Statistics Estonia

STATISTICS ESTONIA

Tatari 51, 10134 Tallinn, Estonia

Structural business statistics (SBS) describes the structure, conduct and performance of economic activities, down to the most detailed activity level (several hundred economic sectors). SBS covers all activities of the business economy with the exception of agricultural activities, public administration and (largely) non-market services such as education and health. Main characteristics (variables) of the SBS data category:

• Business demographic variables (e.g. Number of active enterprises)

• "Output related" variables (e.g. Net turnover, Value added)

• "Input related" variables: labour input (e.g. Number of employees and self-employed persons, Hours worked by employees); goods and services input (e.g. Purchases of goods and services); capital input (e.g. Gross investments)

Business services statistics (BS) collection contains harmonised statistics on business services. From 2008 onwards BS become part of the regular mandatory annual data collection of SBS. The BS’s data requirement includes variable “Turnover” broken down by products and by type of residence of client. 

The annual regional statistics collection includes three characteristics due by NUTS-2 country region and detailed on NACE Rev 2 division level (2-digits).

Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community (NACE):  NACE Rev.2 is used from 2008 onwards. Key data were double reported in NACE Rev.1.1 and NACE Rev.2 only for 2008. From 2002 to 2007 NACE Rev. 1.1 was used and until 2001 NACE Rev.1

The regional breakdown of the EU Member States is based on the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS). 

The product breakdown is based on the Classification of Products by Activity (CPA) as stated in the Regulation establishing CPA 2008 and its amending Commission Regulation (EU) No 1209/2014 (from reference year 2015 onwards).

Starting reference year 2021 onwards SBS cover the economic activities of market producers within the NACE Rev. 2 Sections B to N, P to R and Divisions S95 and S96.
Until 2007 the SBS coverage was limited to Sections C to K of NACE Rev.1.1 and from the reference year 2008 to 2020 data was available for Sections B to N and Division S95 of NACE Rev.2.

From 2008 reference year the data collection Business services covers NACE Rev 2 codes: J62, N78, J582, J631, M731, M691, M692, M702, M712, M732, M7111, and M7112.

From 2013, as the first reference year, to 2020 information is published on NACE codes K6411, K6419 and K65 and its breakdown.

SBS constitutes an important and integrated part of the new European Business Statistics Regulation N° 2152/2019

Data requirements, simplifications and technical definitions are defined in Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/1197

In Estonia most of legal units are equal to enterprise. These units produce goods or services, benefit from a certain degree of autonomy in decision-making, have a complete set of accounts, carry out one or more activities at one or more locations.

In economically significant cases (e.g. all the employment is recorded in a legal unit serving other legal units of a group) enterprise is implemented in business register and one unit from a group (enterprise) reports consolidated characteristics to SE, including the SBS characteristics.

Reference: Council Regulation (EEC) No 696 / 93 of 15 March 1993 on the statistical units for the observation and analysis of the production system in the Community.

The statistical population is created on the basis of the national statistical business register (NSBR). The SBS results are in accordance with the activities on the economic territory of Estonia. 

Branches of foreign enterprises with more than 19 persons employed are included in target population.

Estonia

Branches of foreign enterprises with more than 19 persons employed are included in target population.

Activities of the branches abroad of enterprises of the reporting country are included as they are part of the enterprise common accounting system and separating them could be extremely time consuming and challenging.

1995-2021

The data for the reference years 1995–1999 were mainly available at NACE 2-digit level. Also the availability of variables was incomplete.

From the reference year 2000 the SBS data production is in accordance with the requirements of SBS regulation.

2000-2007 the activity classification NACE Rev.1.1 was in use. Starting from 2008 NACE Rev.2 was implemented (back casted data for 2005-2007).

Statistical unit enterprise was implemented starting from reference year 2016.

Not applicable.

• Number of enterprises and number of local units are expressed in units.

• Monetary data are expressed in millions of €.

• Employment variables are expressed in units.

