National Statistical Institute of Bulgaria

“Short-term Business Statistics and Transport Statistics” Department

2, P. Volov Str.; 1038 Sofia, Bulgaria

The Services Producer Prices Index (SPPI) is defined as an output price index for the service production of resident producers providing Business to All (B2All) services. The export of services is included whereas imported services are out of scope. The surveyed price should exclude VAT but take into account any applicable discounts and surcharges.

The quarterly SPPI provide information on changes in the prices of a wide range of economic activities according to the Classification of Economic Activities. Data are collected with a sample survey from enterprises from the corresponding economic activities. The indices are calculated on the basis of the representative services, weighted with the revenues of the enterprises from the base year. SPPIs are used for calculation of Services production indices, as deflators in national accounts and economic comparisons, predictions and analysis.

• Classification of Economic Activities (NACE Rev.2);
• Classification of Products by Economic Activities (CPA).

The following activities are covered with SPPI:

Aggregate of NACE Sections H+I+J+L+M (excl. M701, M72 and M75)+ N;

NACE Sections H to M (excl. K, M701, M72 and M75) and N;

Divisions H49, H50, H51, H52, H53, I55, I56, J58, J59, J60, J61, J62, J63, L68, M69, M702, M71, M73, M74, N77, N78, N79, N80, N81, N82.

SPPI is defined as a price index that measures the average change in prices of services produced and sold by producers residents.

Reporting and observation unit is enterprise.

Fixed pannel covering all enterprises in a specific business with annual turnover above 70% of the enterprises in the sections H, J, M and N.

Sample frame consist about 66 000 units. Sample covers about 2 500 units.

The indices are calculated and published total for the territory of Republic of Bulgaria.

From first quarter of 2006

Base year is 2021.

Index (%)

Average price throghout the calendar quarter.

National Legal basis: National Law on Statistics (Article 20) states that all persons that manage or represent legal persons, are obliged to provide the National Statistical Institute and the Bodies of Statistics with reliable data when filling-in forms and questionnaires on surveys included in the National Statistical Programme, for which mandatory participation is provided.

Obligation on units to provide data: The survey is included into the National Statistical Programme – it is compulsory.
The Law of statistics includes provisions relating to fines, which can be imposed for refusal, non-response and delay. They are laid down in specific Chapter 9 “Administrative and liability provisions” in article 52.

EU Legislation: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) and and the Commission implementing Regulation 2020/1197.

All EU documents following the EBS-Regulation can be found in the STS section on Eurostat’s website under Statistics => Short-term business statistics => Legislation

SPPIs are published on the NSI website and the data are available to the users.

Indicators are transmitted to Eurostat at the same time with their national publication.

The Law on Statistics includes provisions relating to data confidentiality and protection of secrecy, which are in compliance with the EU legislation and standard European practice. In the Law is stated that individual data received and collected at the time of statistical surveys shall be statistical confidentiality and shall be used only for statistical purposes. Individual data, obtained for the purposes of the statistical surveys, shall not be used as evidence to the bodies of the executive powers and the judicial authorities. Requirements, obligations and measures for data protection, as well as fines that can be imposed, are treated in separate chapters, namely Chapter 6 on "Protection of secrecy” and Chapter 9 on "Administrative penal provisions".

Article 25 of the Law on Statistics specifies the criteria, according to which certain data cannot be made public or released – individual data, data which could be indirectly identified, as well as aggregations of less than three statistical units and/or when the relative share of one parameter is more than 85% of the total volume of this parameter for all population units.

Data, which according to the Law on statistics are confidential, are not published.

The date for publication of statistical information is specified in the Release Calendar presenting the results of the statistical surveys carried out by the National Statistical Institute. Price indices are published 3 months after the reference quarter.

Release calendar: https://www.nsi.bg/en/content/44/basic-page/release-calendar

Producer price indices in services are posted on the NSI website, after which those data are simultaneously accessible to all users - http://www.nsi.bg/en/node/6874

No data produced and disseminated by the National Statistical Institute are provided to government officials outside of the NSI before being disseminated to the public.

