Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia (CSB)

Macroeconomic Statistics Department, Producer price indices section

Lāčplēša Street 1, Riga, LV-1301

Import price indices (130101).
Import price indices (IPI) measure the change in import prices during a certain period of time against the base period. The index is designed to be an indicator of the economic cycle.

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

Combined Nomenclature, 2022 (CN 2022)

Main industrial groupings (MIGs).

IPI are indicators describing price dynamics of imported goods purchased by the residents of the country from abroad. Price index is acquired by comparing prices of strictly defined goods in reference month to the same goods in base period.

Observation unit – items of products (CN code).

Reporting unit - enterprise.

For the calculation of IPI - approximately 6.9 thousand prices are obtained from around 1505 enterprises (298 enterprises from statistical report form 1-IC, 1207 from the Foreign trade statistics database of the CSB).

Entire country.

Time series by CPA 2.1 sections and divisions nationally available from 2011 and Eurostat short-term statistics (STS) data available from 2014 (monthly, quarterly and annual data).

2015=100.

Indices, % (percentage).

The prices collected are obtained as monthly average prices for certain items.

Statistics Law adopted by Saeima on 4 June 2015, is the legal base of all statistics.

The questionnaire is adopted by the Rules of Cabinet of Minister of the Republic of Latvia No 812 of 20 December 2016.

Rules of Cabinet of Minister of the Republic of Latvia No 782 of 30 November 2021 concerning to Official Statistics Program for the 2022-2024.

The specific legal basis for the STS indicators is the Council Regulation No 1165/98 of 19 May 1998 concerning short-term statistics, amended by the Regulation No 1158/2005 of 6 July 2005 concerning short-term statistics and by the Regulation (EC) No 1893/2006 of 20 December 2006 establishing the statistical classification of economic activities NACE Revision 2, herein referred as STS-Regulations or STS-R.

 The definitions of short-term statistics variables are laid down in Commission Regulation No1503/2006 of 28 September 2006 implementing and amending Council Regulation N° 1165/98 of 19 May 1998 concerning short-term statistics as regards the definition of variables.

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.

Commission Implementing Regulation 2020/1197 of 30 July 2020  laying down technical specifications and arrangements pursuant to 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 statistic.

Data are transmitted to Eurostat, the International Monetary Fund, and the United Nations Statistics Division.

Price data provided by respondents is treated as confidential information and protected by Statistics Law.

The policy of data protection and dissemination has been described in Quality Policy of the National Statistical System of Latvia (only in Latvian). . 

Statistical data shall be considered confidential if they directly or indirectly allow for identification of the private individuals or State authorities regarding which personal statistical data have been provided. Confidentiality of the primary criteria: 1) The minimum number of cases, 2) The dominance criterion. Data are confidential if there are 3 or less enterprises or one enterprise accounts for more than 80% or two of them more than 90% from the aggregate. Also the data of individual enterprises or establishment are confidential.

Before the publication date and time calculated price index information is confidential.

Advance Release Calendar for Key Indicators and Statistics Database are available on Official statistics portal. Data are published in Statistics Database on the date indicated at 13.00.

Release calendar is available on the Official statistics portal.

Statistical information published by the CSB is simultaneously available for all data users on equal terms.
Data are transmitted to Eurostat on the same day that the data are published in the Official statistics portal.

Monthly.

Not available.

The IPI are published in the paper form: “Statistical Yearbook of Latvia” – annual.

Information on IPI is available on the Official statistics portal database under theme Economy and section Producer prices.

On the Official statistics portal databases  disseminates monthly, quarterly and annual time series: the reference period compared with the previous period; the reference period compared with the corresponding period of the previous year and 2015=100. 

Microdata are not disseminated and accessible for researchers.

Information on IPI is available on the EUROSTAT homepage in section: Data/Database/Industry, trade and services/Short-term business statistics (sts)/Industry (sts_ind)/Import prices in industry (sts_ind_impi): http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/short-term-business-statistics/data/database.

A short description of the methodology and sources used to compile the IPI is available on the Official statistics portal under section Reference Metadata. Theme Economy / Producer prices  : https://stat.gov.lv/en/metadata/2615-export-unit-value-and-import-price-index.

Management Systems of the Central Statistical Bureau (CSB) are certified according to requirements of ISO 9001:2015 standard "Quality management systems – Requirements" and Information security management system standard ISO 27001:2013. 

The Quality Policy of CSB consists of the CSB's vision, mission, core values and commitment to meet the requirements, follow good practice and ensure continuous improvement.

The quality policy  is designed and implemented in accordance with the CSB strategy (3-year period) and the action plan.

The quality of statistics is assessed according to five quality criteria: relevance, accuracy, timeliness and punctuality, accessibility and clarity, coherence and comparability.

The quality indicators are calculated taking into account Eurostat defined methodology for the calculation of the Quality indicators.

https://www.csp.gov.lv/en/quality-assurance-framework 

IPI are meeting all the criteria of consistency, comparability, reliability, punctuality and timeliness. The methodology follows the recommendations of the "Export and Import Price Index Manual", published by the International Monetary Fund.

One time per month relevance, accuracy and reliability, timeliness and punctuality, comparability, coherence are recorded.

The main users are: Bank of Latvia, Ministry of Economy, Eurostat, news agencies, internal users.

If a user needs some specific information, he may apply to the CSB Information Centre with the request on information required (level of detail, base period, etc.) and CSB staff will provide a response.

The index for user satisfaction isn't available, but there are regular contacts with the main users, in order to meet any specific information may be needed. There were no relevant complains on the IPI.

Since 2014 statistics on IPI are available on a monthly basis and in accordance with legal requirements. Comparable data by CPA 2.1 are available on CSB database since 2011.

