Reference metadata describe statistical concepts and methodologies used for the collection and generation of data. They provide information on data quality and, since they are strongly content-oriented, assist users in interpreting the data. Reference metadata, unlike structural metadata, can be decoupled from the data.
NG building Koning Albert II-laan 16 - 1000 Brussels
1.6. Contact email address
Confidential because of GDPR
1.7. Contact phone number
Confidential because of GDPR
1.8. Contact fax number
Confidential because of GDPR
2.1. Metadata last certified
19 June 2025
2.2. Metadata last posted
19 June 2025
2.3. Metadata last update
19 June 2025
3.1. Data description
Industrial import price index (from non-euro area).
3.2. Classification system
NACE Rev. 2.
3.3. Coverage - sector
Activities covered
The indicators cover the following economic activities for the non-euro area: B051, B061, B062, B071, B0899, C102, C1413, C1414, C152, C1712, C192, C2013, C2014, C2015, C2016, C2059, C211, C212, C2211, C241, C2442, C2444, C2611, C262, C263, C264,C2651, C2811, C2813, C2823, C2829, C2892, C291, C2932, C3109, C3212, C325 (European Sample that results from FRIBS and the Regulation CR 2015/458)
(Old time series reference period between januari 2006 and december 2017 : 08.99, 10.32, 10.51, 12.00, 13.10, 15.12, 16.10, 19.20, 20.13, 20.14, 20.16, 20.59, 21.10, 21.20, 22.11, 22.19, 23.12, 23.14, 23.19, 23.70, 24.10, 25.73, 28.11, 28.24,28.41, 28.92, 29.10, 29.32, 30.91, 31.00, 31.09, 32.50)
Size classes covered
All size classes covered.
3.4. Statistical concepts and definitions
List and definition of variables : Prices of imported products by Belgian enterprises .
The import price is based on weights based on the intrastat/extrastat figures of the National Bank of Belgium
Accounting conventions : The prices of the imported products are collected according to the definitions in Regulation CR 1503/2006 and European Sample that results from FRIBS and the Regulation CR 2015/458.
3.5. Statistical unit
Reporting unit : the reporting unit is the enterprise.
Observation unit(s) : the observation unit is the enterprise.
3.6. Statistical population
Belgian enterprises that import products in European sample sectors. The sample consists of approximately 1200 products imported by +-450 enterprises.
The sampling is done from the population based on the Intrastat statistic .
3.7. Reference area
All regions of Belgium are covered.
3.8. Coverage - Time
Date of first use as a source : 2005.
New European sample since 2015.
3.9. Base period
Base (reference) year : 2021.
Indices based on price changes measured in euro or other common currency.
Periodicity is monthly.
6.1. Institutional Mandate - legal acts and other agreements
From 2022 onwards: Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics of 27 November 2019, repealing 10 legal acts in the field of business statistics (EBS-Regulation) as well as the Federal Statistics Act (1987)
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 repealing 10 legal acts in the field of business statistic (General Implementing Act).
These EU regulations ae completed by the Belgian Royal decree (3 July 2012) about short-term prices survey.
Obligation on units to provide data: yes.
Planned changes in legal basis, obligation to respond and frame used : none.
6.2. Institutional Mandate - data sharing
None, due to the limited information resulting from the European sample scheme.
7.1. Confidentiality - policy
There is a national law concerning the confidentiality of data (statistical law of July 4, 1962): data from reporting units which are individual or which can result in individual data may not be disseminated without permission of the reporting unit. In practice this means indices are not disseminated for sectors where:
There are only one or two reporting units;
There are three reporting units but one of them represents 70% or more;
There are four or more reporting units but one of them represents 80% or more.
Confidential indices are sent to Eurostat flagged as confidential data.
7.2. Confidentiality - data treatment
All results are sent to Eurostat with the confidential flag because no results are published on the national website or disseminated to other parties due to limited usability and and restricted sample for a rather detailed breakdown in NACE 4-digits.
8.1. Release calendar
No national dissemination. The first version of the data is transmitted to Eurostat 1 month + 15 days after the reference period at the latest. Adaptations are possible until 3 months later (due to e.g. more price information).
8.2. Release calendar access
Not applicable.
8.3. Release policy - user access
Simultaneous release to all interested parties: these data are not published nationally.
Identification of internal government access to data before release: no.
Transmission to Eurostat and further use of the statistics: data are transmitted through EDAMIS as SDMX file to Eurostat.
Monthly to Eurostat.
10.1. Dissemination format - News release
Identification of ministerial commentary on the occasion of statistical releases: none.
