Czech Statistical Office (CZSO)

Industrial, Construction and Energy Statistics Department (51)
Construction Statistics Unit (5102)

Český statistický úřad
Na Padesátém 81
100 82 Praha 10

Construction Production index

NACE Rev. 2.

NACE Divisions 41, 42 and 43.

The results cover the whole population of enterprises, what represents institutional sectors of non-financial corporations and household firms.

The index is compiled in accordance with concept and definitions from STS Methodological Manual (Methodology of short-term business statistics: Interpretation and guidelines).

Construction works carried out within Divisions 41, 42 and 43 of the Standard classification of production divided into building and civil engineering.

The construction production index is a basic indicator of business statistics of construction. Its calculation is based on the development in the general construction work converted into fixed prices. The index is primarily calculated as a month base index, at present related to the average month of 2010. The base indexes serve as a basis for annual indices and potential cumulation over time (quarterly, half-year annual). It is published for the whole population of enterprises with construction as principal activity.

The construction work refers namely to works carried out on the construction, reconstruction, extension, renovation, repair, and maintenance of permanent as well as temporary buildings and structures. They also include assembly works on structures and the value of built-in materials and structures.

The general construction work represents the volume of construction work of the unit performed by workers included into its registered number of employees plus productive work of apprentices and the volume of construction work on own tangible fixed assets.

Reporting and observation unit is enterprise as identified by national business register. In order to approximate the KAU the data are adjusted for non-construction activities.

The results cover the whole population of enterprises classified in Section F of NACE Rev. 2 and institutional sectors of non-financial corporations and household firms including sole proprietorships.

The population is defined on the basis of the national business register that is continuosly updated.

Statistical population includes:

Czech Republic

Length of time series: Year 2000 - Presence
- The infomation is valid for all aggregates required by STS-Regulation.
- The data available nationally are identical to those trasmitted to Eurostat.

2015

Index (%)

Calendar month

Act No. 89/1995 Coll. on the state statistical service of June 15, 1995, as amended (does not refer to any specific indicator).

Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 November 2019 on European business statistics.

Data sharing with international organizations: IMF, UN, OECD (tables predefined by the organization)

The confidentiality policy is based on:
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. 1/2012 of the Czech Statistical Office (the defines the detailed rules, which are seen as confidential).

Data are only published down to an activity level at which 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.

The Czech Statistical Office publishes the following advance notice: 'Calendar of News Releases' in October of each year with precise dates for the coming calendar year. At the same time they are posted on the CZSO web site www.czso.cz.

Release calendar is available at the CZSO website ().

The data are released simultaneously to all interested parties by issuing the News Releases "Construction" at 9:00 AM on the scheduled day of release.

No user has pre-release access to the data.

Data are transmitted monthly to EUROSTAT. Transmission of the data to Eurostat begin on the day of national publication.

Monthly
- There are differences between transmissions to Eurostat and national dissemination.

The data represents the key component of regular monthly "Construction" News Release, which is published on the CZSO Website. The News Release is amended by set of tables, charts and by updated time series strating from 2000.

Statistical Yearbook of the Czech Republic
Annually “Czech Construction of figures”

Selected tables are available in the CZSO Public Datase (VDB).

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

Other formats:
- The most comprehensive infomation is available as Time Series, which represent a specific dissemination format available in electronic form only.
- The data are regularly transmitted to Eurostat.

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

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 in the advisory bodies of the President, where activities, terms and responsible units are specified.

As regards documetation accesible to the wide public, an elementary description of the methodology is published in the methodological notes on the CZSO website. Advanced information on methodology appears occasionally in specialised periodicals.

The whole process of data production is driven by internal documentation (Technical project and the Statistica Metadata System) to which all interested parties has an access (see the point 11.1).

Audit reports including all the test and analysis carried out within the audit are stored and the public parts are available on request (see also quality management).

