National Statistical Institute

Statistics On Foreign Trade In Goods Department

The main objective of the trade in goods statistics by enterprise characteristics (TEC) is to bridge two major statistical domains which have traditionally been compiled and used separately, business statistics and international trade in goods statistics (ITGS). Specifically, this new domain was created to answer questions such as:

• What kind of businesses are behind the trade flows of goods?
• What is the contribution of a particular activity sector to trade?
• What is the share of small and medium-sized enterprises to total trade?
• What is the share of enterprises that trade with a certain partner country and the amount of trade value they account for?

For this purpose, the trade in goods between countries is broken down by economic activity, size-class of enterprises, trade concentration, geographical diversification and products traded. The new information is 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 in goods on employment, production and value added, essential in a globalised world where economies are increasingly interconnected.

Available datasets

TEC data are grouped into ten datasets, each one focusing on a specific aspect. Mandatory datasets 1 to 6 are available for Bulgaria:

1. Trade by activity sector and enterprise size class — Trade by activity sector and employment size class shows the contributions of economic activities and size classes (measured in terms of number of employees) to total trade. This allows the impact of international trade on employment to be analysed and the importance of small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) to be estimated.

2. Concentration of trade by activity — International trade being typically dominated by a few businesses, this indicator shows the share of the total trade accounted for by the top 5, 10, 20, etc. companies.

3. Trade by partner country and activity — Trade by partner country shows how many companies were trading with certain partner countries or country zones, and the value they accounted for. This indicator enables the most typical export or import markets to be identified.

4. Trade by number of partner countries and activity — Trade by number of partner countries shows how geographically diversified the export markets are. For imports, it shows the number of countries from which goods are imported.

5. Trade by commodity and activity — Trade by commodity and activity sector allocates the trade of each commodity to the activity of the trading enterprise. This indicator shows which sectors were involved in the trading of each product group.

6. Trade by type of trader — This indicator provides information on how traders are involved in international trade. It shows the number of companies trading within only one flow or in both flows and the trade value these companies account for.

Classification of economic activities

Economic activities are classified according to the statistical classification of economic activities in the European Community (NACE Rev. 2). NACE Rev. 2 is based on the fourth revision of the United Nations International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC Rev. 4). Within the international trade in goods statistics, the NACE classification refers to the economic activity of enterprises that are active in international trade in goods.

Product classification

As the TEC domain aims to categorise trade flows according to economic activities, product classifications which are based on the industrial origin of the goods are more suitable for analysis than classifications based on material of goods. For this reason, the Classification of Products by Activity (CPA) is used as the product classification in TEC. CPA is a European version of the United Nations Central Product Classification (CPC), but arranged so that each product heading is assignable to a single heading of the European activity classification, the NACE Rev. 2. CPA version 2008 is used for TEC data relating to the reference years 2012-2015. CPA version 2.1 is used since 2016 as reference year.

Country classification

Except for the cases listed below, the reporting and partner countries are classified according to the Nomenclature of countries and territories for the external trade statistics of the Community and statistics of trade between Member States, known as the Geonomenclature. An alpha-2 coding applies, which means that each country is identified with a two-letter alphabetical code. See the publication Geonomenclature applicable to European statistics on international trade in goods for more information. Exceptions: code CN_X_HK instead of CN for China (except Hong Kong); code UK instead of GB for United Kingdom; code EL instead of GR for Greece.

All classifications and correspondence tables are available on Eurostats metadata server RAMON.

TEC data cover all activity sectors, from sections A to U of the NACE Rev. 2 classification.

Trade value

The value of traded goods is calculated at the national frontier, on a FOB basis (free on board) for exports and a CIF (cost, insurance, freight) basis for imports. Hence, only incidental expenses (freight, insurance) are included and they are incurred for:

• exports in the part of the journey located on the territory of the country where the goods are exported from;
• imports in the part of the journey located outside the territory of the country where the goods are imported to.

Number of enterprises

The number of enterprises consists of a count of the number of legal units (used as an approximation to enterprises) involved in trade during at least a part of the reference period. For intra-EU trade, VAT data are used to estimate the number of traders and trade value of the smallest traders which are exempted from Intrastat reporting. These traders account for a limited share of the trade value – at most 3 % of the total value of the intra-EU exports and 7 % of the total value of the intra-EU imports – but in terms of number of enterprises they consist of the majority.

Partner country

Trade flows are broken down by partner country.

