Statistics Finland

Information and Statistical Services - Data Resources

Information and Statistical Services
FI-00022 Statistics Finland

The EuroGroups register (EGR) is the statistical business register of Eurostat and the EU Member States and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries for multinational enterprise groups. The purpose of the EGR is to offer to statistical users a tool for coordinating frame population, to derive consistent statistical output with an improved quality in measuring global activities of European enterprises part of multinational enterprise groups.

The EGR produces data in yearly cycles and covers microdata on the groups and their enterprises and legal units. The EGR aims to register all multinational enterprise groups that have enterprises in EU Member States or EFTA countries, including European and non-European groups.

The Member States, EFTA countries and Eurostat exchange data on multinational enterprise groups and on the units belonging to those groups for the purposes of the European framework for statistical business registers to ensure the quality of the multinational enterprise group’s information in the Union.

The EGR brings together microdata on multinational enterprise groups from the EU and the EFTA countries' national statistical institutes, in line with the requirements of the Regulation (EU) No 2152/2019, and from a commercial data source for data outside the EU and EFTA.

Classification systems and main code lists used in the EGR are as follows:

• Statistical classification of economic activities in the European Community (NACE Rev. 2);
• European System of Accounts (ESA 2010);
• List of 2-digit country codes (ISO 3166-1);
• List of legal forms of the legal units;
• Currency codes (ISO 4217).

The coverage of the data transmitted to the EGR is defined in the Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 on European business statistics.

For the purposes of the European framework for statistical business registers, the following economic activities are considered:

• any activity comprising the offer of goods and services on a given market;
• non-market services contributing to the GDP;
• direct and indirect holdings of active legal units.

Holding assets and/or liabilities are also considered an economic activity.

Global group head

The global group head (GGH) of an enterprise group is the parent legal unit that is not controlled either directly or indirectly by any other legal unit. The subsidiary legal units of a subsidiary legal unit are considered to be subsidiaries of the parent legal unit.

Global decision centre

The global decision centre (GDC) of an enterprise group is the unit where the enterprise group level’s strategic decisions are taken. A group may have several decision-making centres or several units dedicated to a particular internal function, for example accounting or human resources. However, the decisions about the group are made only in the GDC. The GDC may be the GGH or another legal unit under the GGH.

Ultimate Controlling Institutional unit

The ultimate controlling institutional unit (UCI) of a foreign affiliate means the institutional unit higher up a foreign affiliate’s chain of control that is not controlled by another institutional unit.

Activity of unit

A statistical unit is considered to have been active during the reference period, if in said period it either realised positive net turnover or produced outputs or had employees or performed investments.
A legal unit can be legally or administratively active without any economic activity, when the inactive legal unit is part of an enterprise in combination with economically active legal units. Holding assets and/or liabilities shall also be regarded as an economic activity.

Number of employees

The number of employees represents the average number of persons who were, at some time during the reference period, employees of the statistical unit.

Number of employees and self -employed persons

The number of employees and self-employed persons is the sum of the Number of employees and Number of self- employed persons. The number of self-employed persons is the average number of persons who were at some time during the reference period the sole owners or joint owners of the statistical unit in which they work. Family workers and outworkers whose income is a function of the value of the outputs of the statistical unit are also included.

Net turnover

For all activities except for NACE 64, 65 and some activities of NACE 66 net turnover consists of all income arising during the reference period in the course of ordinary activities of the statistical unit, and is presented net of all price reductions, discounts and rebates granted by it. Income is defined as increases in economic benefits during the reference period in the form of inflows or enhancements of assets or decreases of liabilities that result in increases in equity, other than those relating to contributions from equity participants. The inflows referred to are arising from contracts with customers and are realized through the satisfaction by the statistical unit of performance obligations as foreseen in said contracts. Usually, a performance obligation is represented by the sale (transfer) of goods or the rendering of services, however, the gross inflows can also contain revenues obtained as a yield on the use by others of the statistical unit’s assets.
Excluded from net turnover are:

• all taxes, duties or levies linked directly to revenue;
• any amounts collected on behalf of any principal, if the statistical unit is acting as an agent in its relationship with said principal;
• all income not arising in the course of ordinary activities of the statistical unit. Usually, these types of income are classified as ‘Other (operating) income’, ‘Financial income’, ‘Extra-ordinary income’ or under a similar heading, depending on the respective set of generally accepted accounting standards used to prepare the financial statements.

