users,  are  available  in  the  forms  that  users  desire  and  are  adequately 
documented. 

— Comparability: statistics for a given characteristic have the greatest usefulness when they 
enable reliable comparisons of values taken by the characteristic across space and time. The 
comparability component stresses the comparison of the same statistics between countries in 
order to evaluate the meaning of aggregated statistics at the European level. 

— Coherence:  when  originating  from  a  single  source,  statistics  are  coherent  in  that 
elementary concepts can be combined reliably in more complex ways. When originating from 
different sources, and in particular from statistical surveys of different frequencies, statistics 

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are  coherent  in  so  far  as  they  are  based  on  common  definitions,  classifications  and 
methodological standards. 

— Completeness:  domains  for  which  statistics  are  available  should  reflect  the  needs  and 
priorities expressed by the users of the European Statistical System. 

SBS 

Structural Business Statistics 

SME 

Small and Medium-sized Enterprises 

Statistical unit 

The  Council  Regulation  ((EEC),  No.  696/93  of  15  March  1993)  on  statistical  units  for  the 
observation and analysis of the production system in the Community lays down a list of eight 
(types  of)  statistical  units:  the  Enterprise;  the  Institutional  Unit;  the  Enterprise  Group;  the 
Kind-of-activity  Unit  (KAU);  the  Unit  of  Homogeneous  Production  (UHP);  the  Local  Unit; 
the  Local  Kind-of-Activity  Unit  (local  KAU);  the  Local  Unit  of  Homogeneous  Production 
(local UHP). 

Statistical units are defined on the basis of three criteria: 

— Legal, accounting or organisational criteria; 

— Geographical criteria; 

— Activity criteria. 

Unpaid family workers 

Unpaid  family  workers  refer  to  persons  who  live  with  the  proprietor  of  the  unit  and  work 
regularly for the unit, but do not have a contract of service and do not receive a fixed sum for 
the work they perform. This is limited to those persons who are not included on the payroll of 
another unit as their principal occupation. 

75