• Per head values are expressed in thousands of € per head. 

Ratios are expressed in percentages.

2021

Data refers to the calendar year, which in some cases corresponds to the fiscal year.

Starting with reference year 2021 two new regulations currently form the legal basis of SBS:

• Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 repealing 10 legal acts in the field of business statistics (EBS Regulation), and
• Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/1197 laying down technical specifications and arrangements (general implementing act) pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/2152

Year 1995 was the first year for the implementation of the Council Regulation No 58/97 (SBS Regulation).

The Council Regulation No 58/97 has been amended three times: by Council Regulation No 410/98, Commission Regulation No 1614/2002 and European Parliament and Council Regulation No 2056/2002. As a new amendment of the basic Regulation it was decided to recast the Regulation No 58/97 in order to obtain a new "clean" legal text. In 2008 the European Parliament and Council adopted Regulation No 295/2008 and the provisions of this Regulation were applicable from the reference year 2008 to reference year 2020. Regulation No 295/2008 was amended by Commission Regulation (EU) No 446/2014.

Not applicable.

Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the transmission of data subject to statistical confidentiality to the Statistical Office of the European Communities.

The dissemination of data collected for the purpose of producing official statistics is guided by the requirements provided in § 34 and § 35 of the Official Statistics Act.

According to the Official Statistics Act, the data are published and transmitted without characteristics that permit identification of the respondents.

The data have to be classified into groups of at least three persons (primary confidentiality — too few enterprises), while the share of data relating to each person in aggregate data does not exceed x% (primary confidentiality — one enterprise dominates the data, x denotes dominance limit in Statistics Estonia and its value is confidential). The criteria of dominance for turnover, gross investment in tangible goods and personnel costs was applied.
To protect the primary confidential cells, the secondary confidential cells were determined by using R package sdcTable. 

Only the number of units is published in case of confidentiality reasons that preclude the publication of the data.

In case of an additional reasoned request from data users, enterprises will be asked for written consent to publish their data in an anonymous form, based on § 35 subsection 2 of the Official Statistics Act "A producer of official statistics shall disseminate data that allow direct or indirect identification of a person only with the consent of the person , except in the cases provided by this Act or if the data are considered public pursuant to law." 

The confidential data is caused by the detailed activity and employment size class breakdown. As Estonia is a small country the rate of confidential cells is considerable.

According to the Official Statistics Act, a producer of official statistics shall disseminate official statistics pursuant to the release calendar published on its website.

Release calendar can be found at:  https://www.stat.ee/en/calendar

The policy for release, including users access, is described in “Principles of dissemination of official statistics” 

https://www.stat.ee/en/statistics-estonia/about-us/strategy/principlesdissemination-official-statistics 

Annual.

News releases are not prepared.

Publications are not prepared, the data are published in the statistics database on the website.

The 2021 data were published on 30 of December 2022

https://andmed.stat.ee/en/stat/EM001

https://andmed.stat.ee/en/stat/EM009

Micro-data are disseminated if the data are used for scientific purposes pursuant to the provisions of § 38 of the Official Statistics Act.

The SBS core variables for the selected activities are published as dashboards

https://juhtimislauad.stat.ee/ 

ESMS (Euro-SDMX Metadata Structure) metadata based on the SDMX Cross-Domain Concepts is published on the Estonian Statistics website in Estonian and English.

In English - https://www.stat.ee/en/find-statistics/methodology-and-quality/esms-metadata/20300

In Estonian - https://www.stat.ee/et/avasta-statistikat/metoodika-ja-kvaliteet/esms-metaandmed/20300

Published in the methodology section of the website related to SBS:

Statistical units – explanatory material

Frame of active economic entities

To assure the quality of processes and products, Statistics Estonia applies the EFQM Excellence Model, EU Statistics Code of Practice and the ESS Quality Assurance Framework (QAF). Statistics Estonia is also guided by the requirements provided for in § 7. “Principles and quality criteria of producing official statistics” of the Official Statistics Act.

https://www.riigiteataja.ee/en/eli/ee/506012015002/consolide/current

 ESMS (Euro-SDMX Metadata Structure) metadata based on the SDMX Cross-Domain Concepts is published on the Estonian Statistics website in Estonian and English. Including Financial statistics of enterprises (annual), statistical activity code - 20300, on which SBS is based.

