Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia - SURS

National accounts are primarily produced by the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia and the Bank of Slovenia.

The National Accounts Section at the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia is responsible for estimating gross domestic product, general government accounts and EDP, supply-use and input-output tables, non-financial accounts by institutional sectors and gross national income, non-financial assets, regional accounts and accrued-to-date pension entitlements in social insurance.
The Bank of Slovenia is responsible for financial accounts by institutional sectors and quarterly financial accounts of general government, balance of payments, and balance sheets for financial assets and liabilities.

SURS, Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia
Litostrojska cesta 54
SI-1000 Ljubljana
Slovenia

Bank of Slovenia
Slovenska cesta 35
SI-1505 Ljubljana
Slovenia

National accounts data concern all data produced and disseminated for an economy according to the definitions and guidelines of the European System of Accounts (ESA 2010).

National accounts provide data for the total economy, but may also include breakdowns of the total economy (into institutional sectors, industries, products, regions, etc.). National accounts provide data for several domains: annual and quarterly national accounts (main aggregates), sector accounts, financial accounts, supply and use and input-output tables, regional accounts and government finance statistics.

One of the main aggregates of national accounts is the change rate of the price-adjusted gross domestic product (GDP), which indicates the economic development of a country or region and is also referred to as economic growth rate.

The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia publishes all statistical data as well as national accounts data in its online SI-STAT database: http://pxweb.stat.si/pxweb/dialog/statfile1.asp

National accounts data are presented in the section “Economy-National Accounts” and organised into eight groups of tables:

• Gross domestic product, annual data (ESA 2010)
• Gross domestic product, quarterly data (ESA 2010)
• Input-output tables, supply and use tables (ESA 2010)
• Input-output tables, supply and use tables (ESA 1995)
• Non-financial sector accounts (ESA 2010)
• General government accounts (ESA 2010)
• Non-financial assets (ESA 2010)
• Regional accounts (ESA 2010)

The financial accounts data are published by the Bank of Slovenia and are available on its website: https://www.bsi.si/en/statistics/data-series/data-series.

In Eurobase, data for Slovenia are presented following the data structure as mentioned at Eurostat metadata.

The ESA 2010 provides methodology on common standards, definitions, internationally harmonised classifications and accounting rules that are used for compiling national accounts on comparable bases.

The ESA 2010 defines classifications to be used for: institutional sectors, transactions in products, transactions in non-financial non-produced assets, distributive transactions, transactions in financial assets and liabilities, other changes in assets, balancing and net worth items, balance sheet entries, non-financial assets, financial assets and liabilities.

In addition, for several breakdowns ESA 2010 makes use of other classifications: NACE Rev. 2 for economic activities, CPA 2014 for products by economic activities, COFOG for the functions of the government, COICOP for individual consumption by purpose, COPNI for classification of the purposes of non-profit institutions serving households, NUTS 2013 for regional breakdowns.

A full overview of international classifications is available in:

• ESA 2010 Chapter 23 Classifications
• Eurostat's RAMON classification database

The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia uses some national classifications for the collection, calculation, presentation and dissemination of data which are harmonised with the international classification:

• Standard Classification of Activities (SKD) is a national version of NACE Rev. 2. SKD presents the mandatory national standard for statistics and other administrative data collections and dissemination. The current version is SKD 2008 and is harmonised with NACE Rev. 2 down to the fourth digit. It is used for breakdowns of the economic activities.
• Standard Classification of Institutional Sectors (SKIS) has been a national standard since 1998. The current version of SKIS is based on ESA 2010 classification of institutional sectors.
• Standard Classification of Territorial Units (SKTE) is a compulsory national standard used for collecting, processing, analysing, transmitting and disseminating data on the territorial breakdown of the Republic of Slovenia. Up to the third level the SKTE is based on the NUTS classification. Levels in SKTE below the third level present administrative units, municipalities, etc., but they are not part of the NUTS classification and therefore not used for regional national accounts data.

Link to the national classifications and code lists: http://www.stat.si/StatWeb/en/Methods/Classifications.

National accounts describe the total economy of a country. All units that have their centre of predominant economic interest in the economic territory of that country are covered.

In addition, several breakdowns of the total are described. Two of the most important breakdowns are the breakdown by institutional sector and the breakdown by NACE Rev. 2 activity. Exhaustiveness is required for each of the breakdown items.

Concerning the institutional sector breakdown, ESA 2010 distinguishes five mutually exclusive domestic institutional sectors: (S.11) non-financial corporations; (S.12) financial corporations; (S.13) general government; (S.14) households; (S.15) non-profit institutions serving households. The five sectors together make up the total domestic economy. Each sector is also divided into subsectors.

Slovenian annual non-financial sectors accounts are also compiled for subsectors. General government is divided into S.1311 central government, S.1313 local government and S.1314 social security funds. The production approach of GDP for financial corporations is divided into central bank (S.121), other monetary financial institutions (S.122+S.123+S.124+S.125+S.126+S.127) and insurance corporations and pension funds (S.128+S.129). The production approach of GDP for non-financial and financial corporation is calculated separately for public corporations (s.11001 Public non-financial corporations and S.12001 Public financial corporations).