Infra-annual statistics may not be able to take into account aspects such as annual price reductions, subsidies, rebates and discounts.
For the activities of NACE K6411, K6419 and K649 net turnover is defined as the value of output minus subsidies or government grants. For the activities of NACE K642 and K643 net turnover can be approximated by the total operating costs, if net turnover is not available in the financial statements.
For the activities of NACE K6511, K6512 and K652 net turnover is defined as Gross premiums earned.
For the activities of NACE K653 the net turnover is defined as total pension contributions
For activities of NACE K66 for which net turnover is available in the financial statements, the standard definition of net turnover applies.
For activities of NACE K66 for which net turnover is not available in the financial statements, net turnover is defined as the value of output minus subsidies or government grants.

Total assets

Total assets of a unit per the unit's financial statements. Total assets are saved separately for legal entities and groups as groups and legal entities draft separate financial statements.

Principal activity

The principal (or main) activity is the activity that contributes most to the total value added of a unit under consideration. Ideally, the principal activity of the unit should be determined with reference to the value added to the goods and services produced, by applying the top-down method. The top-down method follows a hierarchical principle: the classification of the unit at the lowest level of the classification must be consistent with the classification of the unit at higher levels. The principal activity so identified does not necessarily account for 50 % or more of the unit’s total value added. In the European Union the classification of principal activity is determined by reference to NACE Rev. 2, first at the highest level of classification and then at more detailed levels (top-down method).

The statistical units maintained in the EGR are defined in accordance with the Regulation (EEC) No 696/93 on the statistical units for the observation and analysis of the production system in the Community.

The EGR frame contains the following units: Legal units, Enterprises and Multinational enterprise groups.

Legal units include:

- legal persons whose existence is recognized by law independently of the individuals or institutions which may own them or are members of them,

- natural persons who are engaged in an economic activity in their own right.

The legal unit always forms, either by itself or sometimes in combination with other legal units, the legal basis for the statistical unit known as the 'enterprise'.

Enterprise

The enterprise is the smallest combination of legal units that is an organizational unit producing goods or services, which benefits from a certain degree of autonomy in decision-making, especially for the allocation of its current resources. An enterprise carries out one or more activities at one or more locations. An enterprise may be a sole legal unit.

Multinational enterprise group

A multinational enterprise group is an enterprise group that has at least two enterprises or legal units located in different countries.  In business statistics also term ‘global enterprise group’ is used.

The data transmitted to the EGR during the cycle is made of the following datasets.

The data set with information on all incorporated resident legal units for the EGR Identification Service.

ISRLE file includes 655497 observations. The file includes the resident legal units, administratively active during the reference period. Legal type and type of ownership of legal units are used to filter out natural persons not engaged in economic activities, public legal units owned by government and financial funds. Excluded from the population are foreign legal units, legal units lacking a name, employment pension funds, the State and its institutions, estates of deceased persons and bankruptcy estates. The population of resident legal units is sent to EGR for identification.

The data set with information on foreign legal units for the EGR Identification Service.

ISNORLE file includes 19558 observations. The file includes foreign legal units lacking Finnish business ID and legal entity identifier number (LEID number), and foreign legal units lacking Finnish business ID but that have a LEID identifier and which thus can be reidentified. Selected foreign legal units without a LEID identifier must have a name and a valid country code. Foreign legal units that have not appeared in the national enterprise group register in the last two years are removed from the population. All units with a LEID identifier are included. The population of foreign legal units recorded in national statistical business register is sent to EGR for identification.

