Czech Statistical Office

Agricultural and Forestry, Industrial, Construction, and Energy Statistics Department (51)
Industrial Statistics Unit (5101)

Český statistický úřad
Na padesátém 81
100 82 Praha 10

The PRODCOM survey provides information on industrial goods and services PRODuction of the European COMmunity in compliance with Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of 27 November 2019 on European business statistics. The Czech Statistical Office is responsible for compilation of these statistics in the Czech Republic.

PRODCOM data are collected via survey 'Annual questionnaire on industry'.

In the PRODCOM classification products are grouped by the NACE Rev.2, 4-digits industrial sectors, in which they are primarily produced (i.e. characteristic products). NACE Rev. 2 is the EU system for classifying economic activities. The value and quantity data shown for a product, therefore, includes not only the production by enterprises classified to the NACE sector where it is primarily produced but also its subsidiary production by enterprises classified to the other NACE Rev. 2 sectors.

Classification of Products
The PRODCOM list is divided into “Classes” corresponding to the classes of NACE rev 2. Within the  individual classes, the headings of the list are set out in ascending order of their PRODCOM codes. PRODCOM uses an eight-digit product code of the form XX.XX.XX.YY. The first four digits of the code correspond to the 4-digit classes of NACE Rev. 2. The first six digits are the Community Classification of Products by Activity (CPA) codes. The CPA provides a detailed listing of the characteristic products for each 4-digit NACE Rev. 2 economic activity. The last two digits provide a more detailed breakdown of the CPA classes into PRODCOM product headings. There is a direct link between the PRODCOM  classification and the EU foreign trade Combined Nomenclature (CN). Each PRODCOM 8-digit heading covers one or more CN 8-digit headings.

National version of the classification
National version of the classification of products is called CZ-PRODCOM list. The list is more detailed, corresponds to all industrial CPA classes, contains approximately 4200 headings.

Structure of a CZ-PRODCOM code is XXXXXYYZZ:

- The six digits of the CZ-PRODCOM code, i.e. XXXXXX, in most cases correspond to the six-digit numerical code of the CZ-CPA classification. Thus it is possible to apply explanations to the CZ-CPA classification when classifying products.

- XXXXXXYY is an eight-digit code corresponding to the European PRODCOM List. The seventh and eighth places in this code (YY) specify is more detailed item upon the CZ-CPA level.

- XXXXXXYYZZ is the ten-digit code of the CZ-PRODCOM product list. The ninth place in this code is used for more detailed national breakdown. The tenth place has a technical character and is used to indicate the measurement unit - number 1 means that the product / service is surveyed only in value. Number 2 means that fot the product / service both value and volume are surveyed.

To view the national classification, please see the link (Czech only).

The results cover both institutional sectors of non-financial corporations (S11) and households as entrepreneurs (S14.1 or 14.2).

The purpose of the statistics is to report, for each product in the PRODCOM List, how much industrial products and services has been produced in the reporting country during the reference period. This means that PRODCOM statistics relate to products (not to activities) and are therefore not strictly comparable with activity-based statistics such as Structural Business Statistics. The NACE codes on which PRODCOM codes are based merely serve to identify the enterprises that should be surveyed in order to determine the amount of production of the product.

The products: the PRODCOM List defines the products to be included in the survey. There are approximately 4.000 headings representing manufactured products and some industrial services.

The value and the volume of production: the value is expressed in national currency but where necessary converted to Euro by Eurostat. The volume is expressed in a unit specified for each product.

The volume/quantity unit: the measurement unit, such as kilograms, square metres etc. used to indicate the volume of goods produced.

Variables:

Actual production represents all production that was produced by the enterprise during the reference period, regardless of whether it was sold, stored in stocks, used for further processing or it was production under sub-contracted operations. Actual production is presented as quantity.

Total production sold is the production that was sold (invoiced) by the enterprise during the reference period. It does not matter whether this production was actually produced during the reference period (it could have been, for example, the sale of stock). It includes the production of own industrial products, industrial services, as well as production under sub-contracted operations. Production sold is presented as quantity and value.

Production sold includes production on own account and production of industrial services. Own production represents "traditional" industrial production. The enterprise is the owner of the input material, really produces the final product and sells it to the customer. Industrial service is an industrial production that does not create a new finished product defined in CZ-PRODCOM. These are only services leading to complete final products and ensuring its function: repairs and maintenance, installation and assembly, modifications and others. Production sold is presented as quantity and value.

Production under sub-contracted operations is a specific supplier-customer relationship, where the production company (processor) is not the owner of the input material or the completed finished product, but really produces it with its own employees and its own means of production. Value of the this production is equal to service provided, fee paid for the service, not to the value of the finished product. is presented as quantity and value (= fee paid).