Regarding the activity breakdown, ESA 2010 applies NACE Rev. 2. Activities can be broken down into several levels of detail, for example into 3, 10, 21, 38, 64 or 88 activities. At the 'highest' level a breakdown into 3 categories is defined: (a) agriculture, forestry and fishing; (b) mining and quarrying, manufacturing, electricity gas steam and air conditioning supply, water supply, sewerage, waste management and remediation activities, construction; (c) services. Slovenian national accounts are compiled and published on NACE A64.

All statistical concepts and definitions to be used in national accounts are described in Annex A of the ESA 2010 Regulation (link to blue book on ESA2010 methodology). The two main sets of tables concern: (a) the institutional sector accounts; (b) the input-output framework, and the accounts by industry.

The sector accounts provide, by institutional sector, a systematic description of the different stages of the economic process: production, generation of income, distribution of income, redistribution of income, use of income and financial and non-financial accumulation. The sector accounts also include balance sheets to describe the stocks of assets, liabilities and net worth at the beginning and the end of the accounting period. The variables/concepts described in the sector accounts include transactions in products, transactions in non-produced non-financial assets, distributive transactions, transactions in financial assets and liabilities, other changes in assets, non-financial and financial assets and liabilities.

The input-output framework, through the supply and use tables, sets out in more detail the production process (cost structure, income generated and employment) and the flows of goods and services (output, imports, exports, final consumption, intermediate consumption and capital formation by product group). These variables are broken down by industry (NACE Rev. 2) and product (CPA 2014).

ESA 2010 also encompasses concepts of population and employment. Such concepts are relevant for the sector accounts, the accounts by industry and the supply and use framework.

Regional accounts provide regional breakdowns for major aggregates such as gross value added by industry, gross fixed capital formation and household income. Regional breakdowns are based on the NUTS classification. National accounts concepts are also used for regional accounts.

In addition Annex A of the ESA 2010 Regulation addresses and defines numerous other concepts and definitions, such as the definition of: statistical units and their groupings, flows and stocks, accounting rules (valuation, time of recording, consolidation and netting).  The main features and principles for the compilation of national accounts can be found in Chapter 1.

Following the ESA 2010 guidelines, in national accounts two types of units and two corresponding ways of subdividing the economy are used: (a) institutional unit; (b) local kind-of-activity unit (local KAU). The first type is used for describing income, expenditure and financial flows as well as balance sheets. The second type of units is used for the description of production processes, for input-output analysis and for regional analysis.

An institutional unit is an economic entity characterised by decision-making autonomy in the exercise of its principal function. A resident unit is regarded as constituting an institutional unit in the economic territory where it has its centre of predominant economic interest if it has a decision-making autonomy and either keeps a complete set of accounts, or is able to compile a complete set of accounts.

A local KAU groups all the parts of an institutional unit in its capacity as producer which are located in a single site or in closely located sites, and which contribute to the performance of an activity at the class level (four digits) of the NACE Rev. 2. An institutional unit comprises one or more local KAUs; a local KAU belongs to one and only one institutional unit.

All institutional units on the geographical and economic territory of Slovenia are the target statistical population as a source of information for building the national accounts such as the transactions, other changes in assets and stocks. National accounts are full coverage.

The reference area to which the national accounts data refer is Slovenia. In geographical terms, Slovenia (first level of NUTS) is divided into two cohesion regions (second level of NUTS) and twelve statistical regions (third level of NUTS).

The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia produces quarterly and annual national and regional accounts data in the scope of requirements and the lengths of the time series as defined in the transmission program of the ESA 2010 Regulation (link to ESA2010 transmission programme). In line with the ESA 2010 transmission programme the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia provides the data series that start in 1995 (years) and 1995Q1 (quarters): GDP, employment, compensation of employees, non-financial sector accounts (annually). Some series start later - general government expenditure by function (Table 11) in 1999 and quarterly financial account of general government (Table 27) - for missing years of data the derogations are opened until 2020. Quarterly non-financial sector accounts are available from 2005Q1 onwards. It should be mentioned that Slovenia belongs to the countries whose GDP at current prices represents less than 1% of the corresponding Union total and has limited transmission obligations for quarterly non-financial sector accounts. Annual financial accounts data start in 2001, while quarterly financial accouts are available from 2004Q1 on. The data series for non-financial assets and regional accounts starts in 2000.

The concept of 'base period' is not applied in national accounts. Instead, for some national accounts variables the concepts of previous year prices and chain-linked volumes are applied, as stipulated in Commission Decision 98/715/EC. Expressing variables at the prices of the previous year allows the calculation of volume indices between the current time period and the previous year. After a reference period is chosen as a benchmark, volume indices can be chain-linked and then applied to variables at current prices of the benchmark year. This generates volume estimates for any period of observation.

Slovenia currently uses 2010 as the reference year for the compilation of chain-linked volumes for annual and quarterly national accounts. The series of data are constructed in such a way that the value of an individual aggregate at current prices from 2010 is multiplied by the original volume growth rate for a particular year compared to 2010. In Slovenia the annual overlap method is used to compile chain-linking quarterly national accounts.

The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia follows the rules described above. Transactions on the economic territory of Slovenia are performed in the national currency euro (EUR). Until 2006 inclusive the national currency was Slovenian tolar (SIT) and the fixed exchange rate of 1 EUR=239.64 SIT to convert historical data to euro is used.