The data set with information on legal units.

LEU file includes 12441 observations. The file includes the resident legal units which have been active during the observation period and during that time have belonged to global enterprise units as subsidiaries, parents or both. Only one observation per legal unit is included. The included units must be resident legal units, and employment pension funds, the State and its institutions, estates of deceased persons and bankruptcy estates are excluded. Only units for which an enterprise unit that has been active during the observation period can be found, are included. The population of resident legal units belonging to global enterprise groups is sent to EGR for processing.

The data set with information on relationships of ownership and control.

REL file including 16264 relationships between legal units is sent to EGR for processing:

• two resident legal units
• one resident and one foreign legal unit
• two foreign legal units from non EU+EFTA countries.

Relationships in the REL are:

• control relationships (>50%)
• minority relationships (<50%)

Units for the REL file for the observation period are selected from private multinational enterprise groups, appear in the group structure as a parent, a subsidiary or both, have a valid date for the relationship's start date and a valid date for the relationship's end date or a missing value for the end date if the relationship continues. Only relationships where both parties have a LEID identifier are selected. Otherwise the same selection criteria apply for Finnish units as in the LEU file. Foreign units must have a LEID identifier, a name and a valid country code. 

The data set with information on enterprises.

ENT file including 11895 enterprises made of legal unit sent in LEU files is sent to EGR for processing. The selected enterprise units must have a valid link to their legal unit(s) for the observation period, with the start and end dates fitting into the observation period.

The Data set with information on links between enterprises and legal units.

LEL file including 12224 links between enterprise (ENT) and legal units (LEU) is sent to EGR for processing. The selection criteria for legal units are the same as for the LEU file, and for the enterprise units the same as for the ENT file.

The Data set with information on enterprise groups of which country is the GDC country for the EuroGroups Register.

GEG file including 787 groups data is sent to the EGR for processing. 

Information for each group with a Finnish global decision centre is updated after receiving the preliminary frame:

• The LEID identifier of the global group head, if the group head in the preliminary frame differs from that of the national enterprise group register; the group head belongs to only one group during the observation period; and the group structure can reliably be updated with a REL file.
• The name of the group is updated if it differs from the name stored in the national enterprise group register.
• The NACE code of the group is extracted from the national enteprise group register and updated if it differs from that of the preliminary frame.
• The NACE status code is updated based on the source of the NACE code.
• The currency code for all updated groups is the Euro which is the default currency in the NSBR.
• The number of persons employed. If the number has not been saved in the national enterprise group register for group level for the observation period, the number is calculated from the group's legal units from the national business register.
• Status codes of number of persons employed is updated based on the availability of data.
• Group's turnover for the observation period is extracted from the NSBR where it has been saved for the units for which the information has been available.
• Group's assets for the observation period is extracted from the NSBR where it has been saved for the units for which the information has been available.
• The LEID and country code of the group's global decision centre (GDC) is updated if the GDC can be identified from the enterprise group register, this information differs from that of the preliminary frame, and REL and LEU information regarding the update can be reliably updated.

The reference area for national units is the territory of the country. Concerning enterprise groups, the reference area for national units is the territory of the country and for foreign units any country outside the national territory.

The EGR frames are available from reference year 2008 onwards. NSI has transmitted data for the EGR production cycle since 2008.

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The economic variables on employment are recorded in absolute figures.

The net turnover for enterprises is recorded in Euros.

For global enterprise groups, the net turnover and net total asset is recorded in millions in Euros.

The reference period for data sent to the EGR reflects the picture of 31 December of the given reference year.

Data transmitted to EGR during the EGR 2022 cycle includes data for the 2022 reference year. The identification, economic variables (number of employees, turnover and economic activity) refer to the 2022 reference year. The units, their economic variables and relationships are extracted from annual versions of the NSBR that refer to the 2022 reference year.

