Croatian Bureau of Statistics

Construction Statistics Department

Ilica 3

10000 Zagreb

Croatia

Construction producer price index is part of the overall STS indicator system which supports business cycle observation. The construction price indices are compiled for a choice of selected important products in types of construction (e.g. residential buildings). Data are collected by using the reporting method on the Quarterly Construction Report, GRAĐ-41 form.

NACE Rev.2. and Classification of Types of Constructions – CC.

In order to meet STS data requirements, data presented according to CC Classification is converted according to CPA ver. 2.1 - Statistical Classification of Products by Activity.

Entities that are at the same time contractors of construction works, that is, who are engaged in the sale of new dwellings, regardless of whether they carry out construction works with own facilities or through specialised companies.

This statistical survey covers a limited number of entities. Their selection is based on their activity, number of persons in employment and/or net turnover. The survey covers the next activities:

NACE class 4110 – net turnover > 265.000 euros

NACE class 4120 – number of persons employed > 20 or net turnover > 265.000 euros

NACE class 7111 – net turnover > 265.000 euros

Besides, address book is permanently updated with entities which are marked as investors in the Monthly report on issued building permits (irrespective of NACE class).

Excluded are entities that solely intermediate in the sale of the existing dwelling stock, that is, "old dwellings".

Construction costs of new dwellings include most of the main construction items according to the NACE Rev. 2 (demolition of the existing facilities, cleaning of construction site, excavation works, erection of buildings, erection of roof covering and frames, installation and final works) as well as constructor’s profit margins.

Excluded are the costs of building sites and other costs (fees on acquiring building permits, building design and drafting, land surveying activities, supervision of construction, different taxes, insurance costs, interests on loans, VAT, expenses and profit of a business entity that ordered the construction for further sale on the market).

Excluded are construction costs of new dwellings on which only rough construction works were conducted (the so called "Rohbau").

Data are collected quarterly and include construction costs of new dwellings sold as well as constructor’s profit margins during the reporting quarter.

Statistical unit is kind of activity unit. It coincides with the reporting unit.

Construction costs of new dwellings as well as constructor’s profit margins (mainly in the multi-dwelling residential buildings).

Survey frame on which the source is based is Address book maintained by CBS construction unit, derived from the Statistical Business Register and regularly is updated from other available sources (e.g. with entities which are marked as investors in the Monthly report on issued building permits).

The survey covers about 227 reporting units.

The data refers to the whole territory of the Republic of Croatia - no regions are excluded. The regional coverage has not changed in any way.

Since 2000. There are not time series available before 2000.

Reference year is 2021. The same reference period is applied to the data released nationally and transmitted to Eurostat. Publication date of the index for period 1q/2024 is chosen for changing the reference year.

Indices, percentage changes (%).

Quarter.

The length of the reference period is flows during the calendar quarter.

The legal basis for the Quarterly Statistical Survey on Prices of Sold New Dwellings (GRAĐ-41 form) are:

The Official Statistics Act (OG, No. 25/20)

Zakon o službenoj statistici (nn.hr)

Programme of Statistical Surveys of the Republic of Croatia 2021 – 2027 (OG, No 29/22)

Program statističkih aktivnosti Republike Hrvatske 2021 – 2027. (nn.hr)

The Annual Implementation Plans of Statistical Activities of the Republic of Croatia

REGULATION (EU) 2019/2152 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 27 November 2019 on European business statistics, repealing 10 legal acts in the field of business statistics

COMMISSION IMPLEMENTING REGULATION (EU) 2020/1197 of 30 July 2020 laying down technical specifications and arrangements pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics repealing 10 legal acts in the field of business statistics

Still relevant during transitional period (2021 – 2023):

The Council Regulation No 1165/98 of 19 May 1998 concerning short-term statistics, amended by the Regulation (EC) No 1158/2005 of 6 July2005 of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning short-term statistics

The Commission Regulation (EC) No 1893/2006 of 20 December 2006 establishing the statistical classification of economic activities NACE Revision 2

The definitions of short-term statistics variables are laid down in Commission Regulation No 1503/2006 of 28 September 2006

The obligation on units to submit the report is based on the Article 45 of the Official Statistics Act (OG, No. 25/20). In case of the refusal to provide data, the provision of incomplete or incorrect data or the provision of data out of the time schedule, penalty provisions defined in Article 76 of the Act shall apply.

Zakon o službenoj statistici (nn.hr)

Data are regularly transmitted to Eurostat. There is no data sharing to other international institutions.