National accounts show all flows and stocks in monetary terms. Flows and stocks are measured according to their exchange value (market prices), i.e. the value at which flows and stocks are in fact, or could be, exchanged for cash.

Population and employment are expressed in the number of persons or hours of work.

Some national accounts variables are also expressed in previous year's prices and chain-linked volumes, see section 3.9. Furthermore, it is possible to derive growth rates and indices, and various other measures '(e.g. percentages, per capita data, data expressed in purchasing power standards)' can be applied as well.

The usual reference period to be used for presenting national accounts data is the calendar year for annual data and the quarter for quarterly data. National accounts data include flow variables and stock variables. Flows refer to actions and effects of events that take place within a given period of time (year or quarter), while stocks refer to positions at a point of time (usually the beginning or end of a year or quarter).

National accounts are compiled in accordance with the European System of Accounts (ESA 2010) which was published in the Official Journal as Annex A of Regulation (EU) No 549/2013. The ESA 2010 transmission programme is covered in Annex B.

The ESA 2010 has the form of a Regulation and it provides for:

• a methodology (Annex A) on common standards, definitions, classifications and accounting rules that shall be used for compiling accounts and tables on comparable bases (link to blue book on ESA 2010 methodology);
• a programme of data transmission (Annex B) setting out the time limits by which Member States shall transmit to Eurostat the accounts and tables (link to ESA 2010 transmission programme).

Temporary derogations to the data transmission requirements have been granted to Member States, up to 2020, by the Commission Implementing Decision 2014/403/EU of 26 June 2014 thus allowing national data to deviate temporarily from the ESA 2010 transmission requirements.

Several separate acts, often regarding classifications such as: NACE Rev. 2, CPA 2014, COFOG, COICOP, NUTS 2013.

Some other legal acts which are relevant for the compilation of national accounts:

• Regulation (EC) No 1161/2005 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 July 2005 on the compilation of quarterly non-financial accounts by institutional sector
• Commission Regulation No 2381/2015 of 17 December 2015 on implementing Regulation (EC) No 1059/2003 regarding the transmission of the time series for the new regional breakdown
• Council Regulation (EC) No 479/2009 of 25 May 2009 on the application of the Protocol on the excessive deficit procedure annexed to the Treaty establishing the European Community
• Commission Decision (EC) No 527/1998 of 24 July 1998 on the treatment for national accounts purposes of VAT fraud (the discrepancies between theoretical VAT receipts and actual VAT receipts)
• Commission Decision 98/715 of 30 November 1998 and Commission Decision 2002/990 of 17 December 2002 on measurement of price and volumes in national accounts

In addition to the legal acts mentioned above, the main legal acts that determine the status of performing activities of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia are the National Statistical Act (OJ RS, No 45/95 and 9/01)(link to NSA) and the Programme of Statistical Surveys (link to the medium-term program and link to the annual program). The Annual Programme of Statistical Surveys  which also determines the main tasks of the authorised producers of national statistics – the Bank of Slovenia and the National Institute of Public Health –, is available in the Slovenian language only.

The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia is obliged to deliver national accounts data in accordance with the European System of Accounts (ESA 2010) and the ESA 2010 transmission programme. The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia publication rule is to publish data in Slovenia before they are transmitted to Eurostat or any other data users. There are some cases when data are transmitted to Eurostat a few days before the publication due to the calculation process of the European aggregates at Eurostat. In such exceptional cases data are marked as confidential and are subject to embargo until the date of publication in Slovenia. In practise the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia transmits data to Eurostat via eDamis on the same day as data are published in Slovenia and for some datasets even before the delivery date from the ESA 2010 transmission programme.

The Bank of Slovenia is authorised to produce national statistics in the area of economic relations with the rest of the world, financial intermediation and national accounts. The date of the publications of the Bank's data is announced in the release calendar on the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia website and could be accesses on the day of publication through the links in the release calendar.

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. 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 Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia provides the statistical confidentiality with the help of legal, organisational and technological procedures. The National Statistical Act (NSA) in Article 2 clearly states that national statistics shall be implemented on the principle of statistical confidentiality. Article 34, paragraph 6 explicitly stipulates that the collected data shall be disseminated by the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia to the users in such a way that the reporting unit involved cannot be identified. Article 46 provides that data collected on the basis of the programme of statistical surveys may be used solely for statistical purposes, unless otherwise provided by law. Article 50 defines that statistics may be published in aggregate form only.

All employees at the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia are informed about the elements of statistical confidentiality pointing out the importance of information privacy and personal data protection. Every employee has to sign the confidentiality declaration at the same time as the contract of employment. The declaration includes also information on the consequences of violating legal acts.

The access to microdata for the scientific-research community (researchers) is allowed under the specific rules or protocols. The Committee on Statistical Confidentiality provides opinion regarding statistical confidentiality and microdata access for research purposes to the Director-General. After the approval is granted the researchers must sign the contract for microdata access before they can access statistically protected microdata either in the secure room or as remote access or using a portable medium. 

Confidentiality regarding personal data is required in the national legislation (Personal Data Protection Act; only in the Slovenian language) and in the European legislation (General Data Protection Regulation). 

In a statistical sense, ‘confidential data’ means 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. Although national accounts data are usually highly aggregated, there may be possible cases for detailed breakdowns of aggregates and/or small economies. In these cases measures should be taken not to disclose data of an individual statistical unit. Guidance on how to prevent disclosure can be found in the Handbook on Statistical Disclosure Control.