ESMS metadata:

In Estonian: https://www.stat.ee/et/avasta-statistikat/metoodika-ja-kvaliteet/esms-metaandmed

In English: https://www.stat.ee/en/find-statistics/methodology-and-quality/esms-metadata

To assure the quality of processes and products, Statistics Estonia applies the EFQM Excellence Model, EU Statistics Code of Practice and the ESS Quality Assurance Framework (QAF).

Statistics Estonia is also guided by the requirements provided for in § 7. “Principles and quality criteria of producing official statistics” of the Official Statistics Act.

Statistics Estonia performs all statistical activities according to an international model (Generic Statistical Business Process Model – GSBPM). According to the GSBPM, the final phase of statistical activities is overall evaluation using information gathered in each phase or sub-process (this information includes, among other things, feedback from users, process metadata, system metrics and suggestions from employees). This information is used to prepare the evaluation report which outlines all the quality problems related to the specific statistical activity and serves as input for improvement actions.

The overall assessment of the quality of SBS data is good. Data quality is in accordance with principles of accuracy and reliability, timeliness and punctuality, coherence and compatibility.

Main internal users:

• Other departments of Statistics Estonia: national accounts, price statistics.
• Governmental and municipal institutions
• Different employers' organisations, trade unions.
• Media
• Researchers, students
• Enterprises/businesses

 Main external users:

• Eurostat, OECD.

Internal users (National Accounts, price statistics) need more detailed breakdowns of costs and turnover by activities.

Governmental and municipal institutions are interested in statistics by counties (NUTS 4).

To fulfil the national needs, the SBS data sent to Eurostat are different from the data published at the national level: in the statistics database on the Statistics Estonia website, all the main elements of the profit and loss account (including net profit, income tax, etc.) and balance sheet indicators are published, which are the basis for compiling the SBS data.

No regular surveys related to the users' satisfaction regarding the availability of SBS data for Annexes I to IV of the SBS Regulation are organised.

Some indicators or groupings are not presented based on the derogation or the 1% rule.

Derogation is according to COMMISSION IMPLEMENTING DECISION (EU) 2021/1003 of 18 June 2021 granting derogations to certain Member States with respect to the transmission of statistics pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council and Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/1197.

On the basis of the 1%-rule referred in the EBS Regulation, Statistics Estonia requested for exemption from transmitting the following variables:

• 240104 Expenses of long term rental and operating leases
• 250113 Net turnover by product
• 250110 Net turnover from the principal activity at the NACE three-digit level
• 250111 Net turnover from subcontracting
• 260107 Investment in purchased software

According to ex-ante assessment carried out by Eurostat, the condition has been fulfilled partially in the three years prior to the reference year.  In particular, the 3-year average has been above 1% for:

• the ‘Number of employees and self-employed persons’ in NACE Division B06, C16 and H50. In NACE Division B08, employment is approaching the 1% threshold.
• the ‘Net-turnover’ in NACE Division C16.

Thus, of the above-mentioned variables, only data for NACE section B06, B08, C16 and H50 were transmitted.

The overall accuracy of the results can be assessed as good. The survey is a census – data is obtained from statistical questionnaire and administrative source (annual reports from Commercial Register). For characteristics missing in administrative information model based estimate is used, also donor imputation and mean value imputation methods are applied.

The most important sources of errors are nonresponse and modelling errors when using administrative information.

Not applicable (census survey).

Not applicable (census survey).

No inconsistencies

Length of comparable time series: 2005-2021.

The data for the reference years 1995–1999 were mainly available at NACE 2-digit level. Also the availability of variables was incomplete.