The content of the national data sent to EGR is defined according the Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 on European business statistics.

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/1197 of 30 July 2020 is laying down the technical specifications and arrangements pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics.

The following policy rules are applied at national level:

• Statistics Act (280/2004)

The legal framework setting up the procedures for EGR data exchanges and access to confidential data for the purpose of the European framework for statistical business registers are defined in the Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 on European business statistics (Art.10). 

European legislation:

• Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics;
• Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 on European business statistics (Art.10).

The national legislative measures or other formal procedures which prevent unauthorised disclosure of data that identify a person or economic entity either directly or indirectly include:

• Statistics Act (280/2004)
• Rules of Statistics Finland's Research services (https://www.stat.fi/static/media/uploads/tup_en/mikroaineistot/tilastokeskuksen_tutkijapalveluiden_saannot_en.pdf)

EGR data are stored by the Commission (Eurostat) and by the national statistical authorities (NSAs) in the EU Member States and EFTA countries in a secure area with restricted and controlled access.

The transmission of the EGR data is done in an encrypted form and by electronic means via the Commission (Eurostat) single entry point for exchange of confidential data EDAMIS.

Rules applied for treating the data set to ensure statistical confidentiality and prevent unauthorised disclosure are defined according to the policy rules (see section 7.1).

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The micro-data exchange of confidential data on multinational enterprise groups and on the statistical units belonging to those groups takes place, exclusively for statistical purposes, between EU Member States and EFTA countries and the European Commission (Eurostat).

Where such exchange of confidential data is carried out to ensure the quality of the multinational enterprise groups information in the Union and the exchange is explicitly authorised by the competent NSA which provides the data, national central banks may be party to the exchange of confidential data, exclusively for statistical purposes.

NSI exchanges information on multinational enterprise groups with:

• Other Member States for the purposes of identification of legal units belonging to multi-national enterprises and enterprise groups.

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• EuroGroups Register communication space ( EGR wiki with restricted access)
• European business statistics methodological manual for statistical business registers – edition 2021

Quality indicators are compiled annually to compare EGR and FATS populations to each other. The quality indicators are reported to Eurostat.

Eurostat calculates quality indicators for the NSIs' EGR datasets. These quality indicators focus on key characteristics, numbers of observations and changes over time in these numbers.

An automatic quality control procedure was launched in 2022 to monitor the saving of LEID identifiers for foreign legal entities.

Eurostat Data Quality Programme monitors the quality and compliance of the data transmitted by the countries to EGR using the instruments of the EBS quality framework.

At national level, the quality of the data sent to EGR is assured as follows:

• Guidelines and standards on quality in statistics have been compiled at Statistics Finland and are based on the Code of Practice.

The quality assessment procedure for EGR data transmissions includes:

• The contents and structure of EGR datasets are automatically checked for inconsistencies at the NSI before the datasets are delivered to eDamis.
• The EGR datasets compiled at the NSI are analysed with validation rules before they are delivered to eDamis. 

The quality of data used for EGR datasets is ensured by quality assessment procedures in the NSBR:

• Automated validation rules for all the administrative and survey data are in place in the NSBR's production database. The rules refer to the format and logical content of the data. Automated checks are utilised for the data in the production database and e.g. big differences between sources or big changes are flagged for manual inspection.
• Automatic validation procedures to check coherence between statistical units and their variables, data format and logical content of data.
• Crosschecks with other sources and data from previous years.

NISs participation in the compiling of the annual EGR frame is important for the production of consistent and comparable European business statistics, providing identification numbers for units and linking them to different sources, increasing the coverage of the national groups registries and increasing statistical information. 

Data for EGR are merged from different registries and its quality and coverage depends on those of its sources'. The NSI's NSBR is actively developed, and the needs of EGR users and developers are taken into consideration in the planning.