Production is valued at basic current prices, which are invoiced by the manufacturer to the customer or forwarded to its own sales network. These prices do not include VAT, excise duty and customs duty; include a subsidy for the production or the service.

Reporting and observation unit is Kind-of-activity Unit, as identified by national business register.

The survey covers:

- all industrial units with 20 or more employees or with significant annual turnover, which are wholly, primarily or significantly engaged in industrial production and industrial services in industrial activities,

- small industrial units with high importance within a product,

- non-industrial units with important industrial activity.

The survey population covers approximately 9 000 units.

Czech Republic (no regional breakdown).

The observed period is 1 calendar year.

Since 1993 for selected products and aggregates, since 2002 for PRODCOM items.

Not applicable.

Volumes: units of measure are specific to each commodity code - for comprehensive enumaration, please see the List, column „MJ“.

Values: data are collected and stored as 1000 CZK, excl. VAT and excise duties.

The data are from the calendar year 2022.

This survey is carried out in compliance with following regulations:

At national level: Act No.89/1995 Coll. on the state statistical service of June 15, 1995, as amended (does not refer to any specific indicator), for full wording see link here.

At EU level: Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council (EU) No. 2019/2152 of 27 November 2019 on European business statistics (the EBS Regulation) (2019/2152).

Not applicable at Member States level.

The confidentiality policy is based on:

National level:

1. 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),
2. Law on protection of personal data,
3. The internal Directive No.3/2015 of the Czech Statistical Office (that defines the detailed rules, what exactly is seen as confidential).
   

EU level:

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.

CZ is applying the principle of active confidentiality. Data are only published if 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.

National level:
For each year, the Catalogue of Products is published at the end of the preceding year. The industrial products statistics data are published in electronic publication Production of Selected Industrial Products (No. 150140) and Production of Selected Industrial Products: Preliminary data in Eurostat structure (No. 150206).

National level:
Release calendar is available at the CZSO website, see link here.

National level:
The data are released in the CZSO website on the scheduled day of release. No user has pre-release access to the data.

EU level:

In line with the Community legal framework and the European Statistics Code of Practice Eurostat disseminates European statistics on Eurostat's website (see item 10 - 'Accessibility and clarity') respecting professional independence and in an objective, professional and transparent manner in which all users are treated equitably. The detailed arrangements are governed by the Eurostat protocol on impartial access to Eurostat data for users. PRODCOM data are accessible through Eurostat´s database.

Annually.

Not available.

Data are available in electronic publication Production of Selected Industrial Products and Production of Selected Industrial Products: Preliminary data in Eurostat structure, see the Catalogue of Products (publications No. 150140 and 150206).

Production of Selected Industrial Products: Preliminary data in Eurostat structure contains one year data only. The data are published in Prodcom (not CZ-Prodcom) codes level.

Production of Selected Industrial Products consists of four parts: Part A contains the volume and value of production for the last reference period according to the list of products valid for the reference year. Part B shows three-year time series of selected indicators. Part C involves the longer-term time series of production of selected comparable aggregates. Part D presents the data for the last reference period in a structure that corresponds to the data published by Eurostat. This part can be easily used for international comparison.

Selected tables are published in the Statistical Yearbook of The Czech Republic, which is available both in printed and electronic form.

In the publication Production of Selected Industrial Products, data from 2008 are available. Time series back to 1993 are published, for selected products or aggregates, in the publication. Older publications (2002 onwards) are available via CZSO Information Services Department.

Selected tables are available in the CZSO Public Database (VDB), see link here.

This dissemination channel for PRODCOM statistics is currently under development and future changes are foreseen.

According to the national legislation, the access to the microdata is allowed for scientific purposes only. Each request is decided on individual basis by the relevant expert group.

The data are regularly transmitted to Eurostat, see link here.

Important aspects and procedures of quality management within statistical production process as well as methodology are documented by the internal Statistical Metadata System (also in the form of so-called Technical projects), serving as instructions for surveyors (available for every produced statistics).

Technical projects in general contain description of the primary input data, data sources, definition of population, sampling procedure, processing technology, requirements for data transfer, control relations and checks, automatic corrections, derived indicators, definition of organization responsibilities, description of controls and relations, methodology of imputations, definition of outputs, description of input, source and user databases, backups, schedules of project and program preparation, schedules of preliminary and final processing, etc. In the CZSO there is a process of technical project preparation that is coordinated by the Department for Methodology of Performing Statistical Processing. For these purposes, every year the so-called Schedule of technical preparation of statistical surveys is discussed by the advisory bodies of the President, establishing the activities, the terms and the responsible units.
Regarding the documetation accesible to the wide public, a methodology section is published on the CZSO website - Statistics of industrial goods and services (PRODCOM) - Methodology. Advanced information on methodology appears occasionally in specialised periodicals.

