Hungarian Central Statistical Office (HCSO)

Sectoral Statistics Department, Industrial and Services Prices Section

Postal address: H-1525 Budapest P.O.B. 51, Hungary

Following the European Business Statistics Regulation, from 2022 construction producer price indices have replaced construction costs.

The purpose of the indicator is to describe the price changes on the construction market, and satisfy the demands of National Accounts and other statistical domains. It is calculated on the 2-digit level of NACE, and also for some important types of constructions, like residential buildings.

The producer price index of construction measures the changes of the price paid by the client to the construction enterprise. This price index reflects the price changes of different cost factors (material, labour) of construction and the changes in productivity and profit margins of construction enterprises. It excludes the changes of planning, architect’s and lawyer’s fees, land prices, VAT and other costs charged to the final owner.

• Statistical classification of products by activity, 2.1 (CPA 2.1) - EU Vocabularies - Publications Office of the EU (europa.eu)
• EJ 2000   the Hungarian classification of types of constructions.

The data collection covers Sections F of NACE Rev.2.

As regards the definitions of variables used in practice of the HCSO the Commission Implementing Regulation 2020/1197 is the standard source.

Producer price indices for construction measure only the development of new residential buildings and exclude residences for communities, non-residential buildings, land prices and architect’s and other fees. They reflect the prices paid by the client to the construction company. They therefore do not only reflect the variations in the cost factors of construction, but also the changes in productivity and profit margins.

The indices are based on the survey of market prices of selected construction operations.

Legal unit (considered as enterprise) and reported unit is also enterprise.

The target population consists of enterprises included in the construction industry. Data suppliers are selected enterprises of Section F of NACE Rev. 2 employing 5 or more persons. The size of the sample is approximately 900 enterprises.

Territory of Hungary. The whole national territory is covered and the activities performed outside the national territory is not taken into account in this variable.

Data are available from 2008.

Base year: 2021

Base year: 2015 will be changed to 2021 in 2024Q1. Data series of 2023 will be rescaled from EUROSTAT for base year 2021.

The fix based indices are not released nationally, and only the STS aggregate - residential buildings except residential buildings for communities - is calculated on this base. The base periods of the nationally released indices are: previous quarter, corresponding quarter of the previous year, last quarter of the previous year where the reference period is the quarter of the year, and corresponding period of previous year where the reference period are quarters cumulated from the beginning of the year.

Index

Quarter

At European level:

• Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics concerning short term statistics.
• Commission Implementing Regulation 2020/1197 laying down technical specifications and arrangements pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics concerning short term statistics. (General Implementing Act)
• STS data requirements overview June 2021
• STS data requirements by country size June 2021

All relevant regulations can be found in the STS section on Eurostat’s website under Statistics => Short-term business statistics => Legislation

At national level:

• The Act CLV of 2016 on Statistics (the Hungarian Statistical Law)
• Government Decree on the National Statistical Data Collection Programme enacting the surveys of reference period.

Additional information in English can be found here.

Regulation (EU)  2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics concerning short term statistics.

At European level:

• Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics concerning short term statistics.
• Commission Implementing Regulation 2020/1197 laying down technical specifications and arrangements pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics concerning short term statistics. (General Implementing Act)

All relevant regulations can be found in the STS section on Eurostat’s website under Statistics => Short-term business statistics => Legislation

At national level:

• The Act CLV of 2016 on Statistics (the Hungarian Statistical Law);
• Act CXII of 2011 on Informational self-administration and freedom of information.
• Additional information in English can be found here.
• The confidentiality policy of HCSO is available on its website

HCSO ensures confidentiality for all the data reported by data providers and the exclusive use of the data for statistical purposes. We disseminate only aggregated data in full compliance with the rules of confidentiality. Individual data, as well as aggregated data consisting of fewer than 3 enterprises are regarded as confidential and therefore not published. Researchers have access to de-identified data sets and to anonymised micro data for scientific purposes with appropriate legal and methodological guaranties in place. As for the employees, they can work with datasets in their competence with registered and controlled access rights. For details see Information on confidentiality for data providers on the website of HCSO.

All of the features of dissemination activity are consistent with the Dissemination and Communication Policy of Hungarian Central Statistical Office. In the elaboration of this document the

• The Act CLV of 2016 on Statistics (the Hungarian Statistical Law)
• Act CXII of 2011 on Right of Informational Self-Determination and Freedom of Information and
• Regulation 223/2009/EC of EP and Council on European Statistics provided the most important legal basis. Furthermore, Dissemination Policy is in line with the Quality Declaration of ESS, the Code of Practice and Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics.

