Statbel (Statistics Belgium)

Economy unit

North Gate, Bd Albert II, 16, 1000 Bruxelles

Turnover index (omzetindex/indice du chifre d’affaires/industriellen Umsatzes). This index is designed to be an indicator of the economic cycle.

Nace Rev.2 classification (Statistical Classification of Economic Activities) is used for the turnover index.

The Prodcom list is used for the Prodcom data from which indices are calculated.

The industrial turnover indicators cover economic activities listed in sections B to E of Nace rev.2 :

Size classes covered

• For sectors industrial no prodcom : enterprises with 10 persons employed or more in sectors industrial no prodcom (1011, slaughterhouse part of 1051, 1910, 1920, 2446)
• For industrial prodcom enterprises :
  • All industrial enterprises with 20 persons employed or with a turnover of EUR 4.200.000 or more in the previous reference year;
  • All enterprises with an industrial secondary activity with 20 persons employed or with a turnover of EUR 4.200.000  or more in the previous reference year.

For the Prodcom survey, the treshold is revised every 5 years.

The definition of industrial turnover follows the definition in the methodology of short-term business statistics (Interpretation and guidelines).

Turnover comprises the invoiced services provided by the unit and the sales of products :

• produced by the unit
• produced by foreign third parties with raw materials of the unit
• purchased for resale by the unit

List and definition of variables  in Belgium:

• For prodcom industrial sectors, the turnover index is based on :
  • Value of sold production, 
  • Value of sales of products manufactured by foreign subcontractor
  • Value of commercial sales
  • Value of contract work invoiced to others industrial processing and services supplied
• For industrial no prodcom sectors, the variable is the turnover 

All of these values excludes VAT and other similar deductible taxes linked to turnover.

Reductions in prices, rebates and discounts as well as the value of returned packing are excludes.

Reporting and observation unit is local unit

• For industrial prodcom sectors :3870 local units
• For industrial no prodcom sectors : ~80 local units

All of the 3 regions of Belgium are covered.

The sales of products manufactured by foreign subcontractor are include in turnover of the Belgian main contractor.

Industrial turnover indices are available from 2000 for Eurostat. The series are published  also from this period in Belgium.

The year of reference 2015 is also the base year for indices from 2000.

Index based on euros.

Absolutes figures are published for Prodcom.

The calendar month is the reference.

The legal basis for this indicator is the European Business Statistics (EBS) Regulation:

• 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
• 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)

Data are sent to OECD, UN, IMF and Eurostat.

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;

Confidential indices are sent to Eurostat flagged as confidential data.

Confidential data are treated by suppression.

Release dates are fixed in advance for a calendar year

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

Access via main page www.statbel.fgov.be: choose your language and click on the link 'calendar' on 'release schedule' on the bottom right of the page.

• 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 news are sent to the president of our ministry for information and to our general director 1 hour before publication
• 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 GESMES. The level of detail corresponds to the 2-digit level of NACE Rev. 2, the totals and the MIG's

Monthly

There are news on this indicator available on Dutch, French, English and German versions. In these news, the seasonally adjusted  turnover index for the reference month and for the total of industry is compared to the previous month and the calendar adjusted index is compared to the same month of year before.

The latest version of these news is available on : https://statbel.fgov.be/en/themes/indicators/turnover/turnover-index-industry-prodcom

There are no other publications.

The news are a web document and is accompanied by an excel table containing :

• gross indexes
• working day adjusted indexes
• trends
• seasonally adjusted indexes

For Belgium and the 3 regions, for Nace 2 digits, MIG's, sections B, C and totals

Microdata are not disseminated.

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

There is no available methodology document.

There is no available quality document

A great effort was made to optimise data collection and calculation methods (large amount of respondents and basic data, sophisticated estimation procedures, calculations at 8-digit product level, etc.). For each step of the production chain, the data are controlled. At present no explicit quality control checks are carried out, but in the near future the stability of revisions will be tracked.

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

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.

Checks are carried out along the production chain of the indices and these are finally validated by our validation service before diffusion.

National Belgian Bank, Eurostat, Federations, Professional associations, Universities, Regional public services, Other users

No specific measure but information on the satisfaction received by contact with the users.

All of the required series are available.

The sampling error is not relevant.

The non-sampling error is small but this error is more important for less detailed aggregates.

The first estimates are biased.

The principal source of errors is the non-response error.

The sampling error is not relevant since the main data for the calculation of the industrial turnover index (Prodcom) are based on a cut-off sample.

Are questioned in the Prodcom survey :

• all industrial enterprises with 20 persons employed or with a turnover of EUR 4.200.000 or more in the previous reference year;
• all enterprises with an industrial secondary activity with 20 persons employed or with a turnover of EUR 4.200.000 or more in the previous reference year.

The main source of error is the response rate

The indexes are revised 3 times and are considered as stable 4 months after the reference period.

The survey used for the turnover index is compulsory but for the first round of calculation, the response rate is about 80-85% and estimations are made at the individual level based on VAT turnover, history of the responding unit or based on the sector evolution.

However the variability of certain declarations is such that it is impossible to estimate correctly. This is a problem if the responding unit is in an important sector.

Therefore, to avoid to have big biases between 2 revisions, it is imperative to receive such declarations with important impacts on the indexes in time.

A list of important responding units was created with which we have privileged contacts to get their data for the first round of calculation.

To increase the response rate, postal reminders are used and enterprises are also contacted by phone.

Four months after the reference period, the response rate is then approximately 95%.

