Reference metadata describe statistical concepts and methodologies used for the collection and generation of data. They provide information on data quality and, since they are strongly content-oriented, assist users in interpreting the data. Reference metadata, unlike structural metadata, can be decoupled from the data.
Services Trade by Enterprise Characteristics (STEC) statistics provide information on the types of enterprises engaged in international trade in services and show how enterprises in different industries supply services and how this relates to their primary activity. STEC disclose additional insights into trade statistics, by allowing the profiling of the enterprises according to selected characteristics such as number of employees, type of ownership and economic activity.
A+B - Agriculture, forestry, and fishing; mining and quarrying,
D+E - Electricity, gas, steam, and air conditioning supply; water supply; sewerage, waste management and remediation activities,
I+L+O+P+Q+R+S+T+U - Accommodation and food service activities; real estate activities; public administration, defence; compulsory social security; education; human health and social work activities; other services.
· NACE Sections:
C - Manufacturing,
F - Construction,
G - Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles,
H - Transportation and storage,
J - Information and communication,
K - Financial and insurance activities,
M - Professional, scientific, and technical activities,
N - Administrative and support service activities.
1. Manufacturing services on physical inputs owned by others
2. Maintenance and repair services n.i.e.
3. Transport
4. Travel
5. Construction
6. Insurance and pension services
7. Financial services
8. Charges for the use of intellectual property n.i.e.
9. Telecommunications, computer, and information services
10. Other business services
10.1. Research and development services
10.2. Professional and management consulting services
10.3. Technical, trade-related, and other business services
11. Personal, cultural and recreational services
12. Government goods and services, n.i.e.
3.5. Statistical unit
Enterprise.
3.6. Statistical population
The activity breakdown covers NACE sections from A to U.
The product breakdown covers EBOPS 2010 main items.
3.7. Reference area
Czechia
3.8. Coverage - Time
Year 2023.
3.9. Base period
Not applicable.
The data are disseminated by Eurostat in thousands of Euro and reported in national currency (CZK).
Calendar year.
6.1. Institutional Mandate - legal acts and other agreements
Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 on European business statistics sets the data requirements in the field of services trade by enterprise characteristics for the EU Member States and EFTA countries. The exact technical specifications are listed in the Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/1197, table 17 "Country-level business statistics on trade in services by enterprise characteristics (STEC) – annual data".
The variable must be reported annually with first reference year 2022.
6.2. Institutional Mandate - data sharing
The state statistical service is carried out by the so-called authorities of the state statistical service, which, according to § 3 of Act No. 89/1995 Coll., on the state statistical service, are the Czech Statistical Office (CZSO), or ministries and other central state administration authorities under the conditions and to the extent set by this law. The scope of the Czech Statistical Office and other authorities of the state statistical service are defined in § 4, respectively § 7 of the Act.
Czech Statistical Office according to § 4, paragraph 3 of Act No. 89/1995 Sb coordinates the State Statistical Service, which is performed by other Authorities of the State Statistical Service.
CZSO cooperates in sharing administrative data sources; enters into mutual cooperation agreements with the owners of this data.
STEC data are not regularly shared with national and international organizations, except for Eurostat.
7.1. Confidentiality - policy
Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council (recital 24 and Article 20(4)) of 11 March 2009 (OJ L 87, p. 164), stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society.
Since 2022 reference period, the applicable regulation is Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 (OJ L 327).
The European Statistics Code of Practice provides further conditions that have to be respected by statistical offices in regard to statistical confidentiality (Principle 5).
The confidentiality issues are regulated by internal directives of the CZSO and the confidentiality policy at the CZSO is based on:
Act No. 89/1995 Coll. on the state statistical service as amended (assures protection of individual data and implies the active approach to data protection),
Law on protection of personal data,
The internal Directive No. 3/2015 of the Czech Statistical Office (the defines the detailed rules, which are seen as confidential).
