National Statistical Institute of Bulgaria.

“Short-term Business Statistics and Statistics of Transport” Department

2, P. Volov Street, Sofia 1038 Bulgaria

Construction costs index (CCI) is a business indicator showing the development of costs incurred by the contractor to carry out the construction process. The objective of the production of the construction input price index is to determine the general price change over a certain period of time for the main cost items of the new construction.

The indices are calculated at a constant base year (2015 = 100).

Classification of Economic Activities NACE Rev. 2.

Classification of types of constructions (CC)

Section F of NACE Rev.2 

The Construction costs index presents the change of total costs for buildings. The Construction costs index is calculated from aggregated price indices for construction materials and labour costs in section Construction. Indices are calculated according to the EU Regulations concerning Short Term Statistics.

Enterprise

The construction cost index is considered as a combination of component costs indices (material costs and labour costs) which show the price developments of the main production factors of construction.

For material cost component calculation, Produce price survey is used where from 1600 enterprises selected for producer price survey the prices of 180 enterprises are used for calculation of construction materials price index.

For labour cost component the results from the survey on Employees, hours worked, wages and salaries, and other labour costs paid by employers are used where 1030 construction enterprises are sampled.

Indexes are calculated at total country level.

The indices are available from 2003 to the last quarter of the reference year.

Base year: 2015

Indexes (%)

Quarter

National Legal basis: National Law on Statistics (Article 20) states that all persons that manage or represent legal persons, are obliged to provide the National Statistical Institute and the Bodies of Statistics with reliable data when filling-in forms and questionnaires on surveys included in the National Statistical Programme, for which mandatory participation is provided.

Obligation on units to provide data: The survey is included into the National Statistical Programme – it is compulsory.
The Law of statistics includes provisions relating to fines, which can be imposed for refusal, non-response and delay. They are laid down in specific Chapter 9 “Administrative and liability provisions” in article 52.

EU Legislation: Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics, repealing 10 legal acts in the field of business statistics (EBS-Regulation)

All EU documents following the EBS-Regulation can be found in the STS section on Eurostat’s website under Statistics => Short-term business statistics => Legislation

Indexes are transmitted to Eurostat at the same time with their national dissemination.

The Law on Statistics includes provisions relating to data confidentiality and protection of secrecy, which are in compliance with the EU legislation and standard European practice. In the Law is stated that individual data received and collected at the time of statistical surveys shall be statistical confidentiality and shall be used only for statistical purposes. Individual data, obtained for the purposes of the statistical surveys, shall not be used as evidence to the bodies of the executive powers and the judicial authorities. Requirements, obligations and measures for data protection, as well as fines that can be imposed, are treated in separate chapters, namely Chapter 6 on „Protection of secrecy” and Chapter 9 on „Administrative penal provisions”.

Article 25 of the Law of Statistics defines the criteria by which can not be distributed or published statistical information. Statistical information which aggregates data about less than three statistical units or about a population in which the relative share of the value of a surveyed parameter of a single unit exceeds 85 percent of the value of such parameter for all units in the population. Confidential data, accordance with the Law of statistics not publish. In order not to identify individual data using the method of suppression or aggregation of information disclosed.

The Construction cost indexes not considered to be confidential.

Indices are dissemination nationally. The data are available on request 55 days after the end of the reference quarter.

The calendar is available on the NSI website: Release Calendar  

The data are available on request 55 days after the end of the reference quarter.

Construction costs indexes are transmitted to Eurostat 55 days after the end of the reference quarter.

Quarterly

Not applicable 

Not applicable 

The indicators are disseminated nationally in the on-line database INFOSTAT.

Not relevant.

Indicators are transmitted to Eurostat at the same time with their national publication.

Data transmission to Eurostat is performed each quarterly. The transmission is carried out in SDMX-ML format via eDAMIS system.

A statement of methodological notes is available from contact person and disseminated on request.

The documentation on quality management in NSI is available on the NSI website.

The quality of statistical information and its production process is ensured by the provisions of the European Statistics Code of Practice.

The legal framework which regulates the production of data from Short-term business statistics states that statistical data compiled within the EU system must be of satisfactory quality and produced data are comparable between Member States.

The revsion policy is applied  to data released nationally and transmitted  to Eurostat.

The quality assessment of the component surveys  - Produce price survey and survey on Employees, hours worked, wages and salaries, and other labour costs paid by employers is based on quality requirements of the ESS (relevance, accuracy, timelines and punctuality, accessibility and clarity, coherence and comparability). The monitoring of the quality of the indicators, updating surveys methodology, self-assessment of surveys manager are carried out.

The main users: Eurostat, representatives of central and local government, business, others users on request.

