Hungarian Central Statistical Office (HCSO)

Sectoral Statistics Department, Industry and Construction Statistics Section

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

The goal of data collection is to provide industrial turnover indices total, domestic and non-domestic. The survey covers Sections B to D of NACE Rev. 2. All enterprises are observed if the number of persons employed is greater than 49. For enterprises employing between 5 and 49 persons the data collection is based on representative stratified random sampling method. When classifying an enterprise only the number of employees employed by the given firm is taken into account. The sampling frame arises from a fixed file extracted from the Business Register. The most important data which are asked in the questionnaire from 2023 are the follows:

• Turnover (from industrial activities, from non-industrial activities, domestic, non-domestic, total)
• Registration tax, excise duties and energy tax in turnover of producers and importers from the total turnover.
• Purchase value of goods resold.
• Purchase value of energy and water resold (redistributed) from purchase value of goods resold.
• Value of indirect services.
• Value of indirect services belonging to the industrial activities.
• Paid fee of contract work for foreigners.
• Value of own-account capitalised production.
• Stock of finished products and work in progress (from own production) at the beginning of the month and at the end of the month.

The same questionnaire is used for the observation of industrial production.

Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community (NACE Rev. 2).

The survey covers Sections B to D of NACE Rev. 2.

Total turnover is defined as the total net sales value of industrial activities performed by enterprises classified to the industry.

Domestic turnover is defined as the net sales value of industrial activities performed by enterprises classified to the industry, realised inside the border of Hungary.

Non-domestic turnover is defined as the net sales value of industrial activities performed by enterprises classified to the industry, realised outside of the borders of Hungary.

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

Legal unit

The target population consists of enterprises included in the industrial area from Section B to D of NACE Rev. 2. The frame comes from a frozen state of the Business Register. The number of possible data providers is approximately 13,400.

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 2000.

Base year: 2021

Monthly value indices were prepared and sent on the average of 2015 (%).

(Data series will be rescaled from EUROSTAT for base year 2021)

Index

Month

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.

Data are shared with EUROSTAT.

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 8.30 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. 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.

Monthly

Industry, second estimate is published every month and it can be found on HCSO's website. includes some data about sales namely:

• Indexes of domestic sales, export sales and total, corresponding period of previous year = 100;
• Trend of domestic and export sales in industry.

• Statistical report: Economy and society is an on-line comprehensive publication every year, which can be found on HCSO's website.
• 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 industrial production, sales and orders on the website of HCSO.

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 month. Data transmission to Eurostat is performed each month. The transmission is carried out in SDMX format (xml) via EDAMIS system.

There are Methodological notes on HCSOs website.

Additional methodological comments can be found in STADAT system and in dissemination database.

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 General Implementing Act prescribes the scope, the level of detail the deadlines and also the implementation of definitions of variables. The processing of data production has been developed according to these regulations.

The industrial turnover 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 been always kept. The data transmission to the international organisations has been also done in time.

The wide range of the turnover 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.

In 2009 HCSO introduced TEÁOR’08 which is the Hungarian version of NACE Rev. 2. The time series were recalculated for 2000. The industrial turnover figures are compared with the SBS data. There are not known serious quality problems in the industrial turnover. HCSO is committed to develop the quality and ensure the credibility of statistics.

The concepts and methods are based on European legislation. The most important foreign users are mostly international organisations (e.g. Eurostat, OECD, and UN). The principal domestic users are the National Central Bank of Hungary, Ministries and contracting parties. The production of industry is needed for calculating GDP; therefore the National Accounts department is the relevant internal user.

Not available.

The scope and the level of detail meet the requirements. The time series starts form 2000. The data of enterprises less than 5 persons employed is estimated from administrative data.

Sampling error is available for the gross output value of industrial activities, without value added tax, including price subsidies at this moment. It is calculated for the strata and for some aggregates every month.

Although the response rate is fairly good the non-response is the main source of non-sampling errors. There are some enterprises which send late data, but their questionnaires can be taken into consideration over the revisions. Moreover, data are revised using SBS data, so the final version of the figures of industrial production is closed the one and half years after the beginning of the data collection.

The under-coverage of the survey population is rather small because the online connection between our Business Register and Registry Court assures a reliable sampling frame. A good value about the rate of over-coverage can be calculated on the basis of Business Register. The rate of other errors (for example classification error) is noted over the data collection, and the statistician can list these cases and can determine the number of that.