7.2. Confidentiality - data treatment
Data are only published down the level at which they are not confidential, i.e. confidential cells are suppressed from publication. The data allowing direct or indirect identification of individual enterprise can be published under written permission of all related subjects.
8.1. Release calendar
STEC data are not published at the national level, they are currently disseminated only by Eurostat. The data are sent to Eurostat no later than 18 months after the end of the reference year.
8.2. Release calendar access
At the CZSO generally for each year the Catalogue of Products containing Calendar of News Releases is published at the end of the previous year.
The CZSO implements and in an active manner provides for necessary characteristics of the institutional environment, key and support processes of production of statistics and statistical outputs as specified in the respective principles of the European Statistics Code of Practice. The principles are completely taken into account in the published documents of the Mission, Vision, and Strategy, Mid-Term Key Priorities, and the following annual Priority Tasks and Work Programmes of the Office.
The CZSO top management supports total quality management processes, including their continuous improvement. The commitment to quality is taken into account in making concepts of and implementing processes and procedures, internal regulations, rules and bylaws, and organisation structures of the Office and is implemented by a combination of activities at the headquarters level and at the levels of respective statistical and support units.
The key parameters of quality of the CZSO processes and outputs are set in accordance with requirements of external as well as internal users. There are formalized processes for collection, evaluation, and preparation of reports on quality, respecting specifics of respective statistics and based on requirements of relevant legal regulations, established in the Office.
Eurostat assessed the completeness and accessibility of the 2023 dataset by evaluating the proportion of mandatory cells reported and the extent of confidentiality.
All mandatory cells across all tables were fully reported (100%), while approximately 18% of the dataset was flagged as confidential.
12.1. Relevance - User Needs
Trade in services data broken down by economic activity, size-class of enterprises, trade concentration, geographical diversification and products traded are used to carry out more sophisticated kinds of analysis, e.g. to evaluate the role of European companies in the context of globalisation or to assess the impact of international trade on employment, production and value added, essential in a globalised world where economies are increasingly interconnected.
12.2. Relevance - User Satisfaction
No user survey on STEC data was carried out so far.
12.3. Completeness
International trade in services statistics by enterprise characteristics are based on the EU legislation which is directly applicable in the EU Member States. All the mandatory datasets are provided by all the Member States.
12.3.1. Data completeness - rate
The Czech Republic provides Eurostat with all data required by the Regulation (EU) 2019/2152.
13.1. Accuracy - overall
The accuracy is tackled at national and European levels, by eliminating as much as possible the non-sampling errors. It should be noted that the accuracy of STEC data depends not only on the accuracy of trade in services statistics but also on the quality of the trade and business registers.
13.2. Sampling error
There is a minimum of sampling errors. The survey for ITSS is designed as a sample of almost 6000 units, using non-probability sampling method - only units with a significant involvement in ITS are selected.
Sampling errors may be caused mostly by changes in Business Register - dissolution of a company, merger and demerger of companies.
The impact for the data collection in the observed period is negligible.
Note: "ITS" = International trade in services and "ITSS" = International trade in services statistics.
13.2.1. Sampling error - indicators
Not applicable.
13.3. Non-sampling error
The accuracy of STEC data is primarily impacted by issues in the collection and compilation of detailed trade in services statistics (e.g. non-response, estimated trade value) as well as in the management of the trade and business registers (e.g. invalid ID number in the Trade Register, missing activity sector in the Business Register).
Issues may also occur in the linkage between the Trade Register and the Business Register. Although the general principles on data linking are clear and straight-forward, there are several methodologically complex issues which need to be addressed more carefully, like business demographic changes, problematic linkages caused by complex business structures, missing or estimated data and non-established traders.
13.3.1. Coverage error
Not applicable.
13.3.1.1. Over-coverage - rate
Not applicable.
13.3.1.2. Common units - proportion
Not applicable.
13.3.2. Measurement error
Not applicable.
13.3.3. Non response error
Not applicable.
13.3.3.1. Unit non-response - rate
Not applicable.