The turnover index is released within 2 months after the reference period. Then, there is revised twice : 3 months after the reference period and 4 months after the reference period (in principle, the third release is final).

Questionnaires are sent to the reporting unit around the 15th of the reference month asking for a reply by the 15th of the following month.

No problem of punctuality in 2022.

The definitions are equally applied to the 3 regions of Belgium

No problem of comparability.

Regular confrontation is made with the turnover values based on the VAT-declarations. Other comparisons are made on an ad-hoc basis, especially when results seem contrary to expectations, with other short-term data (business opinion surveys, forecasts, other variables).

No problem of internal coherence.

Burden on respondents

The Prodcom survey was simplified in 2008.

 Cost associated with the collection and production of the industrial turnover index

~10 persons for ~15000 hours/year

The same revision policy is applied to the data released nationally and transmitted to Eurostat. The general Belgian revision policy is available on our internet site following the link : https://statbel.fgov.be/en/about-statbel/quality/revision-policy or under the 'quality' tab after selecting 'About Statbel' at the top right of the home page (https://statbel.fgov.be).

Routine revisions : For the industrial turnover indices, we recalculated the indices of the last 3 months. The indices are considered as stable 4 months after the reference period. Each month, revisions rates are calculated for the different aggregates. If this rate exceeds a determined threshold (generally 5%), differences in the microdata are investigated.

Major revisions : If important changes are made in the production chain, we inform the users in the news tab on the page concerning the industrial turnover indices. (https://statbel.fgov.be/en/themes/indicators/turnover/turnover-index-industry-prodcom)

Non-scheduled revisions may occur due to errors discovered in the input data after results are considered definitive. In this case, explanations are also given in the published news and to Eurostat.

For the industrial turnover indices, there is no revision calendar.

The same revision policy applied to the data released nationally and transmitted to Eurostat to ensure coherence.

The regular source of revision is the replacement of estimates by the actual values reported. The routine revisions rates depend on the level of the aggregation. Generally, this rate is weak for the high levels aggregates. The revision rates are not published.

Rates of difference between 2 versions of the identical reference month are calculated at Nace 2 digit. If these rates are greater than 5% investigations are made to find the reasons of the difference.

All of the versions and data are stored in a database with a transaction date. The last version of the indices is stored with '31DEC9999' as transaction date.

Data used to calculate the indices are also stored with a transaction date. We be able to find the data used for the different calculations.

Sources: cut-of sample survey for industrial Prodcom and no Prodcom sectors

• For sectors industrial no Prodcom : enterprises with 10 persons employed or more in sectors industrial no Prodcom (1011, slaughterhouse part of 1051, 1910, 1920, 2446)

~80 enterprises are surveyed

• For industrial Prodcom enterprises :
  • all industrial enterprises in Nace Prodcom with 20 persons employed or with a turnover of EUR 4.200.000 or more in the previous reference year;
  • all enterprises in with an industrial secondary activity with 20 persons employed or with a turnover of EUR 4.200.000 or more in the previous reference year.

If enterprises meet these conditions, their local units are examinated. Local units in industrial sectors are surveyed.

The frame on which the source is based is DBRIS (belgian business register).

Data are collected monthly.

Questionnaires used in the survey :

• Prodcom survey :
  • Variables by prodcom code :
    • Total production for T codes
    • Value and quantities of sold production
    • Value of contract work if the principal is in a foreign country
  • Variables by local unit :
    • Commercial value
    • Value of treatment and industrial services
    • Value of sold products made in a foreign country
    • Value of contract work if the principal is in Belgium
• 60EP survey
  • Variables : turnover and hours worked

 The data of these questionnaires are mostly collected by a web application and few of these are collected by postal questionnaires. The management of the questionnaires is carried out in our operating system : when a questionnaire is validated by the responding unit, it is granted a temporary status. An agent in our collect center must then validate the questionnaire before having a status ok. The validation is made based on the past values of the responding unit and a comparison with the VAT data.

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 error reporting with several information (included months for the different survey, included estimations, ...)  is sent to all users everyday.

Then, a SAS program allows to check the variation of the different variables for a statistical unit and allows to identify problems. If a problem is detected, the collect center is contacted. In function of the response of our collect center, the declaration is maintained, re-estimated or removed for the index calculation. Comparisons with VAT data are also made in this case.

The gross indexes based on year-1 are calculated for a reference month. A SAS program allows then to calculate the number of standard errors between the reference month and the 12 months before by nace 4 digits and by regions. This program allows also to compute contributions of the statistical units to the variations and to identify possibly the problematic values. If a problem is detected, the collect center is contacted. In function of the response and the remaining time before the publication, the declaration is corrected or removed for the 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: Non-response is treated using several imputation techniques, depending on specific cases. If the correlation between data and VAT data is good then VAT data are used.

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

Type of index: Fixed base year Laspeyres index

Method of weighting and chaining :The weights are based on turnover of the base year. The source of these weights is the SBS survey

Seasonal and calendar adjustments

All of our series are adjusted using the automatic module of Demetra 2.2

The following series are published in Belgium :

MIG_CAG, MIG_COG, MIG_DCOG, MIG_ING, MIG_NDCOG, MIG_ING_CAG, MIG_NRG_X_D_E, B, C and B_C

These series are sent to Eurostat but not published : MIG_COG_X_FOOD

The following table shows some informations about different kinds of adjustment and the seasonal adjustment decomposition for MIG-s and total series.

More details about seasonal and calendar adjustments are in annex.

Not available.