Statistics Belgium - STATBEL

Economic statistics

NG building Koning Albert II-laan 16 - 1000 Brussels

Output price index (afzetprijsindex/indice indice des prix à la production) , Producer price indices

NACE Rev. 2.

Activities covered  Sections B, C, D and E35 and E36 of NACE Rev. 2.

Size classes covered: (Turnover>=3.9 millions € or 20 employed persons ) + (Turnover >=1million).

Prices of products produced by Belgian enterprises.

The output price is based on weights based on:

-Value added figures delivered by the National Bank of Belgium (€ zone/no € zone),

-VAT (aggregate weights),

-Prodcom (enterprises weights).

Planned changes in information collected: none

Accounting conventions: the prices of products are collected according to the definitions in Regulation CR 1503/2006.

Reporting unit: the reporting unit is the enterprise.

Observation unit(s): the observation unit is the local kind-of-activity unit.

All enterprises with B, C, D, E activities in Belgium  (+- 40.000 active enterprises).
In practice the sample taken from the univers based on PRODCOM (+-4000 enterprises representing 98% of total production), plus additions for sectors not covered in PRODCOM (10.5 - dairy, 19 - cokes and petroleum, 35 - electricity and gas, 36 water).

 All regions of Belgium are covered.

Since 2002 on total market level (OPI) and domestic (OPD)/ non-domestic market level (OPN).
1980-2001 only on domestic-market level (OPD).

2015.

Indices based on price changes measured in euro and other common currency.

Periodicity is monthly.

Until 2022: EU regulations concerning the collection, treatment and dissemination of statistical data are the Council Regulation (EC) No. 1165/98 of 19 May 1998 concerning short-term statistics with implementing acts (e.g. Commission Regulation No 1503/2006 of 28 September 2006 concerning the definitions).

From 2022 onwards: Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics of 27 November 2019, repealing 10 legal acts in the field of business statistics (EBS-Regulation) as well as the Federal Statistics Act (1987)

Commission Implementing Regulation 2020/1197 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 (General Implementing Act).

These EU regulations ae completed by the Belgian Royal decree (03/07/2012) about short-term prices survey.

Obligation on units to provide data: yes.

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

The resulting indices are transmitted to Eurostat, and disseminated at the same moment as publication to the National Bank of Belgium and internally (e.g. to the service responsible for the prodcom statistics) to be used as deflator.

There is a national law concerning the confidentiality of data (statistical law of July 4, 1962): data from reporting units which are individual or which can result in individual data may not be disseminated without permission of the reporting unit. In practice this means indices are not disseminated for sectors where:
— There are only one or two reporting units;
— There are three reporting units but one of them represents 70% or more;
— There are four or more reporting units but one of them represents 80% or more.
Confidential indices are sent to Eurostat flagged as confidential data.

Confidential data are treated by suppression (see 7.1): confidential indices are sent to Eurostat flagged as confidential data and are not visible in publications on the national website. 

Release dates are fixed in advance for a calendar year. A release schedule of all indicators can be found at: https://statbel.fgov.be/en/calendar .

To access from the main page www.statbel.fgov.be: choose your language, click on the link 'release calendar' on the bottom right of the page. 

https://statbel.fgov.be/en/calendar

Simultaneous release to all interested parties: data are transmitted to Eurostat when they are published in Belgium.

Identification of internal government access to data before release: the Economics Ministry's press department is provided with a copy of the press release.

Transmission to Eurostat and further use of the statistics: data are transmitted to Eurostat when they are published in Belgium. The transmission is done by use of EDAMIS using SDMX.

The level of detail corresponds to the 2-digit level of NACE Rev. 2, the totals and the MIG's.

Monthly.

Identification of ministerial commentary on the occasion of statistical releases: no ministerial commentary is attached to the release of data by the statistics office.

Name of national paper publications: the output price index is published in press release, dynamic tables (be.Stat), excel tables.

The press release is a pdf document and web page that contains a graph and tables concerning total, domestic and non-domestic market for the global index and information on the evolution of the MIG’s.

The dynamic and excel tables contain results for the breakdown for the markets and the level of detail corresponds to the totals, MIG’s, 2-digit level to the relevant 4-digit level of NACE Rev. 2.

Name of national electronic dissemination: Statbel/Be stat.

Not available.

Not available.

Indices are transmitted to Eurostat to be used in calculating European aggregates and to be released as national data.

Planned changes in national dissemination methods: none.

Dissemination of documentation on methodology and sources used in preparing statistics:

available on:

https://statbel.fgov.be/en/themes/indicators/prices/output-price-index-industry#documents

https://statbel.fgov.be/fr/themes/indicateurs-conjoncturels/prix/indice-des-prix-la-production-industrie#documents

https://statbel.fgov.be/nl/themas/conjunctuurindicatoren/prijzen/afzetprijsindexen-industrie#documents

Description of standard tables produced:

available on:

https://statbel.fgov.be/en/themes/indicators/prices/output-price-index-industry

https://statbel.fgov.be/fr/themes/indicateurs-conjoncturels/prix/indice-des-prix-la-production-industrie

https://statbel.fgov.be/nl/themas/conjunctuurindicatoren/prijzen/afzetprijsindexen-industrie

Not yet available for the general public, only internal.

A great effort was made to optimize data collection and calculation methods (websurvey in XBRL, with fixed procedures for doubtfully large price changes including extensive descriptions of products and reasons for quality changes, calculations at 8-digit product level, etc.). For each step of the production chain, the data are controlled. At present no explicit standard quality control checks are carried out, but evolutions of the different sectors is closely watched.