13.3.3.2. Item non-response - rate
Not applicable.
13.3.4. Processing error
Not applicable.
13.3.5. Model assumption error
Not applicable.
14.1. Timeliness
Annual data by enterprise characteristics shall be provided by the reporting countries to Eurostat no later than 18 months after the end of the reference year.
This means that data for the reference year Y (e.g. 2022) shall be provided by 30 June Y+2 (e.g. June 2024). The transmitted data are usually disseminated by Eurostat with a time lag of a couple of months.
14.1.1. Time lag - first result
Not applicable.
14.1.2. Time lag - final result
Not applicable.
14.2. Punctuality
Monitoring of the compliance with the legal requirements for the transmission of STEC data from the Member States, EFTA countries, candidate, and potential candidate that will cover the evaluation of the punctuality and completeness against the defined thresholds for non compliance will be done by Eurostat. The results of the compliance monitoring will be reported to the BSDG.
14.2.1. Punctuality - delivery and publication
Not applicable.
15.1. Comparability - geographical
From a methodological point of view, the comparability across countries is ensured by the implementation of the concepts and definitions set up by the EU legislation and by the application of the complementary guidelines provided by the European business statistics compilers’ manual for international trade in services statistics – trade by enterprise characteristics (STEC).
15.1.1. Asymmetry for mirror flow statistics - coefficient
Not applicable.
15.2. Comparability - over time
STEC data must be available annually with first reference year 2022, with no break in time series.
Changes due to definitions, classifications, coverage or methods will have an impact on the continuity of the time series.
15.2.1. Length of comparable time series
Not applicable.
15.3. Coherence - cross domain
Apart from the STEC domain, information on trade flows can be found in the aggregated and detailed BoP international trade in services statistics. The intra-domain checks carried out before any data dissemination ensure the coherence between the trade values published in STEC datasets and trade values coming from aggregated and detailed BoP international trade in services statistics.
15.3.1. Coherence - sub annual and annual statistics
Not applicable.
15.3.2. Coherence - National Accounts
Not applicable.
15.4. Coherence - internal
The internal coherence of the STEC datasets is ensured by the intra- and inter-dataset checks carried out by Eurostat before any STEC data dissemination.
There were no problems detected regarding internal consistence of the time series in question at the national level.
STEC data are derived from information collected via ITSS and the Business Register. No additional data collection is then necessary, which means that the additional burden is null for the respondents. The cost of STEC data only relates to the compilation step carried out by the National Statistical Authorities, which is considered as minor given the small number of records.
17.1. Data revision - policy
STEC data must be consistent with ITS data and ITS data are subject to continuous revisions as new input are available. They are called routine revisions and entail regular revisions of country data and of the European aggregates, which are derived from the former.
More rarely, exceptional revisions (called benchmark revisions) will result from major changes in data sources, classifications or methodology.
17.2. Data revision - practice
STEC transmission in June 2025 (for ref. year 2023) must be consistent with 2023 ITS data i.e. the non revised 2023 ITS data, sent in September 2024. Any subsequent revisions on ITS data must be appropriately present in the STEC data. The “general rule” is taht any revised data must be sent with the next data transmission (e.g. revised data for ref. year 2022 to be sent in June 2025, etc.).
17.2.1. Data revision - average size
Not applicable.
18.1. Source data
Sources:
ITSS data based on a quarterly survey, complemented with data imputation (Direct Trading Costs from ITSG) as well as imputation of non-response units.
Data from the Czech National Bank (EBOPS SD-Travel, SF-Insurance and pension services and SG-Financial services)
Administrative sources like Business Register (number of employees and self-employed persons).
18.2. Frequency of data collection
Annual.
18.3. Data collection
ITSS data collected quarterly - sample survey of imports and exports of services.
There are several rounds of the Validation procedures during the data processing according to schedule. First validation procedure is incorporated directly into the electronic data collection system (to ensure that forms have been fully completed and that codes entered are valid) and additional checks for consistency and plausibility are carried out by the Trade Balance Unit at the CZSO. When an unusual fluctuation in reported data is monitored, the respondents are asked for the explanation.
