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Statistics on the production of manufactured goods (prom)

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National Reference Metadata in Euro SDMX Metadata Structure (ESMS)

Compiling agency: ISTAT (Istituto Nazionale di Statistica) - National Statistical Institute of Italy  

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For reference year 2021 and onwards, the Commission Implementing Regulation EU 2020/1197 is laying down technical specifications and arrangements pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council. According to the requirements in the EBS General Implementing Act, the following three variables for industrial production are required:

Variable 251001 (Sold production): national currency and (except for industrial services) quantity as defined in the PRODCOM List in force at the end of the reference period.

Variable 251002 (Production under sub-contracted operations): (except for industrial services) national currency and quantity as defined in the PRODCOM List in force at the end of the reference period.

Variable 251003 (Actual production): quantity as defined in the PRODCOM List in force at the end of the reference period. The survey sample for reference year 2024 is little less than 42,000 enterprises with approximately 64,000 local units, covering about 230 industries, derived from sub-sectors of the total manufacturing sector, and about 4,000 products (that include also industrial services). With the entry into force of the EBS (EU) regulation on European business statistics, the inclusion of the KAU (Kind of activity unit) statistical unit in the Registers managed by the National Statistical Institutes becomes mandatory. Consequently, this unit of analysis is also adopted in the PRODCOM survey.

 

28 August 2025

From 2021 onwards, the following information is requested for each variable:

The sold production (including industrial services) defined as sold (invoiced) production, which may be carried out under the primary or secondary activities of the enterprise. It includes production sold (invoiced) between different kind-of-activity units belonging to the same enterprise.
The production under sub-contracted operations, which has been sold (invoiced) to the principal. The production may be carried out under the primary or secondary activities of the enterprise.
The actual production includes any production carried out during the reference period and within the economic territory.
With regard to subcontracting relationships we do not have the information of who is the owner of the goods.

Generally, the reporting unit is the Legal Unit as a proxy for the enterprise; the observation unit is Local Unit(s). From 2021 onwards the reporting unit is the KAU. However, we are using profiling in order to follow some dominant enterprises.

The survey population is made up of all industrial enterprises in NACE 07-33 (excepting 09 and 19) and 3832, with more than 20 employees and a sample of small industrial enterprises (from 3 to 19 employees).The population is selected every year from Statistical Business Register.

Italy - whole national territory.

Year 2024

For reference year 2024, the unweighted response rate is 57,6% of all enterprises surveyed. The weighted response rate is 78,8% (weighted by production value) 

The main causes of non-response are: misclassification of economic activity (activities outside of sections B and C, NACE Rev.2), inactive, merger, split off, unreachable unit.

After checking if the company has stopped or suspended its activity during the reference year, the non-responses were estimated using the previous year data and data from other sources. In case of partial responses, that concerns basically missing volume data, estimates for missing volumes are done by using the median unit price from the other respondent companies.

For Volume: Physical measurement unit required by Prodcom list, specific for each product.

For Value: Thousand Euro (excluding VAT and excise duties).

Procedures for imputation are based on consistency edits resulting from deterministic rules (IF-THEN), data from previous editions, other surveys or sources (STS, SBS), average unit price for the product, unit follow-up. 

For imputation rate, see section 13.3-Non-sampling errors

Microdata received from respondents are aggregated at the product level (8-digit code) and values at the level of NACE 2-digit code; Data are also calculated for 'z-codes', which are Prodcom codes that are more detailed than CN.

The survey sample is selected from Statistical Business Register 2022. PRODCOM estimates cover Italy’s registered businesses for 90% (we made census for enterprises with 20 or more persons employed, which totals over 30.000 units).

For the enterprises with less than 20 persons employed we made a sample of about 10.000 units. VAT and turnover is classified to NACE divisions 07-33 and 38. Businesses are selected by employment size, industry classification and geographical breakdowns, using a one stage stratified random sample. The number to be selected has been calculated to minimize the burden of sampling, without compromising the calculation of final estimates.

The sampling method is based on a PPS  (Probability Proportional to Size) selection in strata obtained by the combination of three variables: class of persons employed (3-19, 20 or more), class of economic activity (4-digit Nace classification) and 5 geographical repartitions (NUTS1). The variables used to evaluate the sample size in each stratum are: number of persons employed and production value. The determination of sample size and its allocation between the stratum occurred requiring that the expected error in the estimated total (error expressed in terms of coefficient of variation) of the variables considered were less than 5 percent in the domain corresponding to 4-digit Nace by class of persons employed (3-19; 20 or more). The final allocation is a compromise between Bethel and proportional allocation.

Data are disseminated at national and at European level on yearly basis.

Data are disseminated at national level Yearly.

Data are provided to Eurostat Yearly within t+6 months.

Data are comparable with those of other European Union (EU) countries.

All EU countries produce PRODCOM statistics, which is the system for the collection and dissemination of statistics of industrial goods based on the PRODCOM List (8-digit codes).

In Italy, the List of Products used is based on the PRODCOM List with Italian codes added according to the interest of users.

With implementation of the EBS Regulation, a break of series due to the fact that the production subject to subcontracted operations was collected separately from own-account production from the year 2021.

From a NACE classification perspective, the introduction of NACE Rev. 2 in 2008 resulted in a break in series.