Key figures on European business

Eurostat is the statistical office of the European Union (EU) situated in Luxembourg. Its mission is to provide high quality statistics for Europe, which allow us to have the key information on Europe's economy, society and environment that we need both as citizens and as decision makers.

Key figures on European business — Statistics illustrated describes the situation in the EU's business economy. As a consequence, only initial findings of the COVID-19 related impact on the business economy are provided: short-term statistics are generally presented through to the end of 2020.

The full scale of the impact of the crisis will only be revealed at a later date, not only when the pandemic has come to an end but also when structural business statistics become available (generally some 18 months after the end of each calendar year).

Key figures on European business — Statistics illustrated provides users of official statistics with an overview of the wealth of information that is available on Eurostat's website and within its online databases concerning the business economy.

The publication is divided into an overview of the business economy as a whole, an overview of the structure of the business economy, four chapters focusing on the four parts of the business economy (industry, construction, distributive trades and other non-financial services), and a final chapter focusing on tourism.

Each of the four chapters focusing on diff rent parts of the business economy starts with an overview of their structure. They continue with information on annual developments from 2000 or 2005 through until 2019 or 2020 (the latest year for which annual indices are available at the time of writing). Three of these chapters also include information focused on a particular aspect: high-tech sectors and products for industry, buildings for construction, and information and communication services for other non-financial services. These four chapters finish with a focus on the impact of the COVID-19 crisis, with an analysis of the latest developments through to late 2020. Although based on diff rent data sources, the tourism chapter follows a similar structure.

Data extraction

The statistical data presented in this publication were generally extracted in November 2020. The data in the final sections of Chapters 3 to 7 pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic, short-term business statistics as well as international trade in services were extracted in February 2021. The online database may contain revised data.

Spatial data coverage

This publication presents information for the EU-27 (a sum/average covering the 27 Member States of the EU) as well as the individual EU Member States and EFTA countries. The order of the countries in the figures usually reflects their ranking according to the values for (one of) the indicator(s) illustrated.

The map on the inside cover page identifies the EU Member States and the EFTA countries, as well as pinpointing their capital cities.

Temporal data coverage

If data for a reference year (or reference period) are not available for a particular country, then efforts have been made to complete the coverage using data for recent previous reference years (these exceptions are footnoted).

Economic activity coverage

The statistical classification of economic activities in the European Community (NACE Rev. 2) is used to define economic activities. Within this publication, the following terms related to a range of economic activities are applied — all based on the NACE Rev. 2 classification.

• All economic activities — Sections A to U.
• Business economy — covers (as defined by Sections B to N and Division 95): industry, construction, distributive trades and most other services.
• Non-financial business economy — covers (as defined by Sections B to J and L to N and Division 95): industry, construction, distributive trades and most other services outside of financial services.
• Core innovation activities — covers (as defined by Sections B to E, H, J, K and Divisions 46 and 71-73): industry; transportation and storage services; information and communication services; financial and insurance activities; wholesale trade; architectural and engineering activities, technical testing and analysis; scientific research and development; advertising and market research.
• Industry — covers (as defined by Sections B to E): mining and quarrying; manufacturing; electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply; water supply, sewerage, waste management and remediation activities.
• Manufacturing — Section C.
• High-tech manufacturing — covers (as defined by Divisions 21 and 26 and Group 30.3): the manufacture of basic pharmaceutical products and pharmaceutical preparations; the manufacture of computer, electronic and optical products; the manufacture of air and spacecraft and related machinery.
• Construction — covers (as defined by Section F): the construction of buildings; civil engineering; specialised construction activities.
• Non-financial services — covers (as defined by Sections G to J and L to N and Division 95): distributive trades and most other services outside of financial services.
• Non-financial services as used for short-term business statistics in Chapter 6 (sections on 'Developments' and ''Impact of COVID-19 pandemic') — covers (as defined by Sections H to J, Divisions 69, 71, 73, 74, 78, 79, 80 and 82, and Groups 70.2 and 81.2): transportation and storage services; accommodation and food service activities; information and communication services; professional, scientific and technical activities (other than activities of head offices, scientific research and development, and veterinary activities); administrative and support service activities (other than rental and leasing activities, combined facilities support activities, and landscape service activities).
• Other non-financial services — covers (as defined by Sections H to J and L to N and Division 95): most services outside of distributive trades and financial services.
• Core innovation services — covers (as defined by Sections H, J, K and Divisions 46 and 71 to 73): transportation and storage services; information and communication services; financial and insurance activities; wholesale trade; architectural and engineering activities, technical testing and analysis; scientific research and development; advertising and market research.
• Distributive trades — covers (as defined by Section G): wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles.
• Information and communication services — covers (as defined by Section J): publishing activities; motion picture, video and television programme production, sound recording and music publishing activities; programming and broadcasting activities; telecommunications; computer programming, consultancy and related activities; information service activities.
• Tourist accommodation — covers (as defined by Groups 55.1-55.3): hotels and similar accommodation; holiday and other short-stay accommodation; camping grounds, recreational vehicle parks and trailer parks.

For more information about the NACE Rev. 2 classification, please refer to: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/nace-rev2/overview.

Notes and flags

Notes and flags are means of explaining and defining specific characteristics of particular data. This publication includes only the main notes required for interpretation of the data and to highlight when a year has been replaced with another. Data that are not shown in individual figures may be simply not available or they may be confidential (in which case they are not published). A full set of notes and flags are available on Eurostat's website (see below) via the online data code(s).Notes and flags are means of explaining and defining specific characteristics of particular data. In this publication, these have been restricted as far as possible in order to allow more space for the illustrations. The publication includes only the main notes required for interpretation of the data and to highlight when a year has been replaced with another. A full set of notes and flags are available on Eurostat's website (see below) via the online data code(s).