(Since the last update of Dissemination Policy of HCSO a new statistical law has been adopted in Hungary and the European Statistical law has been amended, but the changes do not affect the principals of Dissemination Policy.)

HCSO has a public Dissemination calendar that contains the dissemination dates of all First releases. The public dissemination calendar (Catalogue) on the website of HCSO provided information not only the first releases but the analyses, methodological publications, promotional publications, reports, statistical reflections, yearbooks and pocketbooks. Both calendars are prepared in line with the annual dissemination programme.

A public dissemination calendar of the first releases is accessible and it can be downloaded in Excel format by everyone via the website of HCSO. It provides information about publish date, the date of any modification, the title of publication, the reference period or date and the date of inclusion in the database.

The release calendar and the first releases are open for everybody via the website of HCSO. First releases and the related databases are published at 9 a. m. on the day provided in the Dissemination calendar. Some key user groups are subjected to other rules because of their special role in the economic and political life. Journalists can read the first release in the press room at 8:30 a. m. but they are allowed to transmit their reports at 9 a. m. after the publication of HCSO. Certain first releases are sent to the members of the government and the president of the National Bank of Hungary at 5 p. m. on the day prior to the publication after closing the Budapest Stock Exchange. Within the given ministry and the National Bank of Hungary responsible use of our data is ensured by strict rules.

Quarterly

First release about construction producer price index is published quarterly. It can be found on HCSO's website

There are numerous publications with data of construction producer price index, for example:

• Hungary is an on-line comprehensive publication every quarter, contains data about construction producer price indices.
• Statistical Pocket-book of Hungary is an annual publication
• Statistical Yearbook of Hungary is an annual publication

Dissemination database http://statinfo.ksh.hu/Statinfo/themeSelector.jsp?&lang=en

states data of construction producer price indices.

In HCSO the following four data access channels are available only for researchers for scientific purposes. The HCSO performs a researcher accreditation procedure for all data requests for these four data access channels.

• Safe Centre access

The HCSO offers access to deidentified microdata sets for scientific purposes in the safe environment of the Safe Centre operated by the HCSO in Budapest.

• Remote access

The offers access to deidentified microdata sets for scientific purposes in the safe environment of the remote access points operated by the HCSO under the same access conditions as the Safe Centre access.

• Remote execution

For scientific purposes, the HCSO produces the requested research outputs inside its own safe environment based on the specifications/syntax files provided by the researcher.

• Release of anonymised microdata sets

By using this data access channel the HCSO provides anonymised microdata sets for the researcher for scientific purposes.

STADAT (the acronym stands for statistical data), which involves mostly time series can be found on the HCSOs website. STADAT includes plenty of data in pre-made tables about numerous topics, with methodological notes. The tables can be downloaded but the user cannot transform them. (While working with the dissemination database the user can assemble a cross table, elements to the table columns and rows can be added as well as filters can be applied).

Data transmission to Eurostat each quarter. The transmission is carried out in SDMX format via eDAMIS system. 

There are methodological notes on HCSOs website about concepts and description of the statistical domain : Hungarian Central Statistical Office - Metainformation (ksh.hu). Additional methodological comments can be found in STADAT system.

User-oriented quality reports on statistical domains are prepared in the framework of methodological documentation and are published as metainformation on the HCSO website: Methodological documentation .

An internal HCSO regulation is in place regarding the preparation of producer-oriented quality reports for each statistical domain on a yearly basis.

In case of some statistical domains – concerning first releases – quality check is carried out and documented each month for the management of HCSO. However, this report is not published.

The HCSO Quality Policy lays out the principles and commitments related to the quality of statistics. The documentis consistent with the goals set out in the Mission and Vision statements andwith the principles of the European Statistics Code of Practice and is publicly available on the HCSO website.

The European Statistics Code of Practice is available on the website of the HCSO. Also, HCSO together with the member-organisations of the Hungarian Official Statistical Service created a National Statistics Code of Practice based on the European Statistics Code of Practice.

Quality Guidelines are meant to ensure the quality of the statistical processes. The document has been in place since 2007 (1st revision in 2009, 2nd revision in 2014 and 3rd revision is currently ongoing). The latest version (2014) is available on the HCSO website.

Procedures are in place in order to ensure updated documentation on product quality. (See above about Quality Documentation in 10.7) Apart from the internal reports, quality reports are regularly provided to Eurostat as well.

Commission Implementing Regulation 2020/1197 laying down technical specifications and arrangements pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics concerning short term statistics. (General Implementing Act)

The processing of data production has been developed according to these regulations. The construction producer price index is published in line with EBS regulation.