In general, the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia provides full confidence to data providers (i.e. persons, households, enterprises and other organisations), i.e. protects their identity and confidentiality of provided information. Also the disseminated data do not enable direct or indirect identification of an individual statistical unit due to different methods of statistical disclosure control for microdata and tabular data being used (link to the Statistical disclosure control for microdata) (link to the Statistical disclosure control for tabular data).

All Slovenian national accounts data transmitted to Eurostat are free for publication (F flag). Only the quarterly sector accounts data and the employment data are transmitted under the embargo date because they are published nationaly a few days after the transsmition. The national rule is that data are published on the national website first and then transmitted to Eurostat.

The advance release calendar is publicly available and published at the end of the year for the following year.

The release calendar includes national accounts releases, i.e. First Release, Electronic Releases (updates of the SI-STAT Database) and other publications. The search engine allows browsing by theme (i.e. GDP and National Accounts), sub-theme (i.e. GDP and Economic Growth, Supply and use tables, Input-output tables, Non-financial Sector Accounts, Financial Accounts, Government Deficit and Debt, Government Accounts, Non-financial Assets, Regional Accounts), producers (Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia and Bank of Slovenia) and time.

The release calendar contains the following information: original date, rescheduled date and reason for the date change.

The release calendar is accessible from the home page of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia website (link to release calendar). Users can subscribe to the release calendar via email or RSS to receive notifications about releases. In case of a change to the original schedule users are informed in advance.

The release policy of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia determines that all users have equal access to statistical releases at the same time and in the same manner. Users are informed when data will be available by the release calendar.

The dissemination policy of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia is presented in greater detail in the Guidelines for Quality Assurance (link to guidelines) in Chapter 7 “Dissemination of data”, and in the Style Guide (link to guide)(only in the Slovenian language) in Chapter 4 “Dissemination strategy” and in Chapter 11 “Releasing of statistical data and information”. In Chapter 13 basic rules and guidelines from different instructions (for correcting errors, revisions, citations, copyright, and use of statistical signs) are available to users too.

In line with the Community legal framework and the European Statistics Code of Practice (Principle 6 on impartiality and objectivity, Principle 13 on timeliness and punctuality and Principle 15 on accessibility and clarity), users of national accounts data of Slovenia could obtain data on the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia website, via mail or email, phone and by visiting the Information Centre during office hours.

Quarterly national accounts data are published each quarter: 4 times per year. However, initially released quarterly national accounts data may be revised and disseminated again.

Annual national accounts data are published at least once a year: when data for a new year are added. But annual data can also be published more often, e.g. publication of provisional estimates early in the calendar year and of revised data later in the calendar year.

National accounts data are published according to the national release calendar where ESA 2010 transmission programme is followed. Please see also sections 8.2 Release calendar access and 17.2 Data revision - practice.

The most important results of national accounts are issued in news releases. New key national accounts data may also be presented in press conferences or press briefings. The exact dates are pre-announced in release calendars (see section 8.1 above).

The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia publishes first data in accordance with the release calendar as First Release at 10:30 (local time) in Slovenian and English. The first release contains the most relevant and interesting general data and information presented in a clear and understandable (comprehensible) way. At the same time of the day data are announced at a press conference. The quarterly GDP and general government deficit and debt are regularly presented at a press conference. Press conferences are recorded and made available to the users (link to the press conference). The date of the next press conference is announced in advance. National accounts data are sent to Eurostat on the day of release.

National accounts data are also published in annual statistical publications of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia, such as Stat’o’book – statistical overview of Slovenia and Regions in figures – statistical portrait of Slovenian regions. Some other national accounts indicators such as household saving rate are present in special publications on memorial days – World Savings Day. All publications are published in Slovenian and English versions. In the brochure National Accounts on the Economic Crisis in Slovenia the most important national accounts indicators which become more interesting during the economic crisis were presented.

In order to enable easy access to national accounts data, all validated national accounts data should be made available to users by publishing them in an online database.

National accounts data are available in the SI-STAT Database and in the database of the Bank of Slovenia where financial accounts data are kept. The access to the statistical database is on the first page of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia website. The database is divided by fields of statistics – select “Economy” – than by subject areas – select “National Accounts”.  “National Accounts” is divided into several groups of data sets (see section 3.1). Tables in PC-Axis format allow direct access via the web interface, a selection of categories to view, save in different formats and subscription for notification of the updated data (only for registered users). Users can download tables, charts, maps, metadata and methodological explanations. All national accounts data that are published are available to users free of charge.

Not applicable.

In addition to news releases and other publications (see sections 10.1 and 10.2), information on national accounts may be posted using social media.

Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia Facebook messages can be accessed here: @StatSlovenija

Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia Twitter messages can be accessed here: @StatSlovenija

Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia publishes various publications also in English (link to catalogue of publications).

The general methodological framework for the compilation of national accounts in the EU is ESA 2010.

In addition, several handbooks have been developed to help compilers to produce national accounts data. Some of the most important methodological manuals are the Handbook on Quarterly National Accounts, the Manual on Regional Accounts Methods, the Eurostat Manual of Supply, Use and Input-Output Tables, and the Manual on Government Deficit and Debt. Also, guidance manuals on specific topics are available, e.g. compilation guide on land estimation, compilation guide on inventories, Manual on Measuring Research and Development in ESA 2010.