From the reference year 2000 the SBS data production is in accordance with the requirements of SBS regulation.

2000-2007 the activity classification NACE Rev.1.1 was in use. Starting from 2008 NACE Rev.2 was implemented (back casted data for 2005-2007).

Statistical unit enterprise was implemented starting from reference year 2016.

The SBS data collection is based on active enterprises in the National Statistical Business Register (NSBR). All entities registered in Estonia are entered into the NSBR. The NSBR provides a frame of active economic entities for each year, comprising only the entities that were active in a given year, including those that were active only for a certain period of the year. The frame of active economic entities (also referred to as the statistical profile) compiled by November of each year is used as the frame for the annual statistics for that year and for the short-term statistics for the following year, from which samples are drawn. The frame of entities compiled by November does not include data for the whole year and is therefore referred to as the initial frame of active economic entities. 

The final frame of active economic entities was compiled for the first time for the year 2021. The quality and coverage of administrative data sources used to update the statistical register have increased. Therefore, a final frame of active economic entities can be compiled in official statistics of the year following the reference year when most of the annual data are available. This frame is used to produce annual business statistics, such as business demography statistics, structural business statistics etc.

The final frame covers entities that were active during the calendar year, including those that were only active in the final months of the year. The main source for updating the frame of active economic entities are annual reports. These can also be used to identify the ’signs of life’ indicating economic activity of micro-enterprises, i.e. enterprises that are not registered for VAT (annual turnover up to 40,000 euros) and have no paid employees and for which no other sources of information are available. In 2021, for instance, small enterprises were added to the final frame of active economic entities mainly in service activities. The share of these enterprises in economic indicators such as turnover is not very high.

In data editing process of SBS survey strict data check rules are implemented to guarantee the same value of turnover from industrial activities in SBS and PRODCOM survey on unit level.

The comparisons with STS data (turnover, investments, number of persons employed) on unit and aggregated level are carried out. Differences of aggregated data are caused from the use of different sampling frames — the final frame of year t is used for producing annual business statistics of year t and for short-term statistics of year t+1.

The difference between SBS and Business Demography (BD) is mainly caused by the inclusion of sole proprietors in BD. SBS is in accordance with National Accounts (NA) and is the main data source for non-financial corporations' sector. In 2021, there were 11 thousand self-employed persons whose data were included in BD but not in SBS.

In the statistical database (https://andmed.stat.ee/en/stat) on the website of Statistics Estonia, the data of financial statistics of enterprises was published at the end of December 2022. The database only contains data of following legal forms - general partnership, limited partnership, private limited company, public limited company or commercial association - that have been collected either with a statistical questionnaire or using annual reports obtained from the business register.

Self-employed entrepreneurs (hereinafter FIEs) do not have to submit an annual report. Data from income and social tax declarations submitted to the tax office are used to obtain this data for example, as an input to GDP. The tax declaration does not include many indicators that are published in the tables of financial statistics of enterprises. Therefore, the data of FIEs have been published in a separate table (at the 2-digit NACE level).

The determination of confidentiality has been made separately for companies and FIEs. If the data of FIEs are added to the data of enterprises, the confidentiality flags of both datasets should be taken into account. Considering that FIEs are not very numerous - only about 11 thousand in SBS's areas of activity for 2021 - this would lead to a lot of confidential layers in the SBS data set.

Therefore, it was decided not to include self-employed entrepreneurs (FIEs) in the SBS dataset for 2021. But the BD dataset contains self-employed entrepreneurs. This is the reason for the difference between SBS and BD data. 

When making the decision, it was taken into account the authorization of the exceptional measure given in the document 3.3 ""Coherence between Business Demography Statistics and Structural Business Statistics"" of the April 26-27, 2023 SBS-BD working group meeting in the transmission of 2021 data on the difference between SBS and BD: “As an exceptional measure, serious non-compliance shall not be identified for the transmission of final 2021 data”.

