Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia (CSB).

Macroeconomic Statistics Department, Producer price indices section.

Lāčplēša Street 1, Riga, LV-1010

Producer Price index in industry (130201),

Producer Price index in industry domestic market (130202),

Producer Price index in industry non-domestic market (130203).

Producer price index in industry (PPI) measures the average price development of goods and related services sold on the domestic market and/or outside the domestic market.

The index is designed to be an indicator of the economic cycle.

NACE Rev. 2.

The Producer price indices in industry are calculated according to sections, divisions, groups, and classes of NACE Rev. 2, as well as main industrial groupings.

The indicators in this sector cover economic activities listed in sections B to E of NACE Rev.2 (B-Mining and quarrying, C-Manufacturing, D-Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply, E-Water supply; sewerage, waste management and remediation activities). C30.1, E37, E38 and E39 are not included.

Purposive sampling is made from the general population consisting of enterprises which employ 20 or more persons in industrial production or where industrial turnover in the previous year was higher than 430 thsd euro.

Producer prices in industry are recorded for products manufactured in Latvia. The recorded prices are current producer prices (excluding VAT and excise duty) at which goods are sold to buyers.
Producer price indices (PPI) in industry are calculated separately for production sold on the domestic market and for non-domestic market.

The prices collected refer to the 15th day of the reference month or as close to this date as possible. For electricity, wood products and some other goods the monthly average prices are collected.

Observation unit - kind of activity unit (KAU).

Reporting unit - enterprise.

The number of enterprises surveyed monthly in 2023 for national released data – 661, number of KAU - 763 (in the beginning of the year).

For data transmitted to Eurostat – 636 enterprises and 705 number of KAU.

Entire country.

Time series for this indicator according to NACE Rev. 2 is available from 2000. Producer price indices in industry separately for the domestic market and for non-domestic market are available from the beginning of 2001.

Reference period: December of previous year. Chain-linking is applied.

Reference year (the year when the index equals 100): 2021.

On March 2024 indices were recalculated (rescaled) to base year 2021.

Base and reference periods are the same as for national released data and for data transmitted to Eurostat.

Indices.

Month.

The actual producer prices refer to the 15th day of the reporting month. If there were no sales transactions on this day, a product price on the day closest to it, is recorded. If a homogeneous group of goods (services) is selected as an item representative, the average monthly prices are collected.

Statistics Law adopted by Saeima on 4 June 2015, is the legal base of all statistics.

The questionnaire is adopted by the Rules of Cabinet of Minister of the Republic of Latvia No 812 of 20 December 2016. Rules of Cabinet of Minister of the Republic of Latvia No 741 of 29 November 2022 concerning to Official Statistics Program for the 2023-2025.

The specific legal basis for the Short-term business statistics (STS) indicators is 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.

Followed by the Commission Implementing Regulation 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 statistic.

The former legal basis is the Council Regulation No 1165/98 of 19 May 1998 concerning short-term statistics , amended by the Regulation No 1158/2005 of 6 July 2005 concerning short-term statistics and by the 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 No1503/2006 of 28 September 2006 implementing and amending Council Regulation N° 1165/98 of 19 May 1998 concerning short-term statistics as regards the definition of variables.

Data are transmitted to Eurostat, the International Monetary Fund, and the United Nations Statistics Division.

Price data provided by respondents is treated as confidential information and protected by Statistics Law.

The summary on confidentiality in the production of official statistics is available on the CSB website.

The policy of data protection and dissemination has been described in Quality Policy of the National Statistical System of Latvia. 

Statistical dissemination policy defines general principles of statistical data dissemination, availability of CSB`s products and services for data users, communication with data users, cooperation with the media, availability of individual data for scientific and educational purposes.

Statistical data shall be considered confidential if they directly or indirectly allow for identification of the private individuals or State authorities regarding which personal statistical data have been provided. Confidentiality of the primary criteria: 1) the minimum number of cases, 2) the dominance criterion. Data are confidential if there are 3 or less enterprises or one enterprise accounts for more than 80% or two of them more than 90% from the aggregate. Also, the data of individual enterprises or establishment are confidential.

Before the publication date and time calculated price index information is confidential.

Advance Release Calendar for Key Indicators and Statistics Database are available on Official statistics portal. 

Data are published on the date indicated at 13.00.

Release calendar is available on the Official statistics portal.

The national data are released simultaneously to all interested parties by issuing the press release "Producer price changes in industry" both to the media and to the main government officials and updating information in databases on Official statistics portal.

Data are transmitted to Eurostat on the same day that the data are published in Latvia, on the 15-th working day after the reference period.

Producer price indices published by Eurostat differ from the national coverage and breakdown. Eurostat data do not cover NACE Rev. 2 group 30.1 (Building of ships and boats), divisions 37 (Sewerage) and 38 (Waste collection, treatment and disposal activities; materials recovery) represented in the industry of Latvia.

Monthly.

A news release is published monthly on Official statistics portal.

The data are released simultaneously to all interested parties by issuing a press release at 13.00 local time. At the same time the data are also sent to subscribers by e-mail.