The observation is extended to all of the enterprises employing at least 5 persons. The enterprises which employ at least 50 persons or which are classified in D section of NACE are observed in a full scope way. (According to the Hungarian laws a business with less than 50 employees and less than 10 million € net turnover are qualified small enterprise.) The data of enterprises which employ between 5 and 49 persons come from a stratified sample which is compiled using stratified random sampling method. The stratification variables are the staff categories of enterprises, the two-digit levels of NACE Rev. 2. (sometimes three- or four-digit levels are used) and the region (according to the headquarter of the enterprise whether is in the capital or in countryside). The sampling frame arises from a fixed file extracted from the Business Register using random numbers for the selection. The total number of data providers is about 3,800. There are some 1,400 data suppliers in the sample and circa 2,400 are observed exhaustively. The estimations based on the data set compiled from these two parts.

Cut-off variable is the staff categories of enterprises because we have model-based estimated data for enterprises with less than 5 persons employed. There is no numerical information about the sampling bias in this case.

Coverage errors

The BR which is the source of the sampling frame has direct online connection with the Registry Court. Therefore when the sample is constructed the sampling frame is timely. The sample and the full-scope part of the survey are updated every year. Over the given year sample is permanent apart from the ceased enterprises which are deleted, but the full-scope part of the survey is updated every month. Under-coverage can be arisen if an enterprise that is element of the full-scope part starts to work after the updating. In this case this data supplier goes into the data set next month.

As for the over-coverage we can measure it. In 2023 the average value was around 1.6%. Almost all enterprises responsible for the over-coverage were classified to manufacturing. These numbers are considered appropriate.

Multiple listings is not known in the industry because all of the enterprises are identified by a unique number.

Access errors

HCSO uses an IT system (called ELEKTRA) to collect data via personalised online questionnaires. Data providers can check the questionnaire before sending, so the data are consistent. Administrative source is used only for the imputation. If data are inconsistent compared to the other months the data supplier is interviewed and the error is corrected.

Non-response errors

The weighted unit response rate was between 98.5% and 99.7%. The industrial turnover was used as a weighting variable. Item non-response can be measured with difficulty because the purchase value of goods and services resold or value of indirect services may be empty if the figure does not exist.

Editing, coding and imputation errors

There is no numerical information.

Modelling errors

There is no numerical information.

HCSO is committed to reduce the non-response errors In order to help the enterprises we give assistance by phone or via e-mail, send automatic warning e-mails or mails. In a final case HCSO can impose fine to enterprises which do not cooperate.

Data of index of industrial turnover are published in line with the EBS Regulation.

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

Over the data collection and calculation domestic and non-domestic markets 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.

The time series of value of industrial turnover and volume indices of industrial turnover are continuous from 2000, until this year. In 2003 TEÁOR’03 was introduced. Currently the classification is based on TEÁOR’08 which is conforms to NACE Rev. 2 and has been used since 2009. Historical time series of the 2000-2003 and 2003-2008 periods were recalculated in accordance with the newest classification, so the time series can be considered continuous from 2000.

The values of indicator are compared with similar data which come from SBS. The difference is not relevant.

Besides the values of indicator are also compared with the annual industrial sales data.

Our goal is to product quality data concerning STS indicators. Within this STS data are compared to the SBS ones.

Subannual (monthly) micro data of enterprises with more than 49 employees are modified with algorithm to the final annual ones. Methodological differences are taken into consideration. Data of enterprises with 5-49 employees are compared by size groups of employees

The 100 largest Hungarian industrial enterprises are checked according to strict rules (the deviation can be a maximum of +/- 10%, as compared to +/- 20% in case of smaller enterprises).

Any lack of coherence in the output is impossible, because of the structure of the data collection and the on-line data collection system.

Data provider should fill in only primary data, summing up and further calculation prepared by statisticians.

The time series contain seasonal adjusted data. There is no known inconsistency.

Cost (NSI hours per year in 2012): 2123

Burden (Respondents hours per year): 25 minutes/month (January 2023)

These figures relate to the cost and burden of the industrial production and industrial turnover.

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.

There are three routine revisions in connection with industrial turnover data. They are fulfilled after the second, third and fourth quarter. The major revision is carried out in July after reference year, when data are compared with SBS results.

• Data published in first releases are preliminary; there is a routine revision in each quarter. Data can change due to questionnaires arriving late or the corrections which are initiated by data suppliers. The indicators are recalculated from the beginning of the year. The revision practice has not been modified for a long time, there is no need to inform users in advance.
• The major revision is carried out in July after reference year, when data are compared with SBS results. After the major revision data are considered final.