The accuracy is tackled at national level, by eliminating inconsistencies and errors. Data collection is based on a sample from enterprises and items chosen from these selected enterprises. Data is collected by web questionnaires and obtained from the Foreign trade statistics database, using the data validation rules.

For IPI non–probability sampling is used (cut-off method). Sampling errors are not calculated and confidence intervals have not been estimated.
Cut-off threshold are applied for CN codes exceeding 0.01% of total import value (import volume at CIF prices). Enterprises with the largest share (by value) in the respective CN code are involved into import prices survey. For further price collection the enterprises are selecting products (item representatives) that are imported regularly and in the large amounts. Therefore all important product groups and most important reporting units are included in IPI sample.
The list of enterprises engaged in the price monitoring is reviewed every year, excluding from it enterprises working unsteadily and including enterprises holding significant position in total import. Certain items for regular price registration are selected by statisticians in cooperation with the experts of sampled enterprises. The list of representative items is updated annually.
The survey covers sections A to E of CPA 2.1 (sections B to D for variable 130101, and sections A to E for local data users) and MIGs. The share of CN items included in the IPI samples comprised 74% of Latvian imports values. For the calculation of IPI - approximately 6.9 thousand prices are obtained from around 1505 enterprises (298 enterprises from statistical report form 1-IC, 1207 from the Foreign trade statistics database of the CSB).

There are three main sources of possible bias which can occur in the IPI:

1. Data collection errors- the unweighted response rate is more than 99%. Telephone contacts or electronic reminders are used to follow up missing responses. Non response is very rare exceptional case and errors due to response rate are not observed.
2. Data processing errors- web questionnaires and Integrated Statistical data management system contains a validation and automatic controls that helps to avoid processing errors.
3. Unit and item non-response (missing data) - in case of non –response missing values are imputed.

• Temporary missing prices (enterprise does not import some items every month) – use "repeating of the last observed price".
• Permanently missing products (the enterprise is liquidated or no longer working with this product) – we replace by new products, if it is possible. If it is not possible – use estimated price imputation – calculation with price changes in similar items or changes of CPA 2.1 class level.
• Change of products - If some products are not representative any more, or if there are changes in their determining characteristics, they are replaced by new products. Each case is carefully analysed and selected most appropriate imputation method.

The published data are final, no first and later estimation are made.

No serious mistakes have been detected in the published data.

Import price index is published at 13:00 o’clock of local time on the 45th day (1 calendar month + 15 days) after reference month; if the 45th day is weekend or holiday, it is published on the next working day. The exception is the data for January when Import price index is published on the 51st day after reference month. In 2022, additional exception was for the data for February when IPI were published on the 50th day after reference month due to the Easter holidays.

Only final publication.

The information letters about questionnaires for the next year are sent to respondents at the end of the year.

The deadline for replies to questionnaires is the 12th day after the end of each reference month. The data collection is closed approximately on the 30th day after the reference month.

The data was published according to release calendar and sent to Eurostat at the same date when publishedon Official statistics portal.

Data published according to release calendar.

Import prices are collected across the country so that index represents the country as a whole.

The nationally published IPI by CPA 2.1 sections and divisions available from 2011 (monthly, quarterly and annual data).

The IPI is not compared or confronted with other data.

There were no any internal data inconsistencies recognized.

The annual average burden was 3.78 hours per respondent or totally 1115 hours for all surveyed enterprises in 2022. The CSB total burden for IPI was 3965 hours per year.

CSB Revision Policy has been elaborated in accordance with the European Union and international recommendations and good practice.

The Revision Policy is the same as for national released data and for data transmitted to Eurostat.

Within the context of price statistics revisions of statistical data concern the published producer price indices may be revised in case an error is found in the calculations, or a respondent has submitted updated information for the previous period, which significantly – by more than 0.1 percentage point affects the total price index for the 12 months (m/(m - 12)). Indication of possible corrections of the published price indices for the previous period, receiving late or updated information is available in the respective index metadata description on the Official statistics portal.

Calculation errors affecting the result to one decimal place are corrected and the following index revisions shall be implemented immediately. The corrected price indices are published together with the data for the next reporting period with an indication to the correction.

Foreign trade statistics database of the CSB is used for obtaining monthly data on homogeneous product groups.
Direct statistical survey of the target sample from the selected enterprises and items. By way of target sampling choosing the active enterprises with a large import value. Within an enterprise the most representative items are selected for the monitoring of price trends.
The sample is updated annually.

Data are collected monthly.

Statistical report form 1-IC (monthly) “Survey on import prices" is used for data collection.
The electronic reporting system is the main data collection tool (97%); e-mail questionnaire (3%) are used in data collection.
Foreign trade statistics database of the CSB is used for obtaining monthly data on homogeneous product groups (defined by enterprise, CN code, delivery terms, mode of transport, sending country and country of origin).

The CSB has the main program used for data entering, processing with automatic control and validation tools - ISDMS (Integrated Statistical data management system). The data are compared with the previous period and the same period with the previous year. This tool does not support the price index compilation and transmission to Eurostat. Standard MS Office professional software (MS Excel, MS Access) is used for compilation and validation of import price indices. The data files before transmission to Eurostat are checked manually.

In case of non-response - the imputation methods have been applied.
Individual IPI are combined using Laspeyres type formula and base period weights to obtain higher level indices by CN sections and CPA 2.1 classes, groups or divisions.
Laspeyres indices are calculated starting from the subcategory level (6 digit of the CPA 2.1) up to groups or divisions.
The application of quality adjustment methods is limited. New representative items and new enterprises are introduced at the beginning of the new reference year. For the replacement of selected items the overlap method is used.

The import price indices are neither seasonally nor working day adjusted. 

Not applicable.