The manuals above specifically apply to EU national accounts statistics. However, world-wide equivalents are often also available: SNA 2008, Quarterly National Accounts Manual, Handbook on Input-Output Table Compilation and Analysis, Government Finance Statistics Manual.

The methodology of national accounts data in Slovenia is clearly presented in the methodological explanations and is available to all potential users of national accounts data of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia website (link to the methodology-Theme: Gross Domestic Product and National Accounts, Material: methodological explanation - content) (in Slovenian and English).  

The national methodology explanations are:

In addition, various inventories of national accounts data are prepared which contain detailed descriptions of methods and sources. The inventories of national accounts data for Slovenia are:

• Inventory of sources and methods for price and volume measures in national accounts, National accounts Section, Slovenia, June 2010 (see link)
• Regional accounts inventory, national accounts section, Slovenia, June 2011 (see link). (It is however still based on ESA 95 methodology)
• Annual Sector Account Inventory for Slovenia is published on Eurostat website (see link) (It is based on ESA 2010 methodology)
• GNI Inventory (only Chapter 1) for Slovenia is publicly available on the CIRCABC site "Monitoring GNI for own resource purposes"

EDP Inventory for Slovenia is published on the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia website (see link).

The importance of national accounts requires that documentation should be available on the procedures applied for quality management and quality assessment. Examples of such documentation are national accounts quality reports, quality studies and reports on revision analysis.

The quality of the national and regional accounts data submitted to Eurostat by Slovenia are presented in the quality report which includes the overall assessment for the different quality criteria: relevance, accuracy, timeliness and punctuality, accessibility and clarity, and coherence. Eurostat is in the process of preparing the annual Quality Report on National and Regional Accounts in which assessment of all countries will be included.

The quality of national accounts data is assured by strict application of ESA 2010 concepts and by applying the guidelines of the ESS handbook for quality reports.

During the overall compilation process, national and regional accounts data undergo several kinds of quality checks, e.g. ex-ante (source statistics), ongoing (results), ex-post (methods used) and external checks (Eurostat).

Eurostat provides methodological validation of GNI data and EDP data. If the data are not methodologically correct, Eurostat puts action points and gives reservations on data.

Slovenia regularly fulfils questionnaires from Eurostat (metadata reports, quality reports) relating to individual domains (gross national income, quarterly sector accounts, quarterly national accounts) and sends them back. These questionnaires are not published on the national website or on the Eurostat website, but they are used only for statistical purposes.

National accounts data provide key information for economic policy monitoring and decision making, for forecasting, for administrative purposes, for informing the general public about economic developments (directly or indirectly via news agencies), and as input for economic research.

At national level the most important data users of national and regional accounts data are: the Ministry of Finance, the Bank of Slovenia, the Institute of Macroeconomic Analysis and Development of Slovenia, the Government Office for Development and European Cohesion Policy as well as other economic and social bodies in the public and private sectors. These institutions mainly use the data for preparing economic policy measures and making decisions on investment, consumption and wages, drafting the state budget, for different analyses and forecasting purposes, for effective monitoring of the economic policy.

The next important groups of users are scientific and academic communities, economic researchers and survey methodologists from the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia that use data to analyse the economy in different aspects.

International institutions such as the European Commission, the ECB and the OECD receive national accounts data of Slovenia from Eurostat, which is responsible for the validation and sharing of the data. These institutions use the data to prepare and implement monetary policy, to maintain price stability, to support governments in implementing policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of its inhabitants.

Views and opinions of users of national accounts statistics can be collected and analysed as one of the tools to 'measure' the relevance of national accounts data.

In general, the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia cooperates with stakeholders (users of statistical data and data providers) through the Statistical Council of the Republic of Slovenia and statistical advisory committees to provide quality, timely and relevant statistics. Users of national accounts data can express their views and opinions on the National Accounts, and Financial and Monetary Statistics Advisory Committee meetings which are organised on a regular basis.

The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia monitors and analyses the use of statistical data by using Google analytics (counts of page-views of First Releases and the individual tables in the SI-STAT Database). The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia has also a database of subscribers to First Releases and to tables in the SI-STAT Database.

User satisfaction surveys are also regularly implemented. The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia organises the annual international statistical conference “Statistical Day” focused on the user perspective of different statistical challenges. Data about users’ requests are gathered also via the Information Centre and with bilateral contacts.

In most countries national accounts cover these domains: national accounts main aggregates, government accounts, sector accounts, regional accounts and supply and use tables. However, the content of the data on these domains as well as the (details of the) various breakdowns (by region, sector, industry, product, etc.) may deviate per country, depending on national needs and available sources.

The ESA 2010 transmission programme, consisting of 22 tables across all national accounts domains (see section 10.3), defines the minimum national accounts data set that must be available in all EU Member States.

The overall completeness of the Slovenian National Accounts data for the data series since 1995 as required by the ESA 2010 Transmission Programme is high. According to the ESA 2010 transmission programme the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia provided complete datasets for nearly all tables. The small data gaps observed in few tables (1% incompleteness) are due to late availability of data sources or insufficiency of data sources in earliest years (before 2002). Slovenia plans to improve data. For the missing data (assessment of land (Table 26), general government expenditure by function (Table 11) and quarterly financial account of general government (Table 27)) - for those the derogations are opened until 2020.