• For exports it is the country of destination of the goods. That is the last country to which it is known that, at the time of export, the goods are to be delivered.
• For imports, the definition of the partner country differs between Intrastat and Extrastat. For extra-EU imports it is the country of origin of the goods; for intra-EU imports it is the country (EU Member State) of consignment of goods.

Product

The product is the outcome of economic activity and the generic term used for goods and services.

Product classifications are designed to categorise goods and services that have common characteristics. They provide the basis for preparing statistics on the production, consumption, international trade and distributive trade. However, the scope of TEC is limited to the trade in goods.

Economic activity

The economic activity consists in offering goods and services on a given market. An activity is characterised by an input of products, a production process and an output of products. In other words, an economic activity is said to take place when resources such as equipment, labour, manufacturing techniques, information networks or products are combined, leading to the creation of specific goods or services.

Classifications of economic activities are designed to categorise data that can be related to the unit of activity. They provide the basis for preparing statistics of output, the various inputs to the production process, capital formation and the financial transactions of such units. Economic activities are classified according to NACE, the classification used to classify economic entities (enterprises, local units and similar statistical units). Within the international trade statistics, the NACE classification refers to the economic activity of traders, i.e. enterprises that are active in international trade.

Number of employees

The number of employees refers to the number of those persons who work for an employer and who have a contract of employment and receive compensation in the form of wages, salaries, fees, gratuities, piecework pay or remuneration in kind. A worker is considered to be a wage or salary earner of a particular unit if he receives a wage or salary from the unit regardless of where the work is done (in or outside the production unit).

The number of employees is a mandatory variable to be recorded in the business registers for each enterprise and local unit. According to the Business Register Regulation, the intention is to use the situation at the end of the year. However, as the end date approach is not harmonised the annual average can also be used as reference.

Type of traders

In the context of the TEC data, the type of trader specifies the type of trade activity of the legal unit (used as an approximation to the enterprise). It indicates whether the legal unit is involved only in exports or only imports or trade in both flows.

The type of trader aims to describe the heterogeneity of legal units (used as an approximation to the enterprises) according to their involvement in trade.

The legal unit is used as an approximation to the statistical unit - the enterprise.

The Business Register Regulation establishes a link between the business registers and the registers of intra- and extra- EU trade operators through a common unit of reference, namely the legal unit. The enterprise is the statistical unit to be used, which means that trade data must be linked to characteristics available in the Business Register for the enterprise through the legal unit. In this way, trade data are connected with the characteristics of the legal unit (an approximation to the enterprise) and they can be reported in terms of the economic activity and number of employees for the enterprise.

The statistical population should comprise all the enterprises (legal units) involved in intra- and extra-EU trade flows. However, in practice, the linkage between the Trade Register and the Business Register is not systematically straightforward as there may be more complicated linkages or the linkage may not always provide expected outcomes. This relates in particular to the following cases:

• Intra-annual business demography changes;
• Large and complex businesses;
• Incomplete business register data; and
• VAT-groups.

The reference population used in the compilation of TEC datasets relates to traders who have reported trade transactions under a valid ID number and were successfully matched with the Business Register. This means that the enterprise characteristics reported in the TEC datasets refer only to a part of total trade. Are out of scope:

• Trade carried out by non-resident traders as such traders cannot be associated to an enterprise via the national Business Register; and
• Trade carried out by private individuals.

Bulgaria

From 2012 as reference year.

Not applicable.

• Trade value in thousands of euros
• Number of enterprises

The reference period is the same as for monthly trade in goods statistics. It is the calendar month of export or import of the goods for intra-EU trade and the calendar month during which the customs declaration is accepted by the national authorities for extra-EU trade;

General statistical legislation

Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European statistics

Intra-EU trade legislation (or Intrastat)

• Regulation (EC) No 638/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council
• Implementing Commission Regulation (EC) No 1982/2004

Extra-EU trade legislation (or Extrastat)

• Regulation (EC) No 471/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council
• Implementing Commission Regulation (EC) No 92/2010
• Implementing Commission Regulation (EC) No 113/2010

Business Registers legislation

• Regulation (EC) No 177/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a common framework for Business Registers for statistical purposes
• Implementing Commission Regulation (EC) No 192/2009
• Implementing Commission Regulation (EU) No 1097/2010

All regulations relevant for the European statistics on international trade in goods can be found in the publication Legislation on European statistics on international trade in goods or consulted from the ‘Legislation’ page of the ‘International trade in goods’ section on Eurostat website. All legal texts are also accessible online on Eur-Lex.

