National Institute of Statistics (Istat)

Directorate for Business Statistics (DCSE)

Division for Statistics on Production and Foreign Trade (SEB)

Via Tuscolana, 1788

00173 Rome Italy

Import prices index  is compiled according to the Euro/non-Euro breakdown:

• Import price Euro area
• Import price non-Euro area 

The industrial import price index is a monthly short-term indicator used for the business cycle analysis.

The industrial import price index measures changes of prices of a representative basket of the main industrial products bought (in the Euro zone and the non-Euro zone) by industrial and commercial enterprises resident in Italy

Statistical Classification of Products by Activity, CPA 2.1 (2015)

The observation field of the import price survey concerns products included in sections B, C and D of the CPA classification (with the exclusion of the following products: B0721, B09, C18, C2446, C254, C301, C303, C304 and C33.

The price is an actual transaction price collected when the ownership of the goods is transferred. The price is the c.i.f. (cost, insurance and freight) price at the national border, excluding all duties and taxes on imports to be shouldered by the reporting unit. Other sale conditions are defined by the most common contracts. Data are collected for the eurozone and the non-eurozone.

Industrial and commercial enterprises. The observation unit is the same as the reporting unit.

Sections B, C, D of CPA (B0721, B09, C18, C2446, C254, C301, C303, C304, C33 not included)

The whole national territory

Monthly data are disseminated according to the NACE Rev. 2 classification at the 3-digit level since January 2005, time series for the period January 2005-December 2009 have been reconstructed.

The reconstruction of the time series on import prices for the period of January 2005 -December 2009: Nota Informativa 16/10/2015

The f ixed base chain-linking changeover in import price indices: Nota informativa 20/04/2022

The base period is the year 2015.

Indices

Month

Legal basis at national and European level.

National level: This is one of the compulsory surveys fixed every year by a Decree of the President of the Republic (D.P.R.)

European level: 

Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 November 2019 on European business statistics, repealing 10 legal acts in the field of business statistics;
Commission Implementing Regulation 2020/1197   of laying down technical specifications and arrangements pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 (General Implementing Act);

Council Regulation No 1165/1998 Council Regulation No 1165/1998 of 19 May 1998 Introducing short-term statistics at European level;

Regulation (EC) of the European Parliament and of the Council n. 1158/2005 amending Regulation 1165/98 introducing the European sample schemes, industrial import prices, output prices for services and other changes.

Obligation on units to provide data: Surveys are mandatory. Penalties are foreseen for non-response.

Planned changes in legal basis, obligation to respond and frame used: None.

Data are transmitted to Eurostat on a monthly basis and are available at http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/data/database (Theme Industry, trade and services, topic Short-term business statistics (sts)/Industry (sts_ind)).

Several national legal acts guarantee the confidentiality of data requested for statistical purposes. According to Art. 9, paragraph 1 of the Legislative Decree n. 322 of 1989, personal data can only be disseminated in aggregate form, in order to make it impossible to identify individuals. The Personal Data Protection Code - introduced by the Legislative Decree No. 196 of 30 June 2003 - and Legislative Decree No. 101 of 10 September 2018 (General Data Protection Regulation) provides special rules concerning the processing of personal data for statistical purposes within the National Statistical System (Sistan). Further, in order to make statistical confidentiality and protection of personal data effective, Istat is currently taking appropriate organizational, logistical, methodological and statistical measures in accordance with internationally established standards.

Links to relevant legal acts on statistics are also listed on the website of Sistan (https://www.sistan.it/)

Survey elementary data are treated as confidential. Aggregated data are disseminated in I.Stat

Some variables can be transmitted to Eurostat as confidential when they are not disseminated in Italy.

Every year in December Istat send to Eurostat a transmission calendar providing precise dates for the coming year. Since January 2016 data (first issue in March 2016), import price index are released in a merged press release, import price and external trade.

The release calendar is disseminated on ISTAT's website Istat - Release Calendar

Indices are published simultaneously to all interested parties at Istat homepage, previous releases are accessible in the archive Prices/Archive

No one has pre-release access to the statistics.

Eurostat receives embargoed data in advance of its publishing date; data are transmitted monthly by EDAMIS using SDMX-ML format. Data are transmitted once per month: provisional data for the month t-2 and final data for the month t-3.

The short-term information is also used for quarterly and annual National Accounts.

Monthly

Since December 2013 there is a monthly news release for import prices, since January 2016 data (first issue in March 2016), there is a merged press release, import price and external trade.

Prices/archive

Indices are published in the "Annuario Statistico Italiano" (ASI) - Italian Statistical Yearbook - Chapter 16 Annuario Statistico Italiano/Prezzi

Data are disseminated in I.Stat, database theme "Prices", dataset "Import prices - Monthly data" - (base 2015). The online database I.Stat is open and free, statistics are organized by theme in a two-level hierarchical tree. Data are presented in aggregate form in multidimensional tables; acting on variables, reference periods and the arrangement of heads and sides users can create custom tables and graphs. Datasets can be searched by keyword, theme and region. A wide range of standard metadata facilitates the retrieval and understanding of statistics by users. More information available in the User Guide User Guide 

Data are also disseminated in IstatData, the new Istat’s data dissemination platform that will gradually replace the I.Stat data access system. Until the data transfer is completed, the two systems will coexist.

None

Data are sent to Eurostat and also to the National Central Bank (Banca d'Italia). This index is also one of the 'Principal European Economic Indicators (PEEIs) https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/euro-indicators

Methodology is in the framework of short-term business statistics. A short methodological and survey's characteristics is contained in the last section of the press release updated regularly.