National legislation:

Terms and conditions under which official statistics are produced, including confidentiality of individual responses are governed by the Official Statistic Act (OG, No. 25/20). Individual data are strictly confidential and must not be published or reported.

Zakon o službenoj statistici (nn.hr)

Also, there is the Ordinance on the conditions and manner of access and use of confidential statistical data of the Croatian Bureau of Statistics for scientific purposes (OG, No. 5/23).

Pravilnik o uvjetima i načinu pristupa i korištenja povjerljivih statističkih podataka Državnog zavoda za statistiku za znanstvene svrhe (nn.hr)

Confidentiality and reference to the Official Statistics Act are available on the data collection questionnaires.

European legislation:

Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council, of 11 March 2009, on the transmission of data subject to statistical confidentiality to the Statistical Office of the European Communities.

According to policy rules (see point 7.1). Data are published only on the level at which they are not confidential.

A release schedule for the upcoming year, specifying dates, reference period and level of statistical publication is published each October in the Calendar of Statistical Data Issues and each December in the CBS Publishing Programme. These documents are available in both Croatian and English.

Web | Državni zavod za statistiku (dzs.hr)

Statistical publications are released simultaneously to all interested parties at the same time (11:00). No users have prior access to the data.

There is no internal government pre-release access to the statistics data.

Data for producer price index in construction are transmitted to Eurostat quarterly (after the national release), beginning with the first quarter of 2000 with the required level of detail and timeliness.

Quarterly - both to Eurostat and nationally.

Data on construction costs and constructor’s profit margins as absolute values are published half-yearly in the first release: Prices of new dwellings sold on the CBS website:

Prices of Sold New Dwellings | Državni zavod za statistiku (dzs.hr).

Data on construction costs and constructor’s profit margins (as absolute values) for national purposes are published half-yearly in first releases.

The release data are available at  Prices of Sold New Dwellings | Državni zavod za statistiku (dzs.hr)

Data on construction costs and constructor’s profit margins (as index) are published quarterly in Excel tables on the CBS website's section „Statistics in Line“

Data are available at:

Statistics in line | Državni zavod za statistiku (dzs.hr)

The conditions under which certain users can have access to microdata are regulated by The Ordinance on the conditions and manner of access and use of confidential statistical data of the Croatian Bureau of Statistics for scientific purposes (OG, No. 5/23).

Pravilnik o uvjetima i načinu pristupa i korištenja povjerljivih statističkih podataka Državnog zavoda za statistiku za znanstvene svrhe (nn.hr)

Data for producer price index in construction are transmitted to Eurostat quarterly, beginning with the first quarter of 2000 with the required level of detail (which is acceptable in the transitional period 2021 – 2023) and timeliness.

Short methodological information on the national methodologies is available in semi-annual and yearly publications on construction.

Data on construction costs and constructor’s profit margins for national purposes are published half-yearly as absolute values. Quarterly and annual data are presented as a price index, 2021 average = 100, in Excel tables on the CBS website's section „Statistics in Line“

Data are available at:

Statistics in line | Državni zavod za statistiku (dzs.hr)

Following the example of the European Statistical System, the Croatian Bureau of Statistics has developed a model of the Total Quality Management based on the Code of Practice of European Statistics. It is the model that is fully adjusted to the statistical purposes.

The documentation are available at  Državni zavod za statistiku - Quality (gov.hr)

Quality checks and validation of data are done throughout the whole process. In order to ensure the quality of results, CBS develops, produces and disseminates data based on the same standards and harmonized methods. In this respect, CBS applies the criteria of relevance, accuracy, timeliness, accessibility and clarity, comparability according to the Official Statistic Act (OG, No. 25/20).

The quality of the data corresponds with requirements of relevance, accuracy, timeliness and punctuality and comparability.

Relevance – statistical information meet current and potential needs of the users

Accuracy and reliability – closeness of computations to the exact or true values is difficult to measure

Timeliness and punctuality – all releases and deliveries are according to the agreed time frame

Comparability – statistics are comparable between geographical areas and over time. All data have been available since 2000 and are comparable and free of any break in series.

Following the example of the European Statistical System, the Croatian Bureau of Statistics has developed a model of the Total Quality Management based on the Code of Practice of European Statistics. It is the model that is fully adjusted to the statistical purposes.

The documentation are available at Državni zavod za statistiku - Quality (gov.hr)

The users’ needs are fulfilled. Users of these statistical data can be found in all areas of economic and social life, beginning with individual citizens, business entities, media, bodies of state government and local self-government units as well as academic, scientific and research institutions and non-government organisations, Eurostat and other international institutions.

Not available.