Not measured

The necessary statistical data are provided in accordance with the requirements of STS Regulations.

No special survey is carried out for calculation of the Construction costs index. For calculation CCI are used indices that are already available from other statistical surveys. Indices from special list of construction materials (provided from monthly survey on producer prices of industrial products, sold on domestic market) and labour costs index in construction (provided from quarterly survey for employees, hours worked, wages and salaries, and other labour costs paid by employers).

The general population which includes enterprises in section Construction for base year is used to calculate the weights on the final costs for materials, wages and energy.

Sampling errors are not calculated. For calculation of the construction materials producer price index that is the main component of CCI 180 enterprises are surveyed. These enterprises report data on prices for 670 specifications.

For material cost component calculation Produce price survey is used where the response rate is close to 100%. For labour cost component the results from the survey on Employees, hours worked, wages and salaries, and other labour costs paid by employers are used where the response rate is 92%.

 The indices are available 55 days after the end of the reference quarter.

NSI fulfils the timeliness requirements of the STS Regulations. The indices are transmitted to Eurostat 55 days after the end of the reference quarter.

Construction costs indices are representative for the whole country, they are not representative by regions. The implementation of the EU requirements for calculating the Indices of Construction costs ensures data consistency between Bulgaria and other European countries.

Time series are available from 2003, indexes are comparable over time.

The indicator is coherent, as the two main components are coherent:

The Producer price indexes are checked with data from other surveys conducted by the NSI (PRODCOM Survey); comparisons with the CPI are made where it is possible.

For the labour cost component the coherence of the  Quarterly survey on number of employees, time worked, wages and salaries and other labour costs with the Labour Force Survey (LFS) as well as with the National Accounts are checked and analyzed.

The Construction cost index is internally coherent. Lower level (components - material costs and labour costs) are aggregated to the total CCI.

No special survey is carried out for calculation of the Construction costs index Total NSI costs for Constriction cost index compilation is about 160 persons-hours per year.

Construction cost indices usually are revised at the beginning of the year when labour cost component is revised, revision that is based on the annual final data for year (t-1). Producer price indexes are considered final when first released. This revision policy is applied to data released nationally and transmitted to Eurostat. 

At the beginning of the year, indexes for the previous year are revised.

Minor changes are made at the time when the revision is introduced and they are marked in footnotes in the relevant published tables.

Only final data are available on the NSI website.

The construction cost index is considered as a combination of component costs indices (material costs and labour costs) which show the price developments of the main production factors of construction.

For material cost component calculation Produce price survey is used where from 1600 enterprises selected for producer price survey of which the prices of 180 enterprises are used for calculation of construction materials price index.

For labour cost component the results from the survey on Employees, hours worked, wages and salaries, and other labour costs paid by employers are used where 1030 construction enterprises are sampled.

No special survey is carried out for calculation of the Construction costs index.

The primary surveys:

• Producer price indexes is monthly;
• Survey on number of employees, time worked, wages and salaries and other labour costs is quarterly.

The monthly questionnaires “Producer price indexes” and quarterly survey “Employees, hours worked, wages and salaries, and other labour costs paid by employers”  are used for the primary surveys.

Data collection media:

• Online through Information system “Business Cycles” (IS BC)
• Paper questionnaire. The questionnaires are sent out to the respondents and collected by regional statistical offices, where the information is entered into IS BC.

Data validation of the component surveys starts from the filling of the reports by respondents. Control of the data can be accessed from both the regional statistical offices and from experts in the National Statistical Institute. An information system ‘Business Cycles’ significantly contributes to the validation of the data submitted by set of arithmetic and logical controls.

The system carries out the statutory and warning controls. In case there are errors, it displays a warning dialog error in the report. The system does not allow completion of the report while are not corrected the errors. Data validation system incorporates many tools for data control, estimations and detail reports on data completeness.  

Validation of the output data - output data are verified at group level with regard to the previous month, with the same month of the previous year and also with regard to extreme values, if necessary data are validated at the level of statistical unit.

Before transmission to Eurostat, the structure of the data file and format is checked in detail.

The index is calculated as a weighted average of the Material Prices Index for residential buildings, the Labour Costs Index and the Fuel Index.

For calculating the Construction costs index is used internal data source - price index for construction materials and index for labour costs in section Construction. The aggregation of CCI takes into account the relative weights the different cost components. The components costs index (material costs and labour costs) show  the price developments of production factors in the construction. The material costs index is calculated using materials prices and the labour costs index cover wages and salaries for all persons employed in the construction sector. 

The general population which includes enterprises in section Construction for base year is used to calculate the weights on the final costs for materials, wages and energy.

Data are not seasonally adjusted.

Not available