Not applicable

Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (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.

Confidentiality policy is described in the Bulgarian Law on Statistics - Chapter Six ‘Protection of secrecy’:

Article 25 (1) Individual data received and collected through statistical surveys shall constitute a statistical secret and may be used only for statistical purposes. Individual data received for the purposes of statistical surveys may not be used as evidence before the bodies of the executive and the judiciary.

(2) The National Statistical Institute and statistical authorities and their staff may not disclose or provide:

1. individual statistical data;

2. statistical data which can be matched in a way that enables the identification of a specific statistical unit;

3. statistical information which aggregates data about less than three statistical units or about a population in which the relative share of the value of a surveyed parameter of a single unit exceeds 85 per cent of the total value of such parameter for all units in the population.

Article 26. (1) Individual data referred to in Article 25 may be provided only if:

1. (repealed);

2. transferred to Eurostat where this is necessary for development and production of European statistical information;

3. provided to the National Statistical Institute by statistical authorities where this is necessary for development and production of official statistical information;

4. (repealed);

5. (repealed).

(2) Individual data may be published only if the subject to which such data relate has granted consent therefor. Such consent shall be granted in writing and should clearly specify which data it includes. The person to whom such data relate may at any time withdraw his/her consent in writing, and such withdrawal shall not apply to actions performed prior to it.

Confidential data is defined as ‘data which allow statistical units to be identified, either directly or indirectly, thereby disclosing individual information. To determine whether a statistical unit is identifiable, account shall be taken of all relevant means that might reasonably be used by a third party to identify the statistical unit’.

For TEC data, the principle of active confidentiality applies, which means that the NSI takes the initiative to suppress the data whose dissemination would make it possible to identify an enterprise or a trader. The legal provisions (articles 13a (8) of Regulation (EC) No 1982/2004 and 15(9) of Regulation (EU) No 113/2010, respectively relating to the compilation of statistics on trade by enterprise characteristics for intra- and extra-EU) define only the principle to be applied. The application of confidentiality in practice is under the responsibility of the NSI. The rules to define confidential data are described in 7.1. NSI have the responsibility to mark the data as confidential before their transmission to the Commission (Eurostat).

Besides the legal provisions, NSI follows a number of practical recommendations in order to ensure data disclosure with a minimum loss of information. These recommendations are listed below:

• Confidential data should be clearly flagged (‘C’).
• Member States should indicate whether the suppression concerns either the trade value or the number of enterprises or both variables.
• Unintentional revealing of confidential data should be avoided by applying secondary confidentiality. Secondary confidentiality needs to be applied when there is only one confidential flag in a dataset and the related cell is under an aggregate. In this case, the cell marked as confidential can be revealed by simply subtracting the aggregate of the rest of the cells from the total.
• The links between TEC datasets should be taken into account when defining confidential records. This means that a record referring to an activity sector which is marked as confidential in one dataset, e.g. Dataset 1 should also be marked as confidential in any related dataset, e.g. Dataset 5.

TEC data are only disseminated by Eurostat. See item 8.1 ‘Release calendar’ of the related metadata ‘ext_tec_sims - International trade in goods – trade by enterprise characteristics (TEC)’ for more details.

Not applicable.

TEC data are only disseminated by Eurostat. See item 8.3 ‘Release policy - user access’ of the related metadata ‘ext_tec_sims - International trade in goods – trade by enterprise characteristics (TEC)’ for more details.

Statistics by enterprise characteristics are updated once a year with a new reference year. Historical data are exceptionally revised.

TEC data are only disseminated by Eurostat. See item 10.1 ‘Dissemination format - News release’ of the related metadata ‘ext_tec_sims - International trade in goods – trade by enterprise characteristics (TEC)’ for more details.

TEC data are only disseminated by Eurostat. See item 10.2 ‘Dissemination format - Publications’ of the related metadata ‘ext_tec_sims - International trade in goods – trade by enterprise characteristics (TEC)’ for more details.

TEC data are only disseminated by Eurostat. See item 10.3 ‘Dissemination format - online database’ of the related metadata ‘ext_tec_sims - International trade in goods – trade by enterprise characteristics (TEC)’ for more details.

Not available.

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not available.

