Statistics Sweden, Economic Statistics Department

Unit for Innovation, Business sector production and Research

Statistics Sweden

Solna strandväg 86

SOLNA

Construction production index. The objective of the index is to measure changes in the volume of output in monthly intervals. The index is also used for estimation purposes in national accounts.

NACE Rev. 2 and Classification of of types of construction (CC).

The survey covers NACE Rev. 2 Section F. All size classes are covered.

The construction production index is calculated using nowcasted monthly VAT data deflated with a factor production price index.

The statistical unit is Kind-of-activity unit. Observation unit is Legal unit since VAT data is not available for KAU:s.

There are approximately 85 000 companies registered in NACE Section F.

All regions of Sweden are covered.

Date of first use as a source is January 1994.

The base year is 2015.

The final result is an Index with reference year equal to 100.

Reference period: Month

Reference year of this report: 2021

Legal basis: Official statistics in Sweden are governed by the Official Statistics Act of 2001 (SFS 2001:99) and Ordinance SFS 2001:100.

The data are sent to Eurostat and to the Swedish National Accounts.

The construction production index is not disseminated except for total production in NACE F which is disseminated in the Production Value Index.

Confidential data are transmitted to Eurostat but marked as "confidential data".

Indices are not official and therefore no dissemination of release calendar to the public is made.  Total production in NACE F is disseminated in the Production Value Index.

Indices are not official and therefore no dissemination of release calendar to the public is made.

Simultaneous release to all interested parties:
Data is only transmitted to Eurostat.

Identification of internal government access to data before release:
Public administration does not have access to data.

Transmission to Eurostat and further use of the statistics:
Indices are transmitted to Eurostat approximately 40 days after the reference period. The transmission is done in the SDMX format by the use of eDAMIS4.
The production index is also used for quarterly and annual National Accounts.

Indices are not disseminated to the public.  Total production in NACE F is disseminated monthly in the Production Value Index.

No statistical releases are made.

The data is not dissimenated in any publication.

Two series are calculated each month: gross and working day adjusted. Indices are calculated for buildings, civil engineering and total. Only the total is published in the Swedish Statistical Database.

Not available.

Data is transmitted to Eurostat monthly. Two series are calculated each month: gross and working day adjusted. Indices are calculated for buildings, civil engineering and total. No geographical breakdown is made for short-term data. 

No documentation is disseminated externally. Data is transmitted to Eurostat monthly. Two series are calculated each month: gross and working day adjusted. Indices are calculated for buildings, civil engineering and total. No geographical breakdown is made for short-term data.

Not available.

Quality checks and validation of data are done throughout the whole process. This is described in the standardised metadata and quality report for short-term statistics concerning NACE Section F on the website of Statistics Sweden (Staf).

Publication of results are always punctual.

Primary users and their needs are:

• National Accounts Department within Statistics Sweden:
• Ministry of Finance, governmental agencies and the national central bank: Input data into forecasts of the national accounts as well as analysis of the economic development.
• Eurostat: Input data into analysis of the economy as well as the compilation of indicators and other statistics.
• Banks and financial institutes: Input data in analysis and forecast of the economic development.

Secondary users and their needs are:

• Researchers and students: Input data in research and education.
• Social actors: Analysis of the economic development.
• Media: Publishing and release of data.
• Enterprises/businesses: Analytical uses.

Statistics Sweden has general satisfaction surveys but no specific survey for the short-term statistics.

Views and opinions of the users are collected through user councils with 2 to 4 meetings per year. The members of the council represents the users of the statistics which is funded by grants produced by Statistics Sweden. The council has an advisory role regarding questions concerning new statistics, development and improvement of existing statistics and priorities for the coming financial year.

Direct contact with users is also a source for evaluating user satisfaction.

The production index is fully in terms with Eurostat's requirements of time series.

No estimates on the size of the statistical errors and bias currently exists.

Currently no estimates on sampling error are available for the Production in Construction on any level.

Currently no estimates on non-sampling error are available for the Production in Construction on any level.

Indices are transmitted to Eurostat approximately 40 days after the end of the reference month. Data are preliminary when first released. Data for the most recent months (the present year) are revised when new data are published. Quarterly data is also provided to the National accounts.

Data is sent to Statistics Sweden approximately 36 days after the reference period.

There are no time lags between the actual delivery of the data and the target date when it should have been delivered.

The whole national territory is covered, without any breakdown on the different regions,  

When significant changes are introduced (e.g. change of weight, base year or methodology), historical time series are recalculated. Time series are available from 1994 onwards.

Comparisons are made to relevant sources, such as the monthly Economic Tendency Indicator of the National Institute of Economic Research (NIER).

The CC1 (Construction of buildings) and CC2 (Civil Engineering) are coherent with the total.

No primary data collection.

There is a national official policy for non-scheduled data revisions (Revisions due to errors). This policy handles national releases, statistics produced by commission and international transmissions (like Eurostat). The policy states that all users should get the same information at the same time when non-scheduled revisions occur. Data is only transmitted to Eurostat. The information about the revision will among other things include which data has been corrected and when.

Construction Production Index is a Laspeyres chain-index, so no revisions occur due to regular base year changes (i.e. the rebasing that is carried out every fifth year due to STS requirements).

Vintages are stored but not published, they are however provided upon request.

No benchmarking is made.

No major revisions are carried out except in case of errors. Non-scheduled revisions of this type are communicated according to national revision policy. Data should be corrected and users should be informed as fast as possible after the discovery.

Any major methodological changes would be announced in advance. Due to the high frequency in this process, errors and corresponding changes remain relatively small. 

Users are informed in advance of methodological and other changes which may lead to revisions. Users are not informed in advance of the actual revisions.

No special revision calendar exists and revisions are published at the same time as figures for new months. The same revision policy is applied to data released nationally and transmitted to Eurostat.

Mean Absolute Revision (MAR) and Mean Revision (MR), computed values for the last 36 monthly (Jan 2020 - Dec 2022) for total construction (F):

Growth rates for calendar/working day adjusted data series (YoY): MAR = 3.5 , MR = 0.8

Data from Statistics Sweden's VAT registry.

Statistics Sweden's VAT registry is updated multiple times per week with the most current monthly and quarterly VAT data from the Swedish Tax Agency.

The construction production index is calculated using nowcasted VAT data. 

Data is examined in multiple ways to determine the plausability of the figures. Studies of other indices, calendar analysis and business cycle analysis are among the tools used.

A Laspeyres index is applied.

Seasonal adjustment and working day adjustment are transmitted to Eurostat monthly. Production in construction, CC1 (Construction of buildings) and CC2 (Civil Engineering), are produced for Eurostat only and are not published as part of the national official statistics. Manipulations are made on aggregated data with ARIMA-X-12.

Calendar adjustment

A country specific calendar is used. Moving holidays that are adjusted are easter and the feast of the Ascension. Leap year effects are adjusted for. Calendar effects are adjusted for regARIMA.

Seasonal adjustment

The software used is X-12-ARIMA in SAS (PROC X12) with SAS 9.3. The model/filter selection is manual for ARIMA models and automatically chosen (default) filter. Models and parameters are reviewed once a year. The seasonal adjustment is applied to the whole time series back to January 2000. Minor revisions may therefore occur over the whole series.

The models are checked for adequacy and the filter length is automatically chosen. No seasonal breaks are entered into the series to methodological changes.

The current model for estimating production in construction was introduced in 2020.