The key components of the quality assurance are the following:
1. Strategic dosuments of the CZSO: Mission, Vision and Priorities of the CZSO, Quality commitment, Priority tasks defined for each year
2. Irregular methodological audits represents an important tool in quality control. Audits are usually carried out by expert group comprising of internal and external experts (NA experts, representatives of universities, ministries etc.). The IPI was audited in 2018.
3. Important aspects and procedures of quality management within statistical production process are documented in by internal Statistical metadata system, including so-called Technical projects, event. by instructions for surveyors that are available for every statistics produced.

Assesment of the quality uses the following components:
1. Standard STS compliance assessments carried out by Eurostat. This assesment is used internally as well.
2. The methodological audit (see also Quality assurance) includes inter alia different quality analysis, e.g. benchmark analysys, response analysis, in case of leading indicators, their ability to predict the changes in the economy.
3. Regular response rate measurement.
4. Regular confrontation of estaimates with later available administrative data or comparable data acquired or estimated from statistics with different periodicity.

The following users can be identified:
1. External users:
1.1 Eurostat
1.2 Ministry of Industry and Trade, Czech National Bank, other governmental institutions, other international organizations (IMF, UN, OECD)
1.3 Employers' associations, trade unions, media, students, wide public
2. Internal users: Quarterly National Accounts Department

The CZSO primarily fulfill its commitments towards the European Commission, which represents the high priority user. However, depending on the capacity available the CZSO treats all the users equally.

No users satisfaction surveys are carried out exclusively for STS indicators on 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, internat users etc. Formal meeting with users is organized regularly by the General Methodology Department.

The CZSO provides Eurostat with all data requred by the STS Regulation.

Overall asessment:
- With regards to the reasonable response rate the first estimates can be seen as not biased.
- The main problem is the lack of information related to the smallest units in the population, what results also in the high misclassification. 

Sampling error indicators are foreseen to be a standard component of the SMS Quality system, which is currently being developed.

The main problems related to non-sampling errors are the following:
1. Administrative data available for the smallest units in the frame (i.e. natural persons and legal persons without employees, which are not VAT payers) are outdated at the moment when the sample is drawn (data refers to R-1 rather than R). No other data source for activity assessment is available.
2. Relatively high degree of misclassification particularly of small units (natural persons and legal persons without employees, which are not VAT payers). The details are available in the SBS Quality report.
3. Non-response. However, it is not regarded as serious problem. 
4. Due to tough deadlines the respondents do not always have their book-keeping regarding the reported month closed when submitting data. It often leads to revisions in the next periods. Also mistakes in book-keeping can cause later revisions.
5. Organisational changes (mergers, splits, births and deaths) in reporting units and in the population as a whole during the year.  The BR is relatively slow, what increases an importance of feedback from infraannual surveys.
6. General problem: According to the CZSO instructions the required financial indicators should be reported according to the Czech Accounting Standards (CAS). However, especially multinational, global enterprises keep accounts according to international accounting standards (IFRS, GAAP etc.). They are not always able to provide CZSO with the data in conformity with the CAS in time. It often leads to later revisions especially in case of quarterly surveys where more detailed infomation is collected (limited impact on turnover and similar indicators collected on monthly basis).

The response rate is approx. 83% at the time when the survey is closed for a reference month (i.e. preliminary data published 37th day after the end of the reference period). The response rate of final data reaches 92%.

The target deadline for the release is 37th day after the end of the reference period. Exact dates (see the Release calendar) take into the account the distribution of working days in the particular period. These deadlines allows to meet requirements of both EU legislation and other users' requirements.

The data are always published at the 9:00 AM of the day announced by the Release Calendar. The CZSO does not register any deviation from this practice.

The same concepts are used within the whole national territory.

Relevant time series are available starting from 2000.
- There is no difference in comparability or acessibility of the data for various frequencies.

The module in shared in all STS monthly surveys and as such the coherence of the results is asured. Checks between annual and monthly/quarterly data are performed regularly as part of validation of the survey with higher frequency of data collection.
Heads and experts in trade statistics and national accounts departments meet regularly to discuss the date. The coherence between IPC and QNA is not so high. The main reason for the discrepancy between IPC and QNA is that the IPC represents only about 55% of the revenues of the construction enterprises. The remaining 45% of turnover is explained by payments to sub-contractors and other than construction activities, for example industrial production, trade and transport services, which are included in the Section F of quarterly national accounts.