The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia also provides substantial information on voluntary basis. This holds particularly for main aggregates and non-financial sector accounts (as a country's GDP at current prices represents less than 1% of the EU total GDP).

National accounts data are constantly exposed to accuracy checks by verifying any change implemented during the same production round with respect to the previous version of the same quarter or year and with respect to the previous release. The changes are calculated as a growth rate and/or as a percentage of GDP or GNI. The difference that arises is the result of the revisions caused by routine revisions and/or by changes in methods and sources. Revised national accounts data are published with regular publications in line with the Release Calendar.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

National accounts data should become available to users as timely as possible, taking into account the frequency of the data (annual or quarterly), the character of the data (info on the structure of an economy or on conjuncture developments) and an adequate balance between accuracy and timeliness.

The ESA 2010 transmission programme defines the required timeliness for all national accounts tables. Quarterly tables should become available between 2 and 3 months after the quarter-end. Annual tables have to be transmitted between 2 months (main aggregates) and 36 months (supply and use tables) after the end of the reference year. 

Slovenia delivers most of the national accounts data to Eurostat according to the legal required timeliness. The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia strives to publish relevant and high-quality national accounts data as soon as possible, so the potential users could use them. Such examples are GDP, which is published eight months after the end of the reference year, regional accounts and non-financial assets, which are published as the first estimate between 10 and 12 months in the current year for the previous year, and supply and use tables, which are published 30 months after the end of the reference year.

Good practice requires that the dates on which national accounts data become available are pre-announced and that the pre-announced publication dates are met.

National accounts data transmissions in the framework of the ESA 2010 transmission programme should be punctually delivered to Eurostat at the timeliness defined in the transmission programme (or before).

Slovenia has successfully transmitted all required data in a timely manner. Some data (e.g. annual GDP, regional accounts data, supply-use tables) are transmitted before the required date.

The geographical comparability of the national accounts in EU Member States is ensured by the application of common definitions of the European System of Accounts ESA 2010. Worldwide geographical comparison is also possible as most non-European countries apply the SNA 2008 guidelines, and SNA 2008 is consistent with ESA 2010.

In Slovenian national accounts data most ESA 2010 concepts are fully applied. National accounts data comprise all business entities performing the economic activity in the economic territory of Slovenia. The economic territory is equal to the geographical territory under the administrative control of Slovenia.

Regional accounts data are calculated and presented according to the Standard Classification of Territorial Units in the European Union at NUTS 2 (two cohesion regions) and NUTS 3 (twelve statistical regions) disaggregated level.

As the data for all reference periods are compiled according to the requirements of the ESA 2010, national accounts data are fully comparable over time. Also, in the case of fundamental changes to methods or classifications, revisions of long time series are performed, usually going far back into the past.

Within the system of national accounts there is full consistency between the domains: annual and quarterly national accounts, government accounts, sector accounts, regional accounts, supply and use tables. However, in practice full consistency may not always be possible and temporary discrepancies might occur. They are usually the result of vintage differences. Non-financial sector accounts and financial sector accounts are not consistent.

Primary statistics such as structural business statistics (SBS), short term statistics (STS) and labour force statistics (LFS) are widely used as input for national accounts. However, there is no full consistency between these statistical domains and national accounts. Main reasons are differences in concepts/definitions and in coverage. Balance of payments is also used as an important source for national accounts. The definitions and coverage of balance of payments, as defined in the BPM6 manual, are fully harmonised with those in ESA 2010. Therefore, balance of payments variables are in principle fully coherent with the corresponding national accounts variables.

Slovenian national accounts data are coherent in terms of cross domain coherence and internal coherence. Data are also coherent in terms of additivity. Annual data are consistent with the sum of four individual quarters (e.g. B1GQ Gross domestic product, B2A3G Gross operating surplus and gross mixed income) or with the average of 4 quarters (e.g. EMP Total employment). There is also coherence between totals and sum of components (e.g. sum of activity breakdowns). Identical variables are consisted across national accounts main aggregates. 

Occasionally inconsistencies may occur between different domains, e.g. between annual sector accounts and main aggregates of general government, discrepancy between S.2 RoW and balance of payment data (BoP), when adjustments of primary source data were not included in both compilations at the same time.

See section 15.3 (Coherence - cross domain).

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National accounts data are subject to continuous revisions as new input data become 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. For example, when changing from ESA95 to ESA 2010, a benchmark revision occurred at country level and at euro area/EU data level.

Two Task Forces developed proposals for a more harmonised approach for benchmark and routine revisions. The one under the auspices of the Directors of Macroeconomic Statistics (DMES) dealt with benchmark revision policy, the other under the auspices of the Committee on Monetary, Financial, and Balance of Payments Statistics (CMFB) on the European Harmonised Revision Policy dealing with routine revisions. 

Slovenia publishes on its website the information on revision policy included in comprehensive set of methodological documentation (see section 10.6 “Documentation on methodology”).

While revisions should be seen as a process to progressively improve the quality of national accounts as e.g. better sources and/or methods become available, the availability of metadata on revisions is a key element for understanding national accounts data and revisions between subsequent releases.