There is no vintage database, after the revision users can view just the revised data. HCSO uses uniform revision policy and data transmission is carried out after revision. See the Industry – Methodology (ksh.hu) for further information.

The main source of data is a survey. Data can be reported in an electronic way. Data providers can be divided into two parts. Sample survey is used for enterprises between 5 and 49 persons employed. The size of the sample is about 1,400 enterprises. Stratified sampling method is applied. Stratified sampling is based on the random order of enterprises. The sample is stratified; stratification variables are divisions and classes of NACE, number of employees and location of enterprise (capital/non-capital). In case of enterprises over 49 persons employed total enumeration is applied; there is no stratification. The number of these enterprises is some 2,400. If the enterprise has fewer than 5 persons employed indicators are estimated from administrative sources (e.g. corporate tax data).

Monthly

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.

Reported data are checked by an IT tool (which was developed in the HCSO). This software controls the internal coherence using rules and considerations ordered by the experts who are responsible for the given data collection. For example software checks that the part less than the whole, or that certain values are greater than 0. A list of errors is compiled automatically. The reports with the serious mistake are sent back to the data provider asking it for correction. There can be other problems (e.g. a variable varies from the value of previous month or corresponding period of previous year) when data suppliers can give an explanation and if the responsible expert accepts the justification, data will not be corrected.

The codes (NACE, Staff categories of enterprises, Geographic area, CULF) come from the Business Register. If one of the codes of data provider is changed over the year the reason is cleared up.

Before the data transmission the credibility examination is carried out. The experts review the values and the changing of the aggregates calculated 2 digits of NACE Rev. 2.

The data are transformed into SDMX format (xml) by SDMX converter. Before the finalisation of the data file the values are compared to the SBS data over a major revision. Therefore the validation takes into consideration format and file structure (validation level 0), intra-dataset checking (validation level 1) and inter-dataset checking (validation level 2) happens.

Imputation is carried out for the full scope part of survey. The value of corresponding period of the previous year is used. If the necessary data are not at our disposal the imputed value is calculated from the last annual data. If the suitable annual data are not available, administrative data (VAT or Corporate tax data) are used. If there are not adequate data from previous periods or administrative source the imputation is based on the average of corresponding stratum.

Furthermore imputation is performed for the members of the sample concerning stock data if they were data providers in previous period.

The number of enterprises in a stratum which is observed in a representative way divided by the number of enterprises in the sample is the basis of the weight used for grossing up the sample. More exactly in the denominator there are the number of the enterprises from the sample which sent data or which was imputed.

After imputation and grossing-up, new variables are derived (e.g. total gross output value or gross value added).

Both fix based year index and chained index are calculated.

The indices are aggregated to 2 digits level of NACE Rev. 2 and these data are transformed to Eurostat, and National account department.

At the Hungarian Central Statistical Office the TRAMO/SEATS method with JDemetra+ is used for seasonal adjustment in accordance with the ESS guidelines on seasonal adjustment. Model revision as default takes place yearly, and the results of the new model are published with the first data of the new year. During this step a fully automated model identification is made by TRAMO/SEATS, but the final decision is based on subject-matter domain information. During the year, with each new data the coefficients of the model are re-estimated, and revision of the seasonally adjusted data is made from the beginning of the time series. No forecast is made in any step of the process.

Calendar adjustment

For the calendar adjustment country specific calendar is used, which includes all the national holidays since 1990. Working day regressor is used for quarterly time series, and for monthly time series shorter than 15 years. For monthly time series which are at least 15 years long trading day regressors are used. The leap year effect is tested and used if it is significant.

Standard Easter effect is also used in the models if it has a significant effect and/or economic reason is available.

Outlier detection

Additive (AO), level shift (LS) and temporary change (TC) outliers are used during the seasonal adjustment process. In the yearly model revision the results of the automatic outlier detection and the economic reasons are checked. At the end of the process outliers used in the previous year are changed (especially those of which were long time ago) if it is strongly reasonable.

During the year last outliers refresh strategy of the JDemetra+ is used, it means that the outliers in the last year of the sample are re-identified.

More general information can be found in the following link: About seasonal adjustment

• 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 (EBS-Regulation)
• 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)
• STS data requirements overview June 2021

STS data requirements by country size June 2021

Links of 1.1 and 10.4 are not broken.

The links open immediately after clicking.