The content and coverage of collected data meet the requirements. For the accuracy HCSO operates electronic data collection and data entry system in which three-stage data correction system works.

The day of the publication of data is specified in dissemination calendar and the deadline has always been kept. The data transmission to the international organisations has been also done in time.

The wide range of the data is available on the website of HCSO in dissemination databases and in STADAT system, as well as First Releases are published regularly on the HSCO’s website.

HCSO is committed to develop the quality and ensure the credibility of statistics. In order to provide high quality data, the annual internal quality report is made, documentation of quality is updated regularly.

The concepts and methods are based on European legislation. The most important foreign user is Eurostat, the National Accounts is the relevant internal user.

Not available.

The scope and the level of detail meet the requirements. The time series without break starts from 2008. Historical time series of the 2000-2008 period were estimated using the construction cost index, which was the required indicator by STS regulation.

The sampling error cannot be estimated because of the concentrated way of selection.

The response rate of data collection is over 85%.

In the reference period the missing price relatives will be imputed by the average price change of the construction operation concerned.

The data are generally considered to be final at first released.

The sample choosing is based on a non-probabilistic sampling method therefore no sampling error, confidence interval or CV is calculated.

We selected about 200 construction operations for the survey, which represents the greatest value of the assigned type of construction.

The selection of the data suppliers is based on the Business register (GSZR). Concentrated sampling is applied, stratified according to the NACE groups and categories by the number of employees; enterprises with the greatest production value are selected. Data suppliers choose from the varieties of the construction operations to be observed and best representing their activities (most frequent, highest value operations) and set the technical parameters of the operations according to their own practice. The number of data suppliers is about 900. The sample is revised every year, fitted to the structure of construction.

No under- and over-coverage is calculated.

Multiple listings: To avoid multiple listing the operations of sub-contractors are excluded from the report.

Unweighted response rate was between 91% and 95% in 2023.

Data are collected by electronic questionnaires. All data arrive via an electronic data collection system (ELEKTRA) and are transferred automatically into Integrated Data Entry and Validation System (ADÉL). The provided data are checked in the electronic questionnaire by built-in validation rules. In case of errors, the respondent is asked to correct or give the reason of it.

In case of missing data, the elementary index will be imputed by the average price change of the construction operation concerned. The rate of the imputed elementary indices was between 3,7% and 6,0% in 2023.

Editing and imputations errors are not relevant.

Models are not used, no modelling errors are calculated.

Data of index of construction producer prices are published within 45 days after the end of the reference period.

The publications are in agreement with the dissemination calendar. There are no time lags.

Over the data collection are interpreted according to territory of Hungary. The whole country is treated in a uniform manner in statistical point of view. The same statistical concepts can be applied all of the territory. All data sources coverage fully the regions. There are no difficulties concerning the geographical comparability.

Indices of types of construction are compiled from the first quarter of 2008. Since then the time series has no break. Historical time series of the 2000-2008 period were estimated using the construction cost index, which was the required indicator by STS regulation.

Base year change did not impact on comparability of data, because indices were recalculated also on the base year 2015 and 2021.

The construction producer price indices as deflators are coherent with the construction production in terms of classification used, and coverage, although because of the different frequency an estimation is used.

The coherence among the indices of different types of constructions is acceptable, the differences are the result of the different weighting schemes.

The price indices of types of construction and they of NACE branches move together in tendency, but their rate can be different because of distinct composition.

Cost (NSI hours per year in 2023): 3472

Burden (Respondents hours per year in 2023): 1634

A revision in official statistics is defined as any change in a value of a statistic released to the public. The fundamental aim of revision is to improve data quality and thereby to be more accurate when reflecting the reality

HCSO published its renewed revision policy in 2018. The revision policy is in line with the following conceptual frameworks:

• the official statistical principles of the UN
• the European Statistics Code of Practice
• the “ESS guidelines on revision policy for PEEIs”, which have been approved by the European Statistical Committee in February, 2012
• the quality guidelines of the HCSO
• the Dissemination and Communication Policy of the HCSO
• finally, the HCSO takes into consideration the deadlines of mandatory international data transmissions and publication
• HCSO considers any change in the value of already published data as data revision. Revisions take place for a number of distinct reasons, which tend to break into four groups:
• incorporation of better source data (e.g. replacement of first/provisional estimates based on expert judgements, or as a result of benchmarking)
• capturing routine recalculations (e.g. updating the base period)
• reflection of improved methodology (e.g. changes in concepts, definitions or classifications)
• correction of errors

Taking into account the various causes of revisions and the different frequencies of publications, the HCSO – in correspondence with international guidelines – distinguishes the following types of revisions:

• Routine revisions: routine revisions are changes in published data which are related to the regular statistical business process. Routine revisions mainly occur when the incorporation of late information (new or the correction of already obtained) modifies the already published results or in the case of benchmarking.