More information about procedures applied for quality management and quality assessment in the document "Quality Guidelines For Statistical Processes" - December 2012 Quality Guidelines

The quality assurance framework is based on the contents of the document "Quality Guidelines For Statistical Processes" - Istat - December 2012 (Quality guidelines for statistical process).

Istat reference framework for quality policies relies on the European Statistics Code of Practice adopted in 2005 (last revised in 2017), on Eurostat Quality Definition and on the recommendations of the LEG on Quality. The Data Quality Assessment Framework, developed by the International Monetary Fund, also represents an important reference. Following the principles of the European Statistics Code of Practice, Italy has adopted the Italian Code of Official Statistics in order to promote quality improvements in the statistics produced by the Italian National Statistical System.

(Directive No 12/COMSTAT in Italian Official Journal No. 23, General Series of 29 January 2022). In accordance with Eurostat Quality Definition, the requirements of statistical products are:

• to be relevant with regard to users¿ information needs;
• to be accurate, that is to provide estimates or indicators that are as reliable as possible; to timely catch the phenomena to be observed;
• to be easily accessible and supported by metadata allowing for a full understanding of data; to enable comparisons over time or among different sources.

 A description of methodology and sources used in preparing statistics is also contained in the Information SIqual/ Quarterly survey on producer prices

Not available

The main users of the industrial import prices index are:

• Institutions: government departments, ECB, national central bank, international organizations, etc.
• Social actors: employers' organizations, trade unions, lobby groups, etc.
• Media
• Researchers & students Enterprises/businesses
• Internal users
• Eurostat

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Sampling error has not been estimated.

The response rate of the first estimate is about 94%.

The response rate of the definitive estimate is about 95%.

Reminders are sent to non-respondents and follow-up operations are carried out.

The deadline for the data transmission is 45 days after the end of the reference period.

Comparable time series for import prices are available since January 2005.

The cost estimate is compiled in terms of total number of hours worked (THW). It is equal to the product of three terms: (total) Annual Working Days (AWD), (total) Hours Worked per Day (HWD), Number of Persons involved in the Survey (NPS).

The burden estimate is compiled in terms of the total number of minutes (TNM) taken to fill in the (web) questionnaire. The burden is applied to the respondent, i.e. the person who fills in the questionnaire on behalf of the enterprise. To estimate it, two elements have been taken into account. The former distinguishes between beginner and expert respondent, to point out respectively the person who fills in the web questionnaire for the first time and the one who is familiar with filling in the form. The latter closely concerns the information that has to be monthly provided. On average, by combining these two elements, the time spent to fill in the questionnaire (just the burden) is estimated in terms of the total number of minutes between a minimum and a maximum threshold

Generally, major changes in methodology, sources and statistical techniques are announced in ad hoc publications. Advance notification of methodological changes is also provided through seminars and papers disseminated throughout the scientific community. The same revision policy is applied nationally and in transmissions to Eurostat.

At present time, Import price indices are not revised and seasonal adjusted. Data are firstly released as "provisional" (45 days after the end of the reference period) and subsequently as "final" (75 days after the end of the reference period). The distance between provisional and final data allows to increase the response rate.

The Mean Absolute Revision (MAR), Mean Revision (MR) and RMAR (Relative Mean Absolute Revision) are compiled for totals (and MIGs breakdown). 

These indicators refer to 36 monthly data from 2020 to 2022; indices are released in the reference base 2015=100. 

Data are collected through a statistical survey. The Foreign Trade statistics are used as frame. The survey is conducted on the basis of a sample (based on a non-probabilistic design). The sample is drawn by quotas, calculated in order to guarantee a sufficient coverage in terms of import values. Since 2022 the sample of products and the list of enterprises are yearly updated.

Monthly

Self-administered data collection via electronic transmission (online survey), data are collected through a web portal called Portale Imprese https://imprese.istat.it/

Respondents must login to enter data in the web questionnaire.

Not available

Since January 2022 import price indices are compiled according to the methodology of the annual chain-linking on a monthly basis. The reference base period is the year 2015.

The system of import price indices is made up of two surveyed variables – referring to Euro area and non-Euro area – and by a summary variable – total (Euro and non-Euro areas). The variables are calculated as base period indices and successively released as reference base indices.

The compilation process is made up of three steps.

The first step deals with the definition of price relatives (quotients of current prices – numerator – and base prices, denominator, the month of December of the preceding year).

In the second step, price relatives associated with each product are aggregated by simple geometric average to provide product indices.

In the third step, the product indices are aggregated by weighted arithmetic averages (Laspeyres type formula) to provide the whole set of sub-aggregate indices and the overall one.

Data for non-respondents are estimated.

Adjustments for quality changes: when a price variation is due to changes in the price-determining characteristics, a quality change occurs; the algorithm applied is the overlap one.

New price quotations are introduced only when the index base is updated.

Seasonal items: the most recent price collected is held constant until new prices are reported for the same season.

Method of weighting and chaining: The weighting system is defined at the national level. The index weighting system is derived from the international trade statistics. There are two weighting systems depending upon the Euro and the non-Euro area. Total indices are defined by weighted arithmetic means of Euro and non-Euro indices. The variable used to set up weights is the annual value of imports of goods. For both areas, values concern goods according to the Combined Nomenclature (eight-digit level). These data are reported to the PRODCOM nomenclature by the corresponding tables available on the Eurostat website. 

Working day or seasonal adjustments are not performed.