TEC data are only disseminated by Eurostat. See item 10.6 ‘Documentation on methodology’ of the related metadata ‘ext_tec_sims - International trade in goods – trade by enterprise characteristics (TEC)’ for more details.

100%

TEC data are only disseminated by Eurostat. See item 10.7 ‘Quality management - documentation’ of the related metadata ‘ext_tec_sims - International trade in goods – trade by enterprise characteristics (TEC)’ for more details.

See item 11.1 ‘Quality assurance’ of the related metadata ‘ext_tec_sims - International trade in goods – trade by enterprise characteristics (TEC)’.

See item 11.2 ‘Quality management - assessment’ of the related metadata ‘ext_tec_sims - International trade in goods – trade by enterprise characteristics (TEC)’.

TEC data are only disseminated by Eurostat. See item 12.1 ‘Relevance - User Needs’ of the related metadata ‘ext_tec_sims - International trade in goods – trade by enterprise characteristics (TEC)’ for more details.

TEC data are only disseminated by Eurostat. See item 12.2 ‘Relevance - User Satisfaction’ of the related metadata ‘ext_tec_sims - International trade in goods – trade by enterprise characteristics (TEC)’ for more details.

See item 12.3 ‘Completeness’ of the related metadata ‘ext_tec_sims - International trade in goods – trade by enterprise characteristics (TEC)’.

See document TEC Quality indicators

See item 13.1 ‘Accuracy - overall’ of the related metadata ‘ext_tec_sims - International trade in goods – trade by enterprise characteristics (TEC)’.

Not applicable.

Neither the international trade in goods statistics, nor the business registers are affected by errors related to sample surveys.

Not applicable.

See item 13.3 ‘Non-sampling error’ of the related metadata ‘ext_tec_sims - International trade in goods – trade by enterprise characteristics (TEC)’.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

See item 13.3.3 of the related metadata ‘ext_tec_sims- International trade in goods – trade by enterprise characteristics (TEC)’

See document TEC Quality indicators

See document TEC Quality indicators

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

See item 14.1 ‘Timeliness’ of the related metadata ‘ext_tec_sims - International trade in goods – trade by enterprise characteristics (TEC)’.

See document TEC Quality indicators

Not applicable.

See item 14.2 ‘Punctuality’ of the related metadata ‘ext_tec_sims - International trade in goods – trade by enterprise characteristics (TEC)’.

See document TEC Quality indicators

See item 15.1 ‘Comparability - geographical’ of the related metadata ‘ext_tec_sims - International trade in goods – trade by enterprise characteristics (TEC)’.

Not applicable.

Changes due to definitions, classifications, coverage or methods have an impact on the continuity of the time series. There is a change related to the definition of the intra- versus extra-EU areas following Croatia's adhesion to the EU in 2013 (from intra/extra-EU27 to intra/extra-EU28 partner areas).

The compilation of TEC data follows the requirements described by Eurostat in the respective Compilers guide on European statistics on international trade in goods by enterprise characteristics (TEC) related to a given reference year.

2012 - 2018

See item 15.3 ‘Coherence - cross domain’ of the related metadata ‘ext_tec_sims - International trade in goods – trade by enterprise characteristics (TEC)’.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

See item 15.4 ‘Coherence - internal’ of the related metadata ‘ext_tec_sims - International trade in goods – trade by enterprise characteristics (TEC)’.

TEC data are derived from information made available by two major statistical domains: the international trade in good s statistics and the business statistics. No specific data collection is then necessary, which means that the burden is null for the respondents, i.e. for the traders and businesses.

The cost of TEC data only relates to the compilation step carried out by the NSI.

Revision of TEC data is not foreseen if they passed all the validity checks and are approved by Eurostat.

Statistics by enterprise characteristics are only exceptionally revised.

Not applicable.

International trade in goods statistics by enterprise characteristics are derived from two data sources: the monthly detailed trade in goods data and data taken from the Business register.

Trade in goods data are collected on the basis of:

• a census for the intra-EU trade, the census units being the traders whose annual trade value is above the national Intrastat exemption threshold and who are then liable to submit an Intrastat declaration; and
• administrative forms, the customs declarations, for the extra-EU trade.

Note that missing data (exempted intra-EU traders, missing Intrastat declarations) are estimated by the NSI in order to disseminate trade in goods data covering 100% of the trade.

The national Business register serve as the sources for the enterprise characteristics. The state of the Business register on a particular date is used as a source for the compilation of TEC data.