Therefore, information on the main reasons for revisions and their nature (new source data available, new methods, etc.) as well as possibly quantitative and qualitative assessment on the average size of revisions and their direction based on historical data is required.

Revised national accounts data are published within regular publication of Slovenian national accounts. The information concerning the revision policy for national and regional accounts domains for Slovenia is published within the First Release. Detailed information and history of revisions can be found within the methodological explanation on individual domains (in Slovenian and English) and accessible on the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia website (see section 10.6 “Documentation on methodology”). Regarding revision policy implementation, the recommended harmonized revision policy is not yet fully applied, which allows for visible and temporary inconsistencies due to the vintage effect.

Data sources used for compiling national accounts data in Slovenia vary depending on the specific dataset (annual/quarterly national accounts, sector accounts, supply-use and input-output table, government finance statistics, and regional accounts). The scope, breakdown and timeliness of the data are defined in agreements with institutions which collect data in their own fields of work and with holders of administrative data collections. National and regional accounts compilation builds up on statistics that are primarily collected for other purposes (primary statistics). The most important data sources used are administrative sources (i.e. annual accounting statements, financial statements for insurance companies, reinsurance companies and pension funds, budgetary statistics and balance sheets for general government, budget of municipalities, health and pension fund data, customs declarations, monthly reports on value added tax and excise duties, and annual income tax declaration, etc.), statistical data sources (survey of non-financial corporations, economic accounts for agriculture and for forestry, annual industry report, construction, transport, R&D, wholesale and retail trade etc.), statistical register of employment and population census.

Overall, it is difficult to be exhaustive in the listing of all data sources. The main data sources are listed and described in inventories that are regularly updated. Also some additional information on the data sources and collection methods are provided in the methodological explanations on the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia website (see section 10.6 “Documentation on methodology”).

The National Accounts Section collects or receives data in relation to the compilation schedule, separately for annual and for quarterly estimates of national accounts data. The frequency of data collection of primary statistics varies according to the nature of the data source. Data of primary statistics are available either monthly (e.g. Survey on Building Permits, tourism statistics), quarterly (e.g. Quarterly Performance of Enterprises, statistics on telecommunications), annually (e.g. Annual Industry Report, Economic Accounts for Agriculture, Annual Statistical Survey on Construction, Annual Survey on Trade) or every four years (e.g. Labour Cost Survey), or five years (e.g. the structure of intermediate consumption and output). The register-based censuses of population, households and housing are available every 3 to 4 years.

The accessibility of the external data is defined in agreements with institutions which collect statistics in their own fields of work and with holders of administrative data collections.

The availability of the data sources and clear descriptions of them (variables collected, periodicity, organization collecting the data, etc.), can be found in methodological explanation or in inventories of national and regional accounts (see section 10.3 - 'Dissemination format').

The data collection is very country specific and also varies according to the nature of the data source, e.g. administrative data, tax and car registers, surveys, accounting statements. Guidance can be found in the Handbook of Recommended Practices for Questionnaire Development and Testing Methods in the ESS.

The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia has a legal mandate to collect information for the development, production and dissemination of European statistics. According to the National Statistics Act and the Programme of Statistical Surveys the holders of official and administrative data collections are obliged to submit to the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia all requested information free of charge and use valid national standards (classification of economic activities, classification of institutional sectors, unique identifications of businesses and people). They also must notify the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia and ask for its opinion prior to setting new or amending existing statistical official or administrative data collections. The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia has the right to use identifiable individual data from all sources and may mutually link all individual data.

The National Accounts Section in Slovenia in general does not collect data by itself but receives them from other statistical sections in the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia or from other institutions. Notwithstanding the legal basis described above, the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia shall sign a separate agreement and technical protocol with the institution (e.g. AJPES, Tax and Customs Administration, Ministry of Finance, Bank of Slovenia etc.).

The National Accounts Section conducts in cooperation with the Agency of the Republic of Slovenia for Public Legal Records and Related Services (AJPES) an annual statistical survey for collecting of dividends paid by joint-stock companies. Every 5 years a specially designed survey for collecting data on the costs in enterprises is carried out also by the National Accounts Section. With this survey data on intermediate inputs in enterprises are acquired and also the additional information about the structure of the output.

Data validation refers to any activity aimed at verifying that the value of a data item comes from a given set of acceptable values. It is a key task performed in all statistical domains and particularly important for national accounts, which is a key dataset for economic analysis and policy decisions.

In order to increase overall data quality and workflow efficiency, the European Statistical System (ESS) is moving towards more harmonisation of validation activities including the definition of common standards, tools and support for implementation (see ESS validation website). National accounts are a pilot in this area. An ESA 2010 Task Force on validation was established in 2015 to agree on and document validation rules in an ESA 2010 validation handbook and progressively implement them in a pre-validation service for national accounts data. 

National accounts data are calculated by using data from different sources. All data sources are regularly cross-checked, verified and validated with the aim to achieve relevance and accuracy of the estimations of national accounts. For the validation of national accounts data, the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia applies minimum validation rules agreed with Eurostat and provides metadata to support the validation process with respect to revisions and outliers.

Data sources, methods and compilation techniques are country specific, but should be employed in such a way that the definitions and concepts in ESA 2010 are met. Many guidance documents on general and specific national accounts compilation issues are available. See for more details section 10.6. “Documentation on methodology”. 