Indices for construction costs of new dwellings as well as constructor’s profit margins (mainly in the multi-dwelling residential buildings) are produced, relating to new buildings only from Q1 2000. Eurostat’s requirements in terms of time series are fulfilled.

This statistical survey covers a limited number of entities. Their selection is based on their activity, number of persons in employment and/or net turnover.

The main source of error is the fact that only a subset of the population is enumerated, and since population is not known (all new dwellings sold in a particular period), it is very difficult to make statements about error and bias.

But generally, by eliminating as much non-sampling errors as possible, statistical error and bias is small for total (whole territory of Croatia). Besides, the address book is permanently updated with entities which are marked as investors in the Monthly report on issued building permits.

The figures are final for the relevant reference quarter.

Quantifying sampling errors is not possible because the sample is not based on random sampling. As the method of purposive sampling is applied when setting up the sample allows achieving a high degree of representativity, we ensured it by permanent updating of the address book with reporting units which are marked as investors in the Monthly report on issued building permits.

Errors due to coverage

For this indicator that group of errors include especially incorrect or inaccurate data provided by the reporting units and non-response. Incorrect or inaccurate data are generally corrected by direct queries with the reporting units (see point 18.4).

Non response errors

Unit non response

The survey is compulsory. Data for the units in the sample are available according to deadlines. For late or missing data, units are contacted by phone and asked to provide the missing data.

Item non-response rates

No case of item non-response is involved in the survey since also in the data editing phase, units which did not fully complete the questionnaire are contacted by telephone and asked to provide the missing data. Every quarter item response rate of 100% is achieved

Measurement errors

Measurement errors are not formally calculated, however the following measure have been put in place:

Each price is checked and relevant reporting unit is contacted if necessary.

Besides, explanatory notes are provided on the questionnaire, in order to provide some assistance in filling in the survey form. These provide a definition of terms as well as describing how the questionnaire should be completed, in terms of what to include and what to exclude from the figures.

Data for the current quarter is compared with data for previous quarter

Staff in CBS are trained so that they have a good knowledge

The design of the questionnaire is monitored and any changes which can be made to improve the questionnaire are incorporated into the questionnaire.

Quarterly indicators are transmitted to Eurostat 90 days after the end of the reference period as final data.

For national purposes, data are published half-yearly as absolute values; quarterly and annualy as index.

Electronic questionnaires are sent to the reporting units at the end of each reference quarter. The deadline for response is two weeks after the end of the reference quarter.

All new releases are published as announced in release calendars at Web | Državni zavod za statistiku (dzs.hr). There is no time lag between the delivery dates announced in the calendar and the time the target data are actually delivered.

The same statistical concepts and classifications are applied for the entire national territory.

The comparability of the methodology of observing the activity, time limits of observation, dates and modes of data publication for EU Member States are provided in the REGULATION (EU) 2019/2152 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 27 November 2019 on European business statistics, repealing 10 legal acts in the field of business statistics and in the COMMISSION IMPLEMENTING REGULATION (EU) 2020/1197 of 30 July 2020 laying down technical specifications and arrangements pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics repealing 10 legal acts in the field of business statistics as well as in the Regulations relevant during transitional period 2021 – 2023  (Regulation on Short-Term Indicators -Regulation No 1165/1998, with subsequent amendments to the Regulation, and in the Regulation on Definition of Variables No 1503/2006). This ensures a good comparability between national data.

All data have been available since 2000 and are comparable and free of any breaks in series.

The producer price index of residential buildings (CPA 41.00.1 without CPA 41.00.14) is not confronted with other sources because results are not easy to interpret.

If we compare the producer price index with the average monthly paid of net earnings in construction and producer price index of building material behaviour of these three series can be different because producer price index also includes constructor’s profit margins.

Data are internal coherent.

Burden of respondents: 970 hours annually for all reporting units

Total costs of NSI: 2421 hours annually

The users of statistical data are informed about revisions on the CBS website.

Correction of errors, major changes in the classifications, methodology, base (reference) year changes is possible. Notice about minor changes is given at the time the change is introduced.

Routine revisions, which relate to replacing of estimated data with the subsequently reported data, are not carried out, because all data are available according to the deadlines.

The same revision policy is applied to data released nationally and transmitted to Eurostat.

The data publishing revision policy in the Croatian Bureau of Statistics includes the following:

Updating of the Calendar of Statistical Data Issues

Publishing of corrigenda of the published data

1) Updating of the Calendar of Statistical Data Issues

The data publishing revision policy of the Croatian Bureau of Statistics, which is carried out according to the defined deadlines, is carried out by updating the Calendar of Statistical Data Issues. According to the Official Statistics Act, changes in the publishing deadlines for publications/data are announced in advance. The Croatian Bureau of Statistics is obliged to announce each change in the publishing deadlines (the Calendar update) at least three days prior to the date originally announced in the Calendar at the web site of the Croatian Bureau of Statistics.