STEC data disseminated by Eurostat have passed the following quality checks:
Intra-dataset checks: completeness of each dataset and uniqueness of the records, validity of the codes, validity of code combinations across the different dimensions, inter-record consistency checks;
Inter-dataset checks: consistency of trade values and numbers of enterprises related to similar combinations across the datasets;
Intra-domain check: check of the coherence between trade values published in STEC datasets and trade values coming from aggregated and detailed trade in services data.
18.5. Data compilation
Submitted data from ITSS survey are being aggregated and matched with the Business Register to derive STEC data compliant with the EU requirements.
18.5.1. Imputation - rate
STEC data are fully derived from information collected through ITSS and the Business Register without any additional imputation.
18.6. Adjustment
Not applicable.
18.6.1. Seasonal adjustment
Not applicable.
Services Trade by Enterprise Characteristics (STEC) statistics provide information on the types of enterprises engaged in international trade in services and show how enterprises in different industries supply services and how this relates to their primary activity. STEC disclose additional insights into trade statistics, by allowing the profiling of the enterprises according to selected characteristics such as number of employees, type of ownership and economic activity.
A+B - Agriculture, forestry, and fishing; mining and quarrying,
D+E - Electricity, gas, steam, and air conditioning supply; water supply; sewerage, waste management and remediation activities,
I+L+O+P+Q+R+S+T+U - Accommodation and food service activities; real estate activities; public administration, defence; compulsory social security; education; human health and social work activities; other services.
· NACE Sections:
C - Manufacturing,
F - Construction,
G - Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles,
H - Transportation and storage,
J - Information and communication,
K - Financial and insurance activities,
M - Professional, scientific, and technical activities,
N - Administrative and support service activities.
1. Manufacturing services on physical inputs owned by others
2. Maintenance and repair services n.i.e.
3. Transport
4. Travel
5. Construction
6. Insurance and pension services
7. Financial services
8. Charges for the use of intellectual property n.i.e.
9. Telecommunications, computer, and information services
10. Other business services
10.1. Research and development services
10.2. Professional and management consulting services
10.3. Technical, trade-related, and other business services
11. Personal, cultural and recreational services
12. Government goods and services, n.i.e.
Enterprise.
The activity breakdown covers NACE sections from A to U.
The product breakdown covers EBOPS 2010 main items.
Czechia
Calendar year.
The accuracy is tackled at national and European levels, by eliminating as much as possible the non-sampling errors. It should be noted that the accuracy of STEC data depends not only on the accuracy of trade in services statistics but also on the quality of the trade and business registers.
The data are disseminated by Eurostat in thousands of Euro and reported in national currency (CZK).
Submitted data from ITSS survey are being aggregated and matched with the Business Register to derive STEC data compliant with the EU requirements.
Sources:
ITSS data based on a quarterly survey, complemented with data imputation (Direct Trading Costs from ITSG) as well as imputation of non-response units.
Data from the Czech National Bank (EBOPS SD-Travel, SF-Insurance and pension services and SG-Financial services)
Administrative sources like Business Register (number of employees and self-employed persons).
Annual.
Annual data by enterprise characteristics shall be provided by the reporting countries to Eurostat no later than 18 months after the end of the reference year.
This means that data for the reference year Y (e.g. 2022) shall be provided by 30 June Y+2 (e.g. June 2024). The transmitted data are usually disseminated by Eurostat with a time lag of a couple of months.
From a methodological point of view, the comparability across countries is ensured by the implementation of the concepts and definitions set up by the EU legislation and by the application of the complementary guidelines provided by the European business statistics compilers’ manual for international trade in services statistics – trade by enterprise characteristics (STEC).
STEC data must be available annually with first reference year 2022, with no break in time series.
Changes due to definitions, classifications, coverage or methods will have an impact on the continuity of the time series.