The whole process of data production is driven by internal documentation (Technical project and the Statistical Metadata System), and this can be accessed by all interested parties (see the point 10.6).

"CZSO Quality Commitment" and "Quality policy of the CZSO" are part of the CZSO's Key Documents and are available on the CZSO website - link here.

The key components of the quality assurance are the following:

1. Strategic documents of the CZSO: Mission, Vision and Priorities of the CZSO, Quality commitment, Priority tasks defined for each year (link here);
2. Irregular methodological audits represent an important tool in quality control. Audits are usually carried out by groups formed both by internal and external experts (NA experts, representatives of universities, ministries, etc); 
3. Important aspects and procedures of quality management within statistical production process are documented by internal Statistical metadata system, including so-called Technical projects, eventually by instructions for surveyors (available for every produced statistics).

Punctuality and any errors in published data are systematically monitored. The main quality assurance activity for Prodcom is the data validation. Prodcom is published with a high level of detail, its accuracy therefore depends on data being checked in several ways.

Industrial products statistics data are collected via electronic system. Questionnaire and collecting system provide a number of arithmetic and logical controls, both mandatory and optional between the items in each form and between the forms in the whole annual report. There are a number of arithmetic and logical controls inside the questionnaire. The questionnaire cannot be filled-in successfully before all errors inside the questionnaire, detected by the checking program, have been corrected. 

The main users of PRODCOM data can be presented in different groups, namely:

  1) EXTERNAL/ INTERNATIONAL (OUTSIDE NSI), like:

• Institutions at European level: Eurostat
• Multi-national organizations: United Nations, FAO, ICAC, IFA

  2) EXTERNAL/ NATIONAL (OUTSIDE NSI), like:

• Institutions at national level - governamental: Ministry of Industry and Trade
• Institutions at national level - non-governamental: Czech National Bank, Trade unions, Media, Researchers and students, Companies

  3) INTERNAL (INSIDE NSI), like: National accounts, Environmental statistics, SBS, External Trade Statistics, Agricultural and Forestry Statistics, Price statistics.

No users satisfaction surveys are carried out exclusively for Industrial Products Statistics at the national level.

However, CZSO is constantly in contact with different groups of users, e.g. Ministry of Industry and Trade, Czech National Bank, different associations, internal users etc. Formal meetings with users are organized regularly by the General Methodology Department.

The CZSO provides Eurostat all the data requested by the EBS Regulation.

Sampling error is not relevant (exhaustive survey).

The sample is taken from Business Register. In 2022, 8.606 units were included.

In 2022, the unit response rate to the PRODCOM Survey was of 85,4 % of all the surveyed units. The issue of unit non-response is treated while collecting the questionnares (logical checks, contact with respondent), being covered by estimations.

Controls on the quality of the data:

• Stage 1 – Questionnaires are collected and checked by the special office staff. Questionnaire and collecting system provide a number of arithmetic and logical controls. Staff is in close contact with the respondents. Cross-survey checks are also included.
• Stage 2 – Central staff checks the preliminary results. Final results are approved and prepared for publication.

Sampling errors do not occur in the PRODCOM survey,as these statistics are collected by non-probability sampling (which means that it is a full coverage survey with a cut-off threshold).

The main types of non-sampling errors can be classified as follows:

• measurement errors (wrong codes, different measurement unit),
• data typing errors,
• unit non-response.

Unit non-response in 2022 is at the level of approx. 14,6 % (small units), each non-respondent is contacted several times (and then estimated, if necessary). All the errors are treated, analysed, consulted with the respondent and corrected, if necessary.

Item non-response indicator is irrelevant for the CZ; the statistical questionary is designed so that the case of item non-response is it not allowed to occure.

Imputation rate is 8,2 %.

Preliminary data are trasmitted to Eurostat in June, 6 months following the end of reference period and they are published on the CZSO website in July, 7 months following the end of reference period in the electronic publication Production of Selected Industrial Products: Preliminary data in Eurostat structure, see the Catalogue of Products (No. 150206).

Industrial Products Statistics data are published on the CZSO website in November, 11 months following the end of reference period in the electronic publication Production of Selected Industrial Products, see the Catalogue of Products (No. 150140).

The statistics are published without delay in relation to the scheduled date.

Not applicable at MS level.

Time series of selected products or aggregates back to 1993 are published.

An extensive revision of NACE in 2007 has resulted in changes to PRODCOM estimates for the 2008 survey onwards.

Since the publication of the data 2021, comparable data for 3 last years in the currently valid CZ-PRODCOM codes are published.