Key approaches and techniques for the compilation of national accounts are summarised as follows:

The primary approach for estimating GDP in the framework of annual national accounts in Slovenia is the production approach. GDP by the production approach is prepared as an independent estimate, covered by exhaustive data sources for all sectors of the economy. It is based on the direct method. GDP by the income approach is estimated at the same time and with the same data sources as GDP by the production approach and with the operating surplus and mixed income as balancing items. The most important benefit of estimating GDP by the income approach at the same time and with the same sources as GDP by the production approach is that it is possible to clarify all steps and problems of transforming basic raw data into national accounts figures in detail. GDPs are also estimated by the expenditure approach. Consistency is obtained via reconciliation and balancing process.

The same approach is used for the compilation of quarterly national accounts.

Sector accounts are compiled when the main aggregates of GDP, of government sector accounts and of the rest of the world accounts are available. They are pulled in compilation tables where all necessary steps to ESA 2010 concepts and definitions are done. Compilation of sector accounts items which are not included in GDP compilation is done item by item for all S.1 sectors and S.2 RoW and also balancing of resources and uses is done in such a way. The difference between annual financial and non-financial accounts is regularly monitored. The difference is the lowest in the government sector but we do not do reconciliation of accounts. The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia and the Bank of Slovenia strive to diminish differences and to explain the reasons for them.

In compiling regional accounts the same statistical concept and definitions are used as for compiling national accounts. Regional and national accounts also have largely common data sources and completely consistent end results. Some methods of compiling regional accounts allow using of national accounts data which are usually based on various data sources at a much more detailed level than the level of the data sources used in compiling regional accounts. Regional accounts data on GVA are compiled by using top-down and bottom-up approaches. Regional GFCF are regionalized with bottom-up methods. GFCF are allocated to the region where the object of investment is located (the territorial principle) and distributed to activities to which investment is intended (the kind of activity principle). In Slovenian regional accounts the majority of the compensation of employees is regionalized with bottom-up methods. Compensation of employees by region is calculated from the aspect of the payer – this means that compensation of employees is allocated to the region of the payer’s headquarters. Regional household accounts are limited to the distribution accounts, without the production of income accounts. Distributing the data on different incomes or expenditure of the household members is based on the exhaustive data sources which include the information on individual’s address, municipality or administrative unit.

The basis for the compilation of supply and use tables at constant previous prices is supply and use tables at current prices. For deflator price indices from statistical surveys conducted by the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia and other organisations in the field of prices are used. In some cases implicit price indices on the basis of quantity indicators of growth in volume are used instead.

National accounts datasets are generally consistent.

The objectives of seasonal adjustment are to identify and remove seasonal fluctuations and calendar effects which can mask short- and long-term movements in a time series and impede a clear understanding of underlying phenomena. Seasonal adjustment is therefore a fundamental process in the interpretation of time series to inform policy making (ESS guidelines on seasonal adjustment, 2015 Edition, Annex, point 1).

For selected sub-annual national accounts data, such as notably the quarterly main aggregates, time series are usually not only published in their unadjusted form, but also with various types of adjustment (e.g. seasonal, calendar, trend-cycle).

According to the ESA transmission programme, quarterly data are to be provided in non-seasonally adjusted form, as well as in seasonally adjusted form (including calendar adjustments, where relevant) except for previous year’s prices.

The provision of quarterly data that only include calendar adjustments is voluntary.

For sector accounts, seasonal adjustment (including calendar adjustments, where relevant) is compulsory for a limited set of series. 

In Slovenia the annual overlap method is used to compile chain-linking quarterly national accounts. The chain-linking formula applies several checks. It applies the consistency check for quarterly-Q.N. and annual national accounts data-A.N. Each time annual data are revised the series of quarterly data are provided, which means that quarterly and annual series are consistent at all times. Additionally, the consistency checks for sub-components with aggregates at all time series are also applied. Therefore, every time when data are revised, all affected series are disseminated to ensure that the overall dataset remains consistent. 

For all series for which the calendar effect is statistically significant the seasonally adjusted series include a calendar adjustment. The calendar effects are calculated from the original quarterly national accounts series. Q.Y. is derived from Q.N. The seasonally adjusted series for the income or expenditure components of GDP are marked with an S code, while the production components are marked with a Y code. The equality of seasonally adjusted series to the original annual series is not ensured (time consistency is not imposed to the seasonally adjusted data). The seasonally adjusted series at current prices are not additive because a direct approach is used to all series including GDP. Each series is seasonally adjusted directly at the publishing level. This relates also to aggregates, such as total value added or gross domestic product. The exception is external trade balance, which is obtained as a difference between exports of goods and services, and imports of goods and services. The additivity check is not applied to seasonally adjusted data.

At the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia the TRAMO/SEATS method and JDemetra+ software is applied for seasonal adjustment of quarterly national accounts data. The time series model is revised in detail and corrected about once a year. Using the model the time series is decomposed into: the trend cycle component, the seasonal component (consisting of seasonal effects and of the calendar effect) and the irregular component. The calendar effect is composed of the working day effect, the leap-year effect, the holiday effect and the Easter effect.

For more, see the general methodological explanations Seasonal adjustment of time series.

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