No inconsistencies

Not available

Revision policy is described in “Principles of dissemination of official statistics” (chapter "Revisions") Principles of dissemination of official statistics

Regular revisions are not foreseen. 

Irregular revisions are unplanned and are made to correct significant errors.

The methodology to obtain the data is census. Data are available for active enterprises at individual level (excluding other monetary intermediation (NACE 6419).

Data for non-financial enterprises (NACE B- S excluding K) are received combining the statistical questionnaires and administrative information (annual reports). Statistical questionnaires are used to collect data from all larger enterprises, i.e. enterprises with 20 or more persons employed. In addition, statistical questionnaires are used to collect data from enterprises with less than 20 persons employed, which had extremely important economic indicators (outliers) in their kind of activity in the previous year.

All insurance companies (NACE 65) are surveyed using a statistical questionnaire.

Data on central banking (NACE 6411) are received from its annual report.

Data on other monetary intermediation (NACE 6419) are received from Bank of Estonia (central bank) on aggregated level.

For other financial service and auxiliary to financial services activities’ (NACE 642, 643, 649, 66) enterprises data are received from statistical questionnaires and from administrative source (annual reports).

Administrative source – annual reports

The used administrative sources is Companies’ annual reports from Commercial Register (under the Ministry of Justice). The annual reports are received as companies' micro data. The data are received within an hour after the data submission to Commercial Register. Annual reports, in general, have no several revisions. The degree of completeness i.e. notes are not provided, causes the need for additional modelling.

The main characteristics directly available or with a good proxy in the annual reports are: number of employees in full-time equivalent units, turnover, turnover from industrial, construction, service, trading activities, personnel costs, wages and salaries, social security costs, changes in stocks of goods and services, changes in stocks of finished products and work in progress, changes in stocks of goods purchased for resale in the same conditions as received, balance sheet data.

The annual reports are data source for mass imputation i.e. for imputation of enterprises in the population but not collected with statistical questionnaires. These are smaller enterprises with less than 20 persons employed.

Frame

The frame for SBS and all other business surveys is business register for statistical purposes of Statistics Estonia.

Business statistics are compiled on the basis of the data economically active entities. In order to produce business statistics, Statistics Estonia keeps a business register for statistical purposes. Its data are obtained from the commercial register, non-profit associations and foundations register, register of taxable persons, and state register of state and local government institutions. In addition to legal registers, other data sources are used, such as the data of the Estonian Tax and Customs Board as well as statistical and financial reports, etc. In the business register for statistical purposes, statistical units for producing official statistics are specified, economic entities on the basis of international standards are classified, and economically active entities are identified. Entities are considered to be economically active if, in a given year, they have shown signs of activity: turnover, paid employees, investments. ‘Signs of life' indicating economic activity identified from other sources are also taken into account.

 Initial frame of active economic entities

All entities registered in Estonia are entered into the business register for statistical purposes. However, unlike legal registers, the statistical business register provides a frame of active economic entities for each year, comprising only the entities that were active in a given year, including those that were active only for a certain period of the year. The frame of active economic entities (also referred to as the statistical profile) compiled by November of each year is used as the frame for the annual statistics for that year and for the short-term statistics for the following year, from which samples are drawn. The data for the frame of economic entities are published in the statistical database in the January of the following year to provide users with information on the previous year as soon as possible. The frame of entities compiled by November does not include data for the whole year and is therefore referred to as the initial frame of active economic entities.

 Final frame of active economic entities

The quality and coverage of administrative data sources used to update the statistical register have increased. Therefore, a final frame of active economic entities can be compiled in official statistics by November of the year following the reference year when most of the annual data are available. This frame is used to produce annual business statistics, such as business demography statistics, structural business statistics (annual economic indicators of enterprises), etc. The final frame of active economic entities was compiled for the first time for the year 2021.