10.2. Dissemination format - Publications
Name of national paper publications: none.
Name of national electronic dissemination: none.
10.3. Dissemination format - online database
Not available.
10.4. Dissemination format - microdata access
Not available.
10.5. Dissemination format - other
Indices are transmitted to Eurostat to be used in calculating European aggregates and to be released as national data.
Planned changes in national dissemination methods : none.
10.6. Documentation on methodology
Dissemination of documentation on methodology and sources used in preparing statistics: there is no available methodology document.
Description of standard tables produced: none.
10.7. Quality management - documentation
There is no available quality document.
11.1. Quality assurance
A great effort was made to optimize data collection and calculation methods (websurvey in XBRL, with fixed procedures for doubtfully large price changes including extensive descriptions of products and reasons for quality changes, calculations at 8-digit product level, etc.). For each step of the production chain, the data are controlled. At present no explicit standard quality control checks are carried out, but evolutions of the different sectors is closely watched and internally validated.
11.2. Quality management - assessment
Checks carried out along the production chain of the indices and these are finally validated. Doubtfully large changes in price evolutions (+-25%) are eliminated, when there is reason to believe the comparability of the product is not guaranteed.
12.1. Relevance - User Needs
Only for Eurostat due to European sample.
12.2. Relevance - User Satisfaction
Not applicable.
12.3. Completeness
Only European sample: Fully compliant with STS requirements.
Time series first reference period January 2015
For all of the demanded data scope : European Sample that results from FRIBS and the Regulation CR 2015/458:
(Old time series reference period between januari 2006 and december 2017 : 08.99, 10.32, 10.51, 12.00, 13.10, 15.12, 16.10, 19.20, 20.13, 20.14, 20.16, 20.59, 21.10, 21.20, 22.11, 22.19, 23.12, 23.14, 23.19, 23.70, 24.10, 25.73, 28.11, 28.24,28.41, 28.92, 29.10, 29.32, 30.91, 31.00, 31.09, 32.50)
13.1. Accuracy - overall
In principle, a cutt-of sample is used in two stages: at enterprise level and product level. But collection difficulties due to transfer prices, unique products, etc. influence this method.
Statistical accuracy is inherently more difficult to assess for price indexes than other statistics due to the complex nature of evolution of average price changes and statistical problems in estimating of data that is not covered by the sample (extrapolation).
Accuracy decreases at higher levels of detail of geographic and product aggregation due to the increasingly smaller sizes of the price samples for lower levels of aggregation. Errors can occur in price collection and editing, or in making quality adjustments to estimate "pure price change", higher level aggregate indexes are likely to be of better quality than lower level indexes because any distortions due to errors are more likely to cancel out.
This results in a small sampling error as well non-sampling error.
13.2. Sampling error
Sampling error for the producer price survey is difficult to quantify because product and enterprise samples are based on judgmental rather than probability sampling methods.
There are around 900 prices collected by around 600 enterprises which is believed sufficient enough for the requested european sample.
13.3. Non-sampling error
Non-sampling error is reduced using a websurvey where the survey questionnaire is filled in directly by the contact person of the enterprise. The XBRL-program contains extensive automatic verifications of the provided data (including a comparison with the data of the previous month). The user is obliged to provide an explanation if large changes occur. In case of questionable data without satisfying explanation an intervention by phone will be necessary (e.g. when unit prices or mixed products are suspected).
Response rate
80%
Actions to speed up or increase the rate of response
Reminder by mail, phone recall and websurvey
When first estimates are calculated, the response rate two months after the reference period is about 80%, therefore the results can be revised up to 3 months later.
Three months later, the response rate can reach 90%.
Also prices are not always available due to changes in imported products by enterprises.
14.1. Timeliness
Timeliness : these data are not published nationally. Data are sent to Eurostat.
Timetable of data collection: monthly : T + 30 days.
14.2. Punctuality
Transmission delays are very rare, mostly T+45.
15.1. Comparability - geographical
The ESS definitions are applied in the whole country.
15.2. Comparability - over time
No breaks in the time series are observed.
15.3. Coherence - cross domain
Dissemination of information that support statistical cross-checks and provide assurance of reasonableness
None
Confrontation with other data sets
None
No regular confrontation is made, but comparisons are made on an ad-hoc basis, especially when results seem contrary to expectations.
These include comparisons with EU-aggregates and neighboring countries as well as unit-value prices resulting from Prodcom (if relevant).
15.4. Coherence - internal
Internal coherence problems are not relevant because no aggregates are calculated.