Since 2017, Eurostat together with the EU Member States conducts SBR user survey addressing users and potential users of the national statistical business registers (NSBR) and the EuroGroups Register (EGR).

The latest SBR User Survey 2020 show that the NSBR are widely used at national level and users consider that its quality had been significantly improved in the recent years. Most of the NSBR users (97%) had either no issue or manageable issue regarding business register's coverage, units, variables, timeliness and frequency of frames.

The results of the SBR User Survey 2020 are available on CIRCABC.

Key indicators of the completeness of data for the reference year 2022 for Finland are as follows:

LEU:

• Foreign owner filled (%): 100

ENT:

• NACE code filled (%): 99.9
• Number of employees filled (%): 69
• Turnover value filled (%): 100

GEG:

• NACE code filled (%): 100
• Number of employees filled (%): 100
• Turnover value filled (%): 57.1

The NSRB’s coverage and accuracy for foreign legal units is limited as 54.2 % of all the foreign legal units stored in the NSBR lack LEID identifiers. This reflects on the coverage and accuracy of multinational enterprise groups.

Attention will be paid to the production of values for turnover and number of employees in EGR prodcution as components of these values may have been missed when the values were produced.

The main issues regarding accuracy of the data have been identified as:

• Undercoverage: information on relationships between foreign and domestic units or only foreign units may be difficult to find and store. The issue is negligible for domestic legal units. Information on foreign legal entities' or groups' economic variables may be difficult to find and store if financial reports are not accessible or the information is not clearly stated. Foreign legal units' missing LEID identifiers complicate the consolidation of groups and their financial indicators.
• Overcoverage: information on cessation of foreign legal units or information on their names and locations may update with delay.
• Misclassification: some classification information may be incorrect for domestic units due to errors in administrative data sources or due to nonrespose in surveys. Some classification information may be incorrect for foreign units due to inaccessibility to information or due to issues listed above.
• Measurement error due to wrong identification is a negligible issue for domestic units but may apply to foreign units.

The following actions are taken to monitor and to improve accuracy of the data sent to EGR: 

• Ways to select and flag global decision centres into the national group register will be investigated.
• The selection of population into the EGR frame is automated. The quality of the NSBR and the national group register are constantly monitored.
• EGR-IDs for enterprise groups have been integrated into the NSI's enterprise group register.
• LEID identifiers are quickly stored into the national group register for foreign legal entities whenever this is possible.

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The EGR process refers to a reference year T and is run yearly over a period of 11 months, between May T+1 and March T+2.

For the reference year 2022, the NSI delivered the necessary data on time. There were no delays.

The geographical comparability of EGR data is ensured by the application of common definitions of the statistical units laid down in the Council Regulation (EEC) No 696/93.

The NSI's source datas' variables are harmonised and set up in accordance with the Annex VIII to the Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/1197 laying down technical specifications and arrangements pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 on European business statistics.

Frames prior to reference year 2013 are not comparable to later reference years due to a large revision project within business statistics, a source of the NSI's EGR data.

Coherence of data sent to Eurostat with other data sources and statistical domains:

• The NSBR is the NSI's main data source for EGR producton. The national business and enterprise group registers were harmonsed within a common production system in 2013. Production cycles in these registers are synchronised and versions of their frames are stored in the production system's data warehouse simultaneously.
• The NSBR produces data for a reference year whereas the production of the EGR is for a reference date, ie. 31/12/T. The sources and the target of the EGR data are therefore not directly compatible. EGR production at the NSI is kept separate of that of the NSBR, and the source data is transformed EGR compatible at EGR production. Likewise populations for FATS are extracted from the NSBR but transformed and stored separately after the initial extraction. Keeping EGR and FATS data separate from the NSBR after allows for these datas quick and safe transformation but it also results in EGR and FATS data not being directly translatable back into the NSBR.
• Even though SBR, BD, SBS, FATS and EGR all operate in same production system and database using same information (e.g. starting dates, economic activity, legal form, turnover, employees, information on relationships), statistical domains may use different rules when retrieving data and forming populations.