There are no problems regarding internal consistence of the time series in question.

The CZSO performs the burder measurement by statistical survey (questionnaire). With regard to the indirect relation between input and output data the precise distribution of the overall burden by the individual indicators is not possible.

Data revisions follow the Revision Policy of the CZSO, which represent one of the key documents of the office. It is accessible via the CZSO website in both Czech and English. Calendar of standard revisions is being prepared together with the release calendar.

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

Monthly Revisions: When data for February of the year Y are released data for January of the year Y are revised. Main reasons here are specific issues related to the start-up of tasks for the new reference period (partial exchange of units of the sample, increased non-response, updates of registers (basis for the sampling) – the vast changes carried out during the year).

Quarterly Revisions: As the need may be revisions of monthly and quarterly data for the last elapsed quarter are carried out. Simultaneously, revisions of previous periods of the reference year may also be performed. All these ordinary revisions are released once a quarter elapsed along with the appropriate News Release for the first month of the current quarter. The revisions are based on knowledge and more accurate data from quarterly tasks.

Annual Revisions: 1st annual revision of monthly estimates for all reference periods of the last elapsed year (Y) is released along with the appropriate News Release for January of the current year. The revisions are based on further knowledge and more accurate data acquired during the year. Data released in this revision are considered to be finalised data.

Main Revision (MR) for unadjusted data is 0,10.

Main Absolute Revision (MAR) for unadjusted data is 0,33.

Main Revision (MR) for calendar adjusted data is 0,16.

Main Absolute Revision (MAR) for calendar adjusted data is 0,33.

Type of data source: Statistical survey (Stav 1-12), 1551 units

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

Sample or census: Stratified sample.

Criteria for stratification: Stratification is by main activity (CZ NACE) and number of employees. proportional-to-sales sampling.

Threshold values and percentages: All units belonging to NACE F with annual turnover greater than CZK 200 million are included in the sample (regardless of their size category), as are all units with 50 or more employees.

Monthly

Questionnaires used in the survey: Stav 1-12

Data collection media: Electronic questionnaire, web questiononnaire, printed questionnaire. Starting from 2013 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 decribes approx. 80 validation checks attributed to the processing of the questionnaire Stav 1-12. 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 (previsous period / the same period of the previous year)
- Comparison between enterprises belonging to the same cathegory (NACE + size class, comparison of unit prices where applicable)

The validation between surveys is attributed to the surveys of higher frequency (quarterly, annual).

Plausibility checks (e.g. comparison with NA) are performed at ad-hoc basis. They are also an integral part of methodological audits.

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

For the transmission to Eurostat the internal application GESMES-STS had been developed. Except encoding to Gesmes and communication with eDamis it assures also consistency with predefined structure of the data as well as appropriatate coding. As the application is part of the data production system, specific validation of the STS files is not needed.

Estimates for non-response: Not responding units are imputed. Estimation for non-response is based on the results of similar enterprises from the same strata. If the unit responded in previous period(s) then the estimations takes these results into account.

Estimates for grossing-up to population levels: The results are grossed up to the whole population.

Type of index: Laspeyres.

Method of weighting and chaining: Fixed base index - the weights are derived from value added in the base year (2015). The source of the data is SBS.  The weights are updated with 5 years frequency.

Change of the base year to 2015: Series were recalculated back to 2014 using the most up-to-date weighting scheme. Historical data were linked via annual overlap. These principles were not applied previously with regard to the NACE Rev.2 introduction.

Transmission of the data to Eurostat: The files are converted to SDMX using internally developed application

The value index is deflated using an appropriate price index to produce a volume index. 

Seasonal and worging day adjusment is performed using JDemetra+ sofware (TRAMO-SEATS method). 

Not available.