Quarterly

No News release for SPPIs.

Data are disseminated only on the web site of NSI.

The tables and the methodology can be found in the NSI web site: http://www.nsi.bg/en/node/6874

Detailed results for the last three years are available to all users of the NSI website, section Business statistics - Short-term Business Statistics: http://www.nsi.bg/en/node/6874. Historical figures for preceding years are available at Information System INFOSTAT: https://infostat.nsi.bg/infostat/pages/module.jsf?x_2=217. The accsses to statistical data and metadata included in the list of standart statistical indicators is free of charge.

Micro data are neither distributed nor provided to the users.

Price indices are transmitted to Eurostat 3 months after the reference quarter.

These statistics are compiled in compliance with the Eurostat-OECD Methodological Guide for Developing Producer Price Indices for Services.

The methodology for Services producer price indexes compilation is available on the NSI website: http://www.nsi.bg/sites/default/files/files/metadata/Services_Methodology_SPPI_en.pdf

The documentation on quality management in NSI is available on the NSI website.

Quality checks and data validation is done during the whole process. Make checks on data integrity, control whether the values are within limits. After identification of errors, they are removed in cooperation with businesses.

The quality assessment of the SPPIs is based on quality requirements of the ESS (relevance, accuracy, timelines and punctuality, accessibility and clarity, coherence and comparability). The monitoring of the quality of the indicator, updating survey methodology, self-assessment of survey manager are carried out.

The main users:

• At European level – Eurostat;
• At national level - Central government, Research institutes, Media, professional organizations, business;
• Internet users: Directorate "Macroeconomic Statistics".

Not measured.

All activities and levels of aggregation required by EU regulation 2019/2152 and EU regulation 2020/1197 are calculated, published nationally and transmitted to Eurostat.

When calculating the SPPI is particularly important to monitor the prices of services with consistent quality. Otherwise, the indexes will be significantly diverted. To identify and eliminate disparities in prices associated with changes in the quality, type or quantity of the selected services are defined by qualitative and quantitative characteristics. When changes in the characteristics of a service or it is not available need to be replaced with a new product from the same group with approximately similar characteristics. The new service should also be representative of the enterprise. Apply various techniques for correction in case of change in quality, in which substitution of the specific service is performed by connecting a simple index of the old and the new service representative.

SPPI satisfies the principle of accuracy as it describes development of producer prices.

The data are generally considered to be final at first released, there are no estimates produced or published and SPPIs are not subject to revision.

Sampling error is not measured due to complexity of price indexes and due to the use of non-probability sampling.

There were negligible non-sampling errors concerning coverage, measurement and processing errors.
Most of measurement errors are detected and corrected through the logical and arithmetical controls of the Information system “Business Cycles” (Online Information system for data collection, editing and processing of the STS information).

Response rate is near to 100%. In most of the cases missing prices are replaced using relevant techniques.

For SPPIs are not calculated sampling errors due to purposeful sampling technique used. The samples were prefabricated. Cover all businesses with annual turnover above a certain threshold (up 70%). If necessary, the samples are updated annually.

Response rate: The intermediate response rate is close to 100%

Actions to speed up or increase the rate of response include:

• Sending the informative reminder letters to the respondents;
• Depending on the relative importance of non-respondents in terms of their size or representativeness in the activity, the postal survey is supplemented by telephone calls and/or direct contact and collection of data for enterprises.

Over-coverage and under-coverage: The sample is panel, the adjustments for closed businesses and for new born big enterprises is made periodically. 

Misclassification errors: The misclassification didn’t occur.

Impact of models used in estimation: Model pricing is rarely used in SPPI.

Multiple listings: All statistical units in the Register of statistical units (RSU) have unique identification number, so the multiple listing cannot occur.