The CSB publishes monthly and annual news releases of the producer prices index on the Official statistics portal. 

The producer price indices are published in the paper form:

1) “Statistical yearbook of Latvia” – annual;

2) “Latvia. Statistics in Brief “– annual.

Information on producer price indices is available on the Official statistics portal database under theme Economy and section Producer Prices.

Data on PPI of total industry in line with NACE Rev.2 are available since 2000.

Data are published in the statistical database, in addition to the total index, indices for each field of activity (at the 2-digit level of NACE Rev.2), as well as five main industrial groupings (intermediate goods, capital goods, durable consumer goods, non-durable consumer goods, energy) in breakdown by sales direction (domestic market, non-domestic market).
On the Official statistics portal databases disseminates monthly, quarterly and annual time series: the reference period compared with the previous period; the reference period compared with the corresponding period of the previous year and 2021=100.

Microdata are not disseminated and accessible for researchers.

Information on producer price indices in industry is available on the EUROSTAT homepage in section: Data/Database/Industry, trade and services/Short-term business statistics (sts)/Industry (sts_ind)/Producer prices in industry (sts_ind_pric): https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/main/data/database.

A short description of the methodology and sources used to compile the Producer Price indices in industry is available on the Official statistics portal:  https://stat.gov.lv/en/metadata/2457-producer-price-index-industry 

A description of Producer price indices in industry methodology in the SDDS+ format is published on the International Monetary Fund website:   https://dsbb.imf.org/sdds-plus/dqaf-base/country/LVA/category/PPI00

Management Systems of the Central Statistical Bureau (CSB) are certified according to requirements of ISO 9001:2015 standard "Quality management systems – Requirements" and Information security management system standard ISO 27001:2013. 

The Quality Policy of CSB consists of the CSB's vision, mission, core values and commitment to meet the requirements, follow good practice and ensure continuous improvement.

The quality policy is designed and implemented in accordance with the CSB strategy (3-year period) and the action plan.

The quality of statistics is assessed according to five quality criteria: relevance, accuracy, timeliness and punctuality, accessibility and clarity, coherence and comparability.
The quality indicators are calculated taking into account Eurostat defined methodology for the calculation of the Quality indicators. https://www.csp.gov.lv/en/quality-assurance-framework

One time in month relevance, accuracy and reliability, timeliness and punctuality, comparability, coherence are recorded.

If a significant influence of corrections (more than 0.1 percentage point) is established upon applying corrected, revised or delayed information for calculations of the total price index within 12-months period (m/(m – 12)), the published producer price indices for the previous period shall be corrected.

The main users are: Bank of Latvia, Ministry of Economy, Eurostat, news agencies, internal users.

If a user needs some specific information, he may contact the CSB consultant with the request on information required (level of detail, base period, etc.) and CSB staff will provide a response.

The index for user satisfaction isn't available, but there are regular contact with the main users, in order to meet any specific information may be needed. There were no relevant complains on the PPI.

Statistics on producer price indices in industry are available on a monthly basis and in accordance with legal requirements.

The accuracy is tackled at national level, by eliminating inconsistencies and errors.

Data collection is based on cut-off sample and the sample is updated annually. At the end of the year CSB together with enterprises choose the most popular products (according to PRODCOM) for the next year of the data collection.

Data is collected by web questionnaires, using the data validation rules. The data also are checked manually by statisticians and all questionable cases are verified.

The published data are final, no first estimation is made (see also 17.1). 

Sampling errors are not calculated for PPI because the sample is based on the cut-off method. Confidence intervals or CV are not calculated for PPI.

Target sampling is made from economically active enterprises if their main or secondary activity in compliance with NACE Rev. 2 is Section B, C, D or E and the number of employees in the enterprise is 20 or more, or net turnover in the preceding year exceeding 430 thousand euro. Enterprises with as large as possible share of product sales in the respective industrial activity (NACE Rev. 2 class) are included in the sample. Products are chosen with high sales volume in the domestic or non-domestic markets or both according to the PRODCOM. Enterprises are chosen with a record of stable production and sales activity and a large share of sold production on the domestic and non-domestic markets. The list of enterprises involved in price recording is reviewed every year and enterprises with unstable production operations are excluded, while enterprises playing a significant role in the respective industrial activity - are included in the sample.

In 2023 data for STS were based on 636 enterprises. Approximately 2.4 thsd individual prices were observed; of which 1.3 thsd prices were recorded for the production sold on the domestic market and around 1.1 thsd prices for exported goods, e.g. 3.8 observations per respondent for total index.

The types of non-sampling errors are not relevant:

• Coverage errors

-      Enterprises with as large as possible share of product sales in the respective industrial activity (NACE Rev. 2 class) are included in the sample.

• Data collection errors

-      The unweighted response rate is around 98.7%. Telephone contacts or electronic reminders are used to follow up missing responses.

• Unit non-response (missing data)

-       The unweighted response rate is around 98.7%. Telephone contacts or electronic reminders are used to follow up missing responses. If enterprise stops their work, then CSB staff analyses every situation and the best method for missing data are chosen, see next point – item non-response.