Data sent to EGR should be internally consistent. There is a set of standard quality checks that are routinely performed at national level before transmitting the data to Eurostat:

• Frequencies of selected units are compared to the NSBR's frame population to detect anomalies or faults in parameters.
• The internal consistecy of datasets is ensured by descriptive fequency checks and key link checks.
• Datasets are checked with EGR's validation rules before they are delivered to eDamis.

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The national statistical business register is set up in accordance with EBS Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 using any relevant data sources while avoiding excessive burden on respondents and taking due account of the cost effectiveness of the NSAs. NSI uses the following data sources, including a combination thereof for the national statistical business register:

• Direct data collection (surveys)
• Administrative data sources:
  • Tax Administration,
  • Bank of Finland,
  • National Board of Customs,
  • National Board of Patents and Registration
  • Finnish Business Information System,
  • National Post Company,
  • State Treasury,
  • Finnish Centre for Pensions,
  • Digital and population data services agency.

 Selected data from these sources are stored also in the national enterprise group register. Moreover, information from individual groups' financial statements are stored in the national enterprise group register

National data is sent to EGR annually in five occasions in multiple files. Deliveries are amended with additional deliveries if necessary.

Data sent to EGR are collected from:

• National Statistical business registers
• National enterprise group register
• Administrative data sources.
• Enterprise groups' financial statements.

For more details please see 18.1.

Data validation procedures in the NSBR include:

• Format and file structure checks,
• Intra-file checks, automatic summarisation between unit levels,
• Intra-domain and time-series checks for data from administrative sources (e.g. frequency checks between deliveries),
• Intra-domain, intersource checks to compare information from different sources,
• Plausibility and consistency checks between domains inside the NSI: the NSBR receives regular feedback from other statistical domains that utilise its data.

In the NSBR (EGR's source data), data from business surveys is normally updated weekly and data from administrative sources monthly using SQL and SAS programmes stored in process management. Combining data from different sources is usually easy because both survey data and administrative data include unique business IDs. For most cases, when information in the database is updated, a source code for that information is also updated. Live business and enterprise group registers are continuously updated with new information about the units, their relationships and their characteristics, with the lates information replacing the older. Frame populations for EGR are formed from live registers' version corresponding to the reference year.

The population for the ISRLE file is extracted from the data warehouse from the business register's version corresponding to the reference year. The data necessary for the file are collected using the same version or, if the necessary data is not available in the warehouse, the data can be extracted from the business register's production database where the extraction procedures' queries are limited to the reference year. Please see section 3.6.

The population for the ISNORLE delivery consists 1) of foreign legal units having a valid name and a country code and lacking a valid LEID identifier, and 2) of foreign legal units that have a LEID identifier and which thus can be reidentified. Units that lack a LEID identifier and have not appeared in the enterprise group register's versions over the last two years are removed from the population. All foreign legal units with a LEID identifier are included in the population. The data is extracted from the data warehouse from the enterprise group register's version corresponding to the reference year.

The population for the LEU, REL, ENT and LEL files is collected once from the NSBR and utilised in the creation of said files. The legal units, the enterprise units that they form and the relationships are extracted from the data warehouse from the NSBR's version corresponding to the reference year. Since start dates, cessation dates and dates of relationships between units and in enterprise groups do not directly translate to a reference date, the data extracted from the data warehouse is filtered to match the situation on the reference date. The data is further filtered to contain domestic and foreign owned multinational enterprise groups. Please see section 3.6.

The population for the GEG file is extracted from the annual preliminary frame, and it is compared against the NSBR's data from the data warehouse where the version corresponds to the reference year. Please see section 3.6.

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The NSI develops EGR processes continuously to enhance the quality and accuracy of data sent to the EGR. Faster and more robust quality checks and validation, and more accurate importing of data from EGR to NSBR have been recognised as targets for development.