Measurement and technical errors: The measurement errors caused by the data recording are eliminated by the system of automated checks included in the data collection system (Information system “Business Cycles" (IS BC)). Technical errors are often recognized with automated checks during the data editing process. A lot of checks are carried out automatically, but under of human interaction. Original data from enterprises for a first time are checking from experts in RSOs. Final checks of data from respondents and the aggregated data analysis are done by responsible experts in Central office.

Data editing is carried out at the level of specification prices, if quarterly price movements (compare to the previous quarter) are outside the range of -15% to + 15% the electronic system automatically warns the responsible expert and these movements must be especially conformed by the enterprises with explanations.

Non-response:

The final unit non-response rate is close to 0%. Missing reports are requested by telephone/e-mail contacts with the contact person of the reporting enterprises.

Missing prices (item non-response): IS BC does not allow data providers to submit data if any price of the questionnaire is missing. If there is missing price in the report the System asks reporting unit to propose replacement product (new product in the same product group, which will replace approximately oldest product on the market). The temporarily missing products are imputed manually or automatically through IS BC.

Services producer price indices are disseminated 3 months after the reporting quarter.

Data are collected through online Information system “Business Cycles” or using paper questionnaire. The System is open for data collection in the period 1 – 24 each month after the end of the reference quarter.

The data are published according to release calendar and sent to Eurostat at the time of the national publication.

Services price indexes are representative for the whole country; they are not representative for the regions of the country.

To calculate the services producer price indexes NSI apply methodology, which is in line with international standards. In this sense, the comparability of the indicators across countries can be considered as very good.

The quarterly SPPIs are presented as time series. Indexes are fully comparable over time.

Comparisons are made with sub-indices of CPI when there is an analogue of the PPI in the services.

Internal consistency of the indicators within the questionnaires is checked by reference to ratios between specification prices. The consistency of results relative to previous years’ results is also checked.

Since the begining of 2012 NSI has been collecting and analysing information through an online information system.

Data revision policy is consistent with Eurostat recommendations (ESS guidelines on revision policy for PEEIs). According to these recommendations, notice about major changes, e.g. in classification, methodology or base year, is provided in advance of the change. Notice about minor changes is given at the time the change is introduced.

The same revision policy is applied to data released nationally and transmitted to Eurostat.

Major revisions like base year changes, major changes in methodology, classification changes are discussed and announced in advance. Explanations on the major revisions are included in advance in the methodology of the indicator also in the respective tables footnotes are added explaining the revisions.

Minor revisions - Producer price indices in services are usually considered to be final when first released. For this reason both Mean Revision (MR) and Mean Absolute Revision (MAR) are equal to 0 for the original data.

Type of source: Information for calculating the indices derived from the quarterly sample survey of producer prices of companies.

Frame on which the source is based: Register of statistical units.

Sample or census: The sampling survey with turnover as a stratification variable.

Frequency of updating the sample: The sample is updated annually if it is necessary. Every year the sample is checked for accuracy with respect to the data from the annual SBS survey.

Quarterly

Data collection media:

• Online through Information system “Business Cycles” (ISBC);
• Paper questionnaire. The questionnaires are sent out to the respondents and collected by regional statistical offices, where the information is entered into ISBC.

Validation of data in the report:

When recording the data, the Information system carries out obligatory and recommended controls according to set with validation rules.

The system carries out the statutory and warning controls. In case there are errors, it displays a warning dialog error in the report. The system does not allow completion of the report until they have corrected these errors by statutory controls.

Validation of the output data:

Output data is verified at group level with regard to the previous quarter, the same quarter of the previous year and also with regard to extreme values, if necessary data is validated at the level of statistical units.

Quarterly price indices are calculated by the Laspeyres formula with fixed base, which is changed every five years and is currently 2021. After receiving information from businesses about the prices of representative services are calculated single index for each of them (the price ratio of the price for the current quarter to the average price in the base year). Indices of prices of the different levels of aggregation are obtained as a weighted average by ascending weighting system defined by the structure of the CPA and NACE Rev.2. For the formation of weights using information on sales revenue of the observed features in the base year.

Working day and seasonal adjustments are not done.

Not available.