-       The published data are final, no first and later estimation are made.

• Item non-response (missing data)

-      In case of a missing price, the previous observed price is carried forward or imputed using the index for similar products of class to which the product belongs. If a product becomes permanently unavailable within the year, an appropriate replacement is selected close to the previous variety.

• Data processing errors

-      The CSB has Integrated Statistical data management system - the tool for data entering, processing with automatic control and validation.

-      Standard MS Office professional software (MS Excel, MS Access) is used daily for validation and calculation of producer prices in industry. Double checks and error listings are used to avoid processing errors.

• Model errors

-      Models are not used in PPI.

No serious mistakes have been detected in the published data.

The information on producer price indices in industry (PPI) is published at 13:00 o’clock of local time on the 15th working day of the month following the end of the reference month. 

The information letters about questionnaires for the next year are sent to respondents at the end of the year.

The deadline for replies to questionnaires varies depending on the activity and it could be the 20th day in reference month, 10th or 15th day after the end of each reference month. The data collection normally is closed 5 days before the publication.

The data was published according to release calendar and sent to Eurostat at the same date when published press release on Official statistics portal.

Data published according to schedule 100%.

Producer prices in industry are collected across the country so that index represents the country as a whole.

The monthly and annual data of total industry according to the NACE Rev. 2 down to two-digit level are available from 2000 and onwards.

The PPI weights are derived from the same data sources as the national accounts production accounts. The national accounts use the PPI to deflate the output of appropriate industries. No comparison with other data sets are available.

There were no any internal data inconsistencies recognised.

The annual average burden was 4.1 hours per respondents or totally 2447 hours for all PPI (nationally) enterprises in 2023. The CSB total time use for national PPI was 5060 hours per year (it is impossible to distinguish separately costs for the STS or other Eurostat needs).

CSB Revision Policy has been elaborated in accordance with the European Union and international recommendations and good practice.

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

Within the context of price statistics revisions of statistical data concern the published producer price indices may be revised in case an error is found in the calculations, or a respondent has submitted updated information for the previous period, which significantly – by more than 0.1 percentage point affects the total price index for the 12 months (m/(m - 12)). Indication of possible corrections of the published price indices for the previous period, receiving late or updated information is available in the respective index metadata description on the Official statistics portal.

Calculation errors affecting the result to one decimal place are corrected and the following index revisions shall be implemented immediately. The corrected price indices are published together with the data for the next reporting period with an indication to the correction.

Revisions are announced simultaneously with the revised data. Major changes in methodology are announced on the Official statistics portal at the time the data compiled using the revised methodology are first published.
The Mean Revision (MR) between 2021 and 2023 (36 months) for NACE aggregate B to E36 (total) was 0.13.
The Mean Absolute Revision (MAR) between 2021 and 2023 (36 months) for NACE aggregate B to E36 (total) was 0.40.
Benchmarking is not used.

Direct statistical survey of the target sample from the selected enterprises and products, as well tariffs on selected services and enterprises approved by the Public Utilities Commission.

In 2023, 661 enterprises were included in the STS sample and approximately 2.4 thsd individual prices were observed; of which 1.3 thsd prices were recorded for the production sold on the domestic market and around 1.1 thsd prices for exported goods. Products are chosen with high sales volume in the domestic or non-domestic markets or both. Enterprises are chosen with a record of stable production and sales activity and a large share of sold production on the domestic and non-domestic markets.

The sample is updated annually.

Data are collected monthly.

Questionnaire No 1-RC (monthly) "Survey on producer prices in industry" is used for data collection with a pre-printed list of selected products for which prices are to be given.

The electronic reporting system is the main data collection tool (99.3%); e-mail questionnaire (0.7%) are used in data collection.

Data on producer prices assured by statisticians from Short-term Statistics Data Collection and Processing Section, they also perform data pre-treatment. For non-response are used telephone and e-mail contacts.

The CSB has Integrated Statistical data management system - the tool for data entering, processing with automatic control and validation.

Standard MS Office professional software (MS Excel, MS Access) is used daily for validation of producer prices in industry.

In case of non-response - the imputation methods have been applied.

Individual product indices are combined using Laspeyres type formula and base period weights to obtain higher level indices by NACE Rev. 2 classes, groups, divisions and sections. All representative items have product weights at the lowest level of aggregation.
The application of quality adjustment methods is limited. New enterprises are introduced at the beginning of the new reference year, but new representative products may be introduced although in the beginning of the new reference year and during the year (if the sample product is obsolete). For the replacement of selected products, the overlap method is used.

The weights are produced once a year - starting calculations for the first month of the reference year.

The weights refer to the value of production sold two years before the reporting period. Prices of December of the previous year serve as a base for price comparisons. The producer price indices in industry weighting system and base prices are updated annually. In order to ensure the symmetry of weight and price base periods, the weights applied to the calculation of producer price indices in industry for 2023 have been recalculated into the prices of December 2022.

The producer price indices in industry are neither seasonally nor working day adjusted.

Not applicable.