 Difference between initial and final frame of active economic entities

Unlike the initial frame, the final frame covers entities that were active during the calendar year, including those that were only active in the final months of the year. The main source for updating the frame of active economic entities are annual reports. These can also be used to identify the ’signs of life’ indicating economic activity of micro-enterprises, i.e. enterprises that are not registered for VAT (annual turnover up to 40,000 euros) and have no paid employees and for which no other sources of information are available. 

Annual data collection.

Enterprises

To obtain SBS data, several EKOMAR questionnaires are used, which are slightly modified according to the enterprise’s principal activity. As an example, a questionnaire and instructions for construction enterprises in pdf form ekomar-f41-2021-year. The pdf questionnaires are for information only.

To collect data from enterprises, Statistics Estonia uses the web-based electronic data collection system eSTAT - environment for electronic data submission. In eSTAT statistical questionnaires are prefilled with data from annual reports (annual financial statements). Variables not available in administrative source are added by data providers. eSTAT gives to data provider a possibility before submission of questionnaire to check the correctness of data and correct the errors. There are mostly arithmetical checks - completeness, internal consistency, plausibility checks.

For enterprises that do not have to submit statistical questionnaires, data from annual reports are used or, if they are not available, data are imputed.

Local units

Starting with the reference year 2021, a new methodology is used to obtain data of local units. Local units have been created using employment register (in Estonian Töötamise register – TÖR) and income and social tax declarations (TSD) data. This turned out to be possible with the implementation of the TÖR. TÖR is a register that collects information on employment and is kept by the Estonian Tax and Customs Board. All employers, including a private person who hires another private person, have the obligation to register employment. Among other things, the employee's personal identification code, the date of commencement of employment, the address of the workplace must be entered in the employment register.

TÖR was used to find local units, their kind of activity and employment. Local units were identified based on workplace address information, and local unit NACE codes were assigned using a specially developed model that was supposed to be based on the occupational data of people working in the local unit.

Wage data for employees of local units is obtained from income and social tax declarations (TSD). For this purpose, the TÖR and TSD datasets were linked using employees' personal codes.

Statistics Estonia uses the web-based electronic data collection system eSTAT which gives to data provider a possibility before submission of report to check the correctness of data and correct the errors. There are mostly arithmetical checks.

In data processing phase (using data processing information system VAIS) the data editing continues by using a lot of arithmetical — completeness, internal consistency, plausibility — checks. The data are also compared with similar data from annual reports, short-term statistics, PRODCOM on unit and aggregated level.

In addition, additional checks have been created at the level of enterprises using SAS or R software, which also create reports in Excel form for enterprises with errors and warnings.

At the aggregate data level - the field of activity and the size groups of the employed - the data is compared with the previous year. For this purpose, a solution for making reports based on R and Excel has been created. Appeared errors are corrected before publication in VAIS, warnings are either corrected or a reasonable explanation is found.

Before transmission to Eurostat, data tables are checked using EDAMIS (Electronic Data Files Administration and Management Information System) both individually and between tables (inter-series checks).

The methodology to obtain the data is census. SBS data are available for all active enterprises at individual level (starting from reference year 2019).

The methodology to obtain the data for non-financial enterprises (survey EKOMAR) is census - combining the statistical questionnaire and administrative information. For imputation the available information from administrative source i.e. in annual reports are used. For characteristics missing in annual reports model based estimate is used. In case of absence of annual reports also donor imputation, data of the previous year and mean value imputation methods are applied. Before 2019 for grossing-up i.e. for estimating population totals the Horvitz-Thompson estimator is used.

All insurance companies (NACE 65) are surveyed.

Methodology for obtaining financial service and auxiliary to financial services activities’ enterprises is statistical questionnaire combined with administrative information. Data on central banking (NACE 6411) are received from the annual report. Data on other monetary intermediation (NACE 6419) are received from Bank of Estonia. For other financial service and auxiliary to financial services activities’ enterprises data on received from statistical surveys and from administrative source i.e. in annual reports are used.

Sources of data (including imputation):

SBS data refer to a calendar year (or in some exceptional cases, a 12-month period beginning or ending in the reporting year).

No further comments.