Implementation of EBS Regulation Requirements did not caused significant incomparability over time. The main change lies in the consistent inclusion of production under sub-contracted operations into the presented volumes/values.

Cross-checks are made between SBS, external trade and STS at micro and macro level. The cases with spotted differences are further analysed and, if necessary, corrected as well.

Not applicable.

For 2022, the estimated number of working hours spent by 1 respondent to fill-in the questionnaire: 5 hrs.

Data revisions follow the Revision Policy of the CZSO, which represents one of the key documents of the office (accessible via CZSO website in Czech & English, see link here).

Calendar of standard revisions is being prepared together with the release calendar.

After amandements in legal acts and detection of significant errors, the revisions of statistical idicators are performed.
Users are informed immediately about these results and changes, as well as about the planned revisions.

• At Y+ 6 months - the preliminary data are published (transmitted to Eurostat pursuant to Council Regulation (EEC) No. 3924/91 of 19 December 1991 on the establishment of a Community survey of industrial production).
• At Y+ 7 months - the preliminary data are published on the CZSO website (dataset Production of Selected Industrial Products: Preliminary data in Eurostat structure).
• At Y+ 11 months - more accurate data for the reference period are released (dataset Production of Selected Industrial Products is published).
• At Y+ 2 years - 1st data revision (corrections performed on the basis of the processing of the next period data) is carried out; the data are then considered as final and are released together with the results for the period Y+1y.

Because of the survey nature, which offers a higher potential for misclassification, occasional revisions over the whole length of the time series can be carried out.

Type of data source: Statistical survey (Prum 2-01).

Frame on which the source is based: Business Register (RES).

Sample or census: The cut-off treshold.

Criteria for stratification: Characteristics used for stratification are the activity, number of employees and the turnover as registered by the VAT declaration.

Threshold values and percentages: The survey population is made up of all units with prevailing industrial activity (classified in NACE Rev. 2 sections B to E) with 20 or more employees or significant annual turnover or small industrial units with high importance within procuction a code, or non-industrial units with important share of industrial acitivites.

Frequency of updating the sample: Sample design is carried out once a year.

Annually.

Questionnaires used in the survey: Prum 2-01.

Data available include:

• quantity and value of actual production,
• quantity and value of production sold,
• other indicators used in other statistical domains (NA, SBS, ITGS etc.)

Data are structured by type of production:

• own production,
• industrial services,
• production under sub-contracted operations – processor (subcontractor),
• production under sub-contracted operations – principal.

For definition of the variables, see point 3.4.

Data collection media: Electronic questionnaire, web questionnaire, printed questionnaire (starting 2013, the printed questionnaires are available only to those respondents which are impossible to contact electronically, or upon request).

Non-response treatment: Phone, email or postal reminders. The activity starts the next day after the deadline of the questionnaire. Fines can be given to non-responding units. The related processes are driven by internal Directive.

The data validation is driven by survey documentation (Technical project, SMS Ulohy), which describes approx.80 validation checks attributed to the processing of the questionnaire Prum 2-01. This contains:

• Validity of each attribute collected within the questionnaire (e.g. enterprise's ID, NACE, etc.)
• Logical checks between indicators inside the questionnaire
• Comparison over time (previous year)
• Cross-survey checks (STS, SBS)
• Comparison between enterprises belonging to the same category

Feedback from the validation on micro level is available also to reporting units in case of electronic data collection (electronic questionnaire, online data collection).

Data processing

When the survey population is selected from the Business Register, a detailed analysis is carried out by the staff dealing with the new "births" or reorganisations and, if there are issues detected, these are fed back to Business Register.

At level of the Regional Statistical Office:

•   receive the questionnaires;
•   data recording into a local database;
•   running of the IT tools for detecting the errors; data are corrected where necessary
•   contacts with respondents.

At Central Statistical Office, the folowing actions are taking place:

•   data validation from the macro level, and where necessary the enterprises are contacted through the Regional Statistical Offices
•   non-response treatment.

Estimates for non-response

Not responding units are imputed. Estimation for non-response is based on the results of the unit responded in previous period(s) or related enterprises. The estimate is based on STS and SBS data.

Results are aggregated to CZ-PRODCOM and PRODCOM code level, confidentiality is treated.

Training of staff – staff are given training on a regular basis which ensures that they are fully conversant with the survey forms.

Not applicable.

In 2022, COVID-19 did not have any significant impact on either the industrial production or data processing.

PRODCOM statistics is the second year under the new regulation No. 2019/2152 of 27 November 2019 on European business statistics. All the new concepts and processes have been introduced into routine.

The PRODCOM list 2022 introduced amount of changes and specifications compared to PRODCOM list 2021. This made increased demands on reporting units, methodological support of statistical stuff and within data validation. However, the comparability and quality of the data was fully ensured.