The update of the publishing deadlines for data or publications (the update of the Calendar) is announced without delay on the Croatian Bureau of Statistics’ website by updating the date in the Calendar and putting the notice beside the Calendar, which says: updated: (the accurate new date).

Therefore, the Calendar that contains the original publishing deadline for a particular publication/statistical information is replaced with the new Calendar which includes the updated publishing deadline. The original Calendar is kept in the Publishing Department which registers every change in publishing deadlines for publications in the Calendar Update Base.

2) Publishing of the corrigenda of the published data

In cases when an error is observed in the published data, the Croatian Bureau of Statistics announces the correction as soon as possible and as simple as possible in order to help the users to clearly see what was changed in comparison to the originally published data. The correction is carried out by marking the incorrect data with an asterisk and creating the corrigendum.

There is an internal vintage database where data are stocked.

No special revision calendar exists.

Benchmarking (confrontation) with other statistics is not carried out.

Routine revisions, which relate to replacing of estimated data with the subsequently reported data, are not carried out, because all data are available according to the deadlines.

No special revision calendar for this domain exists.

If error occurs, corrected data are published in the next issue of First release. Data changed in relation to the first released are disseminated with a comment (changes in components and aggregates are presented at the same time).

There are no routine revisions aiming at achieving temporal consistency.

Major changes in the methodology, reference year changes, are announced in the publications at the time the change is introduced.

Reference year change (for Construction producer price index) does not cause any revisions because the index is simple (weighting is not performed).

The general practice is that all changes in methodology are explained when data based on the new methodology are published for the first time. Information on methodological changes is provided in the Note on Methodology, which is a part of all related paper or electronic publications.

Statistical survey

The Address Book for the quarterly survey maintained by the CBS Construction Statistics Unit, derived from the Statistical Register of Business Entities and regularly updated from other available sources (e.g. with entities which are marked as investors in the Monthly report on issued building permits). Due to the relatively limited production of multi-dwelling houses, the number of observations is low.

Census above a threshold.

Due to the unavailability of up-to-date information on all entities engaged in selling the dwellings in a particular period, this statistical survey covers a limited number of entities. Their selection is based on their activity as recorded in the Statistical Register of Business Entities, number of persons in employment and/or net turnover.

The total number of new dwellings sold is not known due to unavailability of up-to-date information on all entities engaged in selling the dwellings in a particular period.

In 2023 producer price index was based on 3973 sold dwellings, broken down by quarters: 1Q – 1295, 2Q – 808, 3Q – 1018, 4Q – 852.

Data are collected quarterly.

Electronic questionnaire is used to gather data from reporting units.

One type of questionnaire is used, the GRAĐ-41 form.

Actions taken to speed up or increase the rate of response: re-contacts by mail (written remainders), telephone contacts.

Treatment on micro-data level

Quality checks of data are done by manual revision of questionnaires and automated error-checking procedures.

Collected data are first checked and verified by experts from the Construction Statistics Unit and during the process of data entering. Quality checking is carried out by using a set of strict manual and electronic logical/calculation controls. Respondents’, coding and data entry errors and inconsistencies are detected and corrected using manual and electronic logical/calculation quality control while editing. Reports that fail to meet the quality standards are subject to verification and are corrected as required. We organised correction procedures by priority: severe errors are generally corrected manually and more effort is spent on these, while minor errors require less attention and are mostly corrected automatically by computer.

Treatment on macro-data level

The macro data tabled are verified by staff in construction unit. Data from the actual reporting period is compared with the previous and the corresponding reporting period of the previous year. If inconsistencies are detected the data must be verified at micro level again by using raw data of the questionnaire and possibly changed.

Apart from previously mentioned checks done for the purpose of national statistics, neither additional checks are done nor are additional tools used before data are transmitted to Eurostat.

There are no unit non-response rates and item non-response rates, because reporting units that did not send filled-in questionnaires or did not fully complete the questionnaire are contacted by phone and asked to send the filled-in questionnaire for the current month or to provide the missing data.

Construction producer price index is simple index. The average construction cost per 1m2 is calculated by dividing the sum total of multiplication results of individual costs of dwellings with an appropriate useful floor area to which these costs refer by the sum total of useful floor areas. For now, we don’t use weighting of different regions and dwellings in different reporting periods.

Not applicable.

Not available.