Once the figures produced, they are validated by our internal validation service before publication.

Checks carried out along the production chain of the indices and these are finally validated by our validation service before diffusion.
Doubtfully large changes in price evolutions (+-25%) are eliminated, when there is reason to believe the comparability of the product is not guaranteed.

Belgian National Bank, Eurostat, Federations, Enterprises for contract prices updating, other.

No measure of user' satisfaction but no complaints either.

Fully compliant with all STS requirements:
First reference period for numerous series: minimal January 2001, which is in line with derogation of CR 606/2001.

NACE B05, B06, B07, B09 : no issue - activity considered as not existing (weight ≤ 0.05%).

In principle, a cutt-of sample is used in two stages: at enterprise level and product level. But collection difficulties due to transfer prices, unique products, etc. influence this method.

Statistical accuracy is inherently more difficult to assess for price indexes than other statistics due to the complex nature of evolution of average price changes and statistical problems in estimating of data that is not covered by the sample (extrapolation).

Accuracy decreases at higher levels of detail of geographic and product aggregation due to the increasingly smaller sizes of the price samples for lower levels of aggregation. Errors can occur in price collection and editing, or in making quality adjustments to estimate "pure price change", higher level aggregate indexes are likely to be of better quality than lower level indexes because any distortions due to errors are more likely to cancel out.

Sampling error for the producer price survey is difficult to quantify because product and enterprise samples are based on judgmental rather than probability sampling methods.

There are around 1100 prices are collected by around 1000 enterprises. This results in the coverage of the total industry without energy, is well above 50% in terms of prodcom production value.

The coverage of the main industrial aggregates ranges between 40% (durable consumer goods) and 65% (non durable consumer goods).

Non-sampling error is reduced using a websurvey where the survey questionnaire is filled in directly by the contact person of the enterprise. The XBRL-program contains extensive automatic verifications of the provided data (including a comparison with the data of the previous month). The user is obliged to provide an explanation if large changes occur. In case of questionable data without satisfying explanation an intervention by phone will be necessary (e.g. when unit prices or mixed products are suspected).

Response rate : about 90%

Actions to speed up or increase the rate of response : contacts by phone, email, websurvey.

Results are not recalculed after the first release, except if substancial errors are detected afterwards.

Timeliness: the output price index is released in the last day of the month following the reference period.

Timetable of data collection:reporting units are contacted by phone or websurvey during the first three weeks after the reference period.

Data collection is normally closed around 20 days after the reference period. Validation of the resulting indices by internal procedure starts generally 5 days later.

Transmission delays are very rare.

The ESS definitions are applied in the whole country and for all markets of export.

The only recent break in the the time series is caused by the passage from NACE rev.1 to NACE rev.2 in 2003 for the more detailed NACE’s.

Dissemination of information that support statistical cross-checks and provide assurance of reasonableness : none

Confrontation with other data sets: none.

No regular confrontation is made, but comparisons are made on an ad-hoc basis, especially when results seem contrary to expectations.

These include comparisons with EU-aggregates and neighboring countries as well as unit-value prices resulting from Prodcom (if relevant).

Coherence problems are possible between aggregates and subaggregates due to chain-linking.

A rough estimate results in 500 days FTE for all recurrent tasks related to data collection, as well as monthly calculations and recurrent methodological actions on an annual basis. This includes STS and national needs, which generally overlap.

Only if important problem arises, revisions are made. Revision is not common policy.

Non-scheduled revisions may occur due to errors discovered in the input data after results are considered definitive. In this case, explanations are given in the press release.

Routine revisions due to late reception of price data are included in the next reference period.

The same revision policy is applied nationally and in transmissions to Eurostat.

Provision of information about revision and advance notice of major changes in methodology: revisions and methodological changes are announced at the same time as they take place, if possible in advance of the change.

The data have revised rarely during the period of reference, MAR/MR lies below 0.00 for total aggragates of PREN, PREX, PREZ, PRIN, PRON.

Type of source: survey.

Frame on which the source is based: DBRIS (belgian enterprises register).

Sample or census: cut-off sample based principally on turnover.

Criteria for stratification: criteria for stratification.

Threshold values and percentages: none.

Frequency of updating the sample: annually and ad hoc replacement of failing enterprises.

Data collection is monthly for most enterprises, quarterly for some. 

Questionnaires used in the survey: XBRL websurvey using a different form for new enterprises with assistance for choosing relevant products.

Planned changes in national questionnaires: none in the near future.

Data collection media: web and phone.

Planned changes in data collection methodology: none.

Checks are carried out at the time of data collection and throughout the production chain indices. These are also validated by another service before distribution.

Collected data are daily transferred from the operating system in a datawarehouse. An automatic verification of the input data is effectuated.

Then, a SAS program allows to check the untrustworthy the price evolutions and aggregated indices upt to 4-digit NACE-level to identify problems. If a problem is detected, the collect center is contacted. In function of the response of our collect center (and possible contact with the enterprise responsible), the declaration is maintained, re-estimated or removed for the index calculation.

Final tables and press releases are validated by our validation service: format, content, missing information, layout of press release, are verified.

If results appear abnormal, the validation service recontacts the responsible for verification.

Estimates for non-response: imputation based on prices of similar products.

Estimates for grossing-up to population levels: not relevant.

Type of index: the index is a Laspeyres chain index. Monthly evolutions are chained to reflect the evolution since baseyear.

Method of weighting and chaining: the weights are value added.

Planned changes in production methods: none.

WDA, SA and other calculations : none

Not available.