A rough estimate results in 150 days FTE for all recurrent tasks related to data collection and for tasks related to monthly calculations and recurrent methodological actions on an annual basis. This includes only STS needs (no national publication).
17.1. Data revision - policy
Indices for the past three months are recalculated in case of more prices or corrections are available.
National revision policy is not available: there is no national dissemination.
In case of revision the same revision is applied both internally and in transmission to Eurostat.
17.2. Data revision - practice
Provision of information about revision and advance notice of major changes in methodology : commentaries are made in EDAMIS.
European Sample Scheme is applied, so total aggregate and associated MR/MAR are not available.
18.1. Source data
Type of source
Survey.
Frame on which the source is based
Foreign trade ‘Intrastat’ (NBB).
Sample or census
Sample.
Criteria for stratification
Not relevant.
Frequency of updating the sample
At least every 5 years and replacement of failing enterprises.
18.2. Frequency of data collection
Data collection is monthly for most enterprises, quarterly for some.
18.3. Data collection
Questionnaires used in the survey
Survey is executed by a call-centre and internally implemented in an XBRL webform. New enterprises are assisted with choosing relevant products.
Planned changes in national questionnaires
Moving from CATI to a websurvey filled in independently by the enterprise.
Data collection media
Phone, email.
Planned changes in data collection methodology
See 3.4.
18.4. Data validation
Checks are carried out at the time of data collection and throughout the production chain indices.
Collected data are daily transferred from the operating system in a datawarehouse. An automatic verification of the input data is effectuated.
Then, a SAS program allows to check the untrustworthy the price evolutions and aggregated indices upt to 4-digit NACE-level to identify problems. If a problem is detected, the collect center is contacted. In function of the response of our collect center (and possible contact with the enterprise responsible), the declaration is maintained, re-estimated or removed for the index calculation.
Final tables are validated internally : format, content, missing information,... are verified.
18.5. Data compilation
Estimates for non-response: no.
Estimates for grossing-up to population levels: not relevant.
Type of index: Laspeyres chain-linked indice.
Monthly evolutions are are chained to reflect the evolution since baseyear.
Method of weighting and chaining: the weights are obtained from foreign trade statistics.
Planned changes in production methods: none.
18.6. Adjustment
WDA, SA and other calculations: no.
No comment.
Industrial import price index (from non-euro area).
19 June 2025
List and definition of variables : Prices of imported products by Belgian enterprises .
The import price is based on weights based on the intrastat/extrastat figures of the National Bank of Belgium
Accounting conventions : The prices of the imported products are collected according to the definitions in Regulation CR 1503/2006 and European Sample that results from FRIBS and the Regulation CR 2015/458.
Reporting unit : the reporting unit is the enterprise.
Observation unit(s) : the observation unit is the enterprise.
Belgian enterprises that import products in European sample sectors. The sample consists of approximately 1200 products imported by +-450 enterprises.
The sampling is done from the population based on the Intrastat statistic .
All regions of Belgium are covered.
Periodicity is monthly.
In principle, a cutt-of sample is used in two stages: at enterprise level and product level. But collection difficulties due to transfer prices, unique products, etc. influence this method.
Statistical accuracy is inherently more difficult to assess for price indexes than other statistics due to the complex nature of evolution of average price changes and statistical problems in estimating of data that is not covered by the sample (extrapolation).
Accuracy decreases at higher levels of detail of geographic and product aggregation due to the increasingly smaller sizes of the price samples for lower levels of aggregation. Errors can occur in price collection and editing, or in making quality adjustments to estimate "pure price change", higher level aggregate indexes are likely to be of better quality than lower level indexes because any distortions due to errors are more likely to cancel out.
This results in a small sampling error as well non-sampling error.
Indices based on price changes measured in euro or other common currency.
Estimates for non-response: no.
Estimates for grossing-up to population levels: not relevant.
Type of index: Laspeyres chain-linked indice.
Monthly evolutions are are chained to reflect the evolution since baseyear.
Method of weighting and chaining: the weights are obtained from foreign trade statistics.
Planned changes in production methods: none.
Type of source
Survey.
Frame on which the source is based
Foreign trade ‘Intrastat’ (NBB).
Sample or census
Sample.
Criteria for stratification
Not relevant.
Frequency of updating the sample
At least every 5 years and replacement of failing enterprises.
Monthly to Eurostat.
Timeliness : these data are not published nationally. Data are sent to Eurostat.
Timetable of data collection: monthly : T + 30 days.
The ESS definitions are applied in the whole country.