Different administrative sources, as well as surveys, are used to update the Business register.

Intra-EU trade and Extra-EU trade

Monthly

Business Register

The frequency of updating the Business register depends on the kind of unit, the variable considered, the size of the unit and the source used for the update. Main economic characteristics in the Business register are updated annually. 

TEC data

Annual

Collection of trade in goods data

• For intra-EU trade, any VAT-registered business that trades goods with other EU Member States is required to provide information on its transactions. The information is collected electronically by the National Revenue Agency. All businesses are legally required to provide information on their total sales and purchases to and from other EU countries on their VAT returns. The largest ones also submit to the National Revenue Agency on a monthly basis within a fixed deadline Intrastat declarations. Both – the VAT returns and the Intrastat declarations are provided to the NSI for the production of intra-EU trade in goods statistics.
• For the compilation of extra-EU trade statistics, the standard data source is the customs declaration submitted by businesses and, in some cases, by private individuals involved in an international transaction of goods with a non-EU country. The customs declaration - the Single Administrative Document (SAD) is collected by the Customs Agency in electronic format and is transmitted to the NSI for the production of extra-EU trade in goods statistics.

 Collection of data for the Business Register

The maintenance of business registers is normally based on the effective use of various administrative and statistical data sources. The frequency of updating the business registers depends on the kind of unit, the variable considered, the size of the unit and the source generally used for the update. The key characteristics such as economic/stratification variables are updated annually. The state of the Business register on a particular date is used as a source for the compilation of TEC data.

Before the transmission of TEC data to Eurostat NSI validates them using 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 TEC datasets and trade values coming from aggregated and detailed trade in goods data.

See the section ‘Data validation’ of the Compilers guide on European statistics on international trade in goods by enterprise characteristics (TEC) for information on the main validation rules implemented.

Compilation steps

• The first step for the compilation of TEC is to establish a link between trade data and Business register, and construct the appropriate reference populations as described by Eurostat in section 5.4. of the respective Compilers guide on European statistics on international trade in goods by enterprise characteristics (TEC) related to a given reference year. At this step, the specific cases described in section 6 of the Compilers Guide should be considered.

• At the second step, the trade value of each trader is linked with the enterprise characteristics recorded in the Business register. Specifically, each trade operator provides a trade value by product and partner country. This is then combined with the main characteristics (economic activity sector, number of employees) of the enterprise in the Business register.

• The third step is to compile a number of Tables (Breakdowns) according to the data requirements of Eurostat defined in section 7.2. of the Compilers guide on European statistics on international trade in goods by enterprise characteristics (TEC). Reference population  ‘Trade with valid codes successfully matched with the Business Register’ is used in tables 1 to 6. The Tables transmitted to Eurostat in CSV format are as follows:

0. Reference populations (new Breakdown 11)
1. Trade by activity sector and type of trader (new Breakdown 7)
2. Trade by activity sector and enterprise size class (new Breakdown 2)
3. Concentration of trade by activity (new Breakdown 6)
4. Trade by partner countries and activity (new Breakdown 3)
5. Trade by number of partner countries and activity (new Breakdown 5)
6. Trade by commodity and activity (new Breakdown 10)

• The fourth step of the data compilation procedure is the definition of confidential data. A detailed description of the type of data confidentiality applied to international trade statistics as well as the rules applied to prevent data disclosure with minimum loss of information is given in Chapter 7 ‘Confidentiality’.

• The fifth step is to flag the confidential data identified in the fourth step.

• In the sixth step the final quality and validity checks are made by using the validation tool provided by Eurostat.

• The final step of data compilation refers to the transmission of data on TEC to Eurostat

No imputation made by Eurostat

Missing data (exempted intra-EU traders, missing Intrastat declarations) are estimated by the NSI. For the purposes of intra-EU trade the estimations of the missing Intrastat declarations (non-response) are made for each trader on CN2 level and partner country while the estimations on the exempted intra-EU traders (trade below the thresholds) are calculated only on CN2 level and partner country. For the purposes of TEC data and the distributions by traders of the estimated values for the trade below the thresholds VAT data is used. Therefore the estimated values for the trade below the thresholds are not distributed by CPA and by partner country and are treated as Unknown trade in the related tables (breakdowns).

Not applicable.

All reference documents and relevant information on TEC data can be found on the ‘Focus on enterprise characteristics (TEC)’ page of the ‘International trade in goods’ section on Eurostat website.