Routine revisions are conducted periodically, according to a schedule drawn up in advance. With some sets of statistics (e.g. in foreign trade), a number of revisions are needed to obtain final results, while in other cases the provisional results are replaced by final data in the course of one single revision. Routine revisions barely affect the applied methodology, and only a few periods (some months or quarters) back in time are revised and longer revisions take place at a lower frequency, e.g. annually.

• Major/methodological revisions: Major revisions are changes in published data, often substantial, which are due to changes in definitions, classifications and methodologies. Updating of the weights of the base year of an index series, the availability of a new structuralsource that is only collected at long intervals (5 to 10 years), such as the census, and the entry into force of a new legal act may also cause major revisions.

Major revisions are planned very well in advance and users are informed beforehand on the forthcoming major revisions. They are less frequent than routine revisions and occur only every 5 to 10 years. Since major revisions affect a large part of the time series and sometimes even the complete time series, it is necessary to backcast time series, otherwise major revisions would produce breaks and inconsistencies in them.

• Unplanned revisions: Unplanned or unscheduled revisions are those that are not foreseen (as opposed to planned revisions), because they are a result of unforeseeable events and therefore it is usually not possible to pre-announced them in advance. As unscheduled revisions can undermine confidence in the quality of official statistics, HCSO is committed to avoiding as much as possible unscheduled revisions and to limit them to the case of important errors (whose correction results in significant improvement regarding data quality). Unscheduled revisions are communicated to the users in a transparent manner.

HCSO makes its general and domain specific revision policies publicly available on its official website. HCSO applies the general policy’s principles to all of its statistics (including the STS data transmitted to the Eurostat). Although subject matter statistics may have specificities regarding their revision practices, they have to be fully compliant with the general principles.

HCSO notifies users about forthcoming revisions in time and indicates their date and time in the revision calendar.

Routine revision

Data are final once they are published. There are no estimated or first released data. Data are released once for a period, these are definitive data, so MAR or MR indicators cannot be calculated.

Planned revision

We perform larger revision in case of change in the nomenclatures used for the calculation of construction producer price index. The last grand revision took place in 2008 when TEÁOR (Hungarian version of NACE) changed. Since 2009 classification is based on TEÁOR’08. The periods of 2008 were recalculated in. Longer backcasting was not possible because of the methodological change. Due to the methodological change in 2008 allowed to calculate indices of types of construction, which is now the required STS indicator. Since the introducing of these indices no major or minor revision has been undertaken.

Unplanned revisions:

There was no non-scheduled revision last year in this statistical domain. The revision practice has not been modified for a long time. 

The construction producer price indices are based on the survey of market prices of selected construction operations. The data collection is carried out within the frame of the National Statistical Data Collection Programme (OSAP), using the self-administered questionnaire No. 1831 on Prices of construction activities, collected quarterly. The assigned construction enterprises report unit prices of construction operations, i.e. homogenous partial activities obtained from splitting construction work processes. Data from other statistical domains: weighting data are taken from the annual survey on construction production by types of constructions.

Quarterly.

Data collection is based on an online survey. The designing of the questionnaire including the set of control rules is the job of the statisticians, and the checking of the operation happens in close cooperation with IT department at the end of the previous year. The IT system sends an e-mail to data providers if a new questionnaire becomes accessible, or the deadline has expired. In case of non-response:

• re-contact by phone,
• sending a warning message,
• fine as a final tool.

From 2013 the validation is built in in the electronic questionnaires, and extended to the checking of the price change to the last reported price. Large differences should be explained. The validated electronic questionnaires enter the HCSO’s database automatically. The reliability of data is examined during the processing.

The basic element of the calculation is the elementary price relative for each representative item, which is the quotient of the reference and base period price reported by the enterprise for each representative construction operation. From these quotients first we calculate – using weighted arithmetical averages - enterprise indices; subsequently sub-branch indices, and finally the construction price index. Weights of enterprises and sub-branches are derived from annual construction statistics; production values from two years before the reference year are used as weights.

To compute indices of types of constructions first price indices for each selected operation are calculated as the simple arithmetical mean of elementary price relatives, subsequently the indices of the construction operations are weighted by types of constructions. The weights were made to be compiled by external specialists, who collected weight proportions from the costs of selected construction projects.

The basic method used for the index calculation is Laspeyres with one-period overlap chain-linking method.

Data are not adjusted.

Following the European Business Statistics Regulation, from 2022 construction producer price indices have replaced construction costs.