Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic

Business Statistics Section

Statistical office of the Slovak Republic, Lamacska cesta 3/C, 840 05 Bratislava 45, Slovak Republic

The variables available from monthly survey are:

• Turnover;
• Domestic Turnover;
• Non-domestic Turnover;
• Non-domestic Turnover – Eurozone;
• Non-domestic Turnover – non-Eurozone.

Statistical classification of economic activities in the European Community SK NACE Rev. 2 (Slovak version “Štatistická klasifikácia ekonomických činností SK NACE Rev. 2“) 

Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics– NUTS 2016 (Slovak version “Klasifikácia štatistických územných jednotiek“).

Industry includes activities connected with mining and quarrying; manufacturing; electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply; water supply, sewerage, waste management and remediation activities Enterprises with principal activity in Divisions 05-39 of SK NACE Rev. 2.

The turnover indicator represents the demand side of production and serves to provide information on short-term developments and quick analyses of the market for products and service provision. The turnover indicator covers the sale of finished products, intermediary products and services, as well as the income from the resale of goods in the same condition as received. It excludes reductions and rebates. VAT and excise duty is not included.

Enterprise and kind of activity unit is the reporting as well as observation unit, where relevant.

The reporting units are residents at the territory of the Slovak Republic and provide data on their domestic activities and activities outside, if the activities carried out are of a subject of the tax and other duties in relation to Slovak legislation.

Statistical survey PRIEM 1-12 addresses reporting units (enterprises) registered in the Commercial Register and kept in the register of organizations of the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic with 20 or more employees, whose main activity is classified in divisions 05-39 of the Statistical Classification of Economic Activities NACE Rev.2 and selected significant reporting units whose main activity is other than industrial activity (approx. 14 reporting units) or those whose revenues exceeded EUR 5 million.

For the population of reporting units with the number of employees up to 19 persons (inclusive), registered in the Commercial Register and kept in the register of organizations of the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic and for natural persons doing business on the basis of a trade license according to Act no. 455/1991 Coll. on Trade Licensing, as amended, the number of which is determined on the basis of the number of issued trade licenses, an estimate is made by a combination of data from the annual statistical survey.

Register of organizations kept by the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic according to the Act of the National Council of the Slovak Republic no. 540/2001 Coll. on state statistics, as amended, is a source of information on the subjects of the population addressed by the statistical survey. Legal entities and natural persons - entrepreneurs are entered in the register of organizations on the basis of data obtained by the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic pursuant to the Act on State Statistics and other special acts. The register is used for statistical purposes and the data registered in it are updated daily from various sources, e.g. with information from statistical surveys, data from the Commercial Register, social insurance, etc.

All regions of the Slovak Republic are covered by the survey.

The reporting units are residents at the territory of the Slovak Republic and provide data on their domestic activities and activities outside, if the activities carried out are of a subject of the tax and other duties in relation to Slovak legislation.  

In the Datacube database, data are available from the reference year 2008.

Data are available from 2000 year for all type of data presented (gross, calendar and seasonally adjusted data) sending to Eurostat.

Base period 2015 = 100

Data are presented in absolute values, in euros and also as indices.

The monitored period is a month.

Statistical information from SOSR's surveys is a source for fulfilling the obligations of the Slovak Republic resulting from the requirements of the European statistical system, the requirements of international institutions, to ensure the needs of the information system of the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic. Statistical information are regularly provided to international and national organizations (Eurostat, National Bank of SR) or irregularly to other users.

The Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic is responsible for the protection of confidential data obtained and guarantees their use exclusively for statistical purposes. In accordance with the Act on State Statistics No. 540/2001 Coll. §2g and §30, the SOSR may not publish confidential statistical data, but only information resulting from the aggregation of confidential statistical data, which does not allow direct or indirect identification of the reporting unit.
The Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic has introduced principles and procedures for the protection of confidential data in internal directives and instructions. The directive on the protection of confidential statistical data regulates the method of management and implementation of activities related to ensuring the protection of confidential statistical data in the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic. The internal methodological instruction of the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic regulates specific methods and parameter values ​​used in the protection of confidential statistical data of individual statistical surveys and data sets.

SOSR ensures the protection of confidential statistical data in disseminated data. SOSR applies in all cases the rule of minimum frequency for n = 3 and dominance of 90%. Values ​​in sensitive cells and also values ​​in other cells, that are not sensitive, are marked with a flag ("D") in order to prevent a sufficiently accurate primary and secondary confidentiality treatment.  

The First Release Calendar contains the timetable for the first publication of selected indicators in the next 4 months. The calendar is updated monthly. The Catalogue of Publications contains basic information about published publications, publication dates and language versions. All publications are available on the Internet portal of the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic. The edition program is available on the website of the SOSR.

The First Release Calendar is available on the website of the SOSR here:
First Release Calendar
The SOSR's web portal and the online database Datacube of the SOSR are updated in accordance with the Principles of the policy of publication and provision of statistical information.

The First release Calendar contains timetable of the first release of selected indicators. Data will be published in the given day at 9 o´clock on the Internet website of the SO SR (www.statistics.sk) in the part Information reports Catalogue of the SO SR and there will be also at the disposal at the spokesperson of the SO SR (phone number: +421 2 5023 6553). You will also find notice for amendments of dates on the Internet website of the SO SR.

Monthly.

Data in Press releases are published in the terms of the First Release Calendar on the web portal of the SOSR.

Released monthly and quarterly in specific publications indicated in 
The Catalogue of Publications

Public databases:

DATAcube
STATdat

Micro-data are not disseminated.

International and national organizations have also defined their own specific data requirements, which are provided mainly for the National Bank of Slovakia under the annually Framework agreement on mutual cooperation in the provision of statistical data and statistical information between the SOSR and the National Bank of Slovakia, ministries, associations and others.

Statistical questionnaires including methodological guidelines and explanations of variables and methodological explanations within the Glossary of the statistical terms are published on the web portal of the SOSR. Each publication contains methodical explanations and a contact for the information service of the SOSR.

Following internal project documentation exists for the compilation of statistical outputs:

• technical projects within the Integrated Statistical Information System called ISIS

• methodological guidelines for applying mathematical-statistical methods for statistical surveys

• methodological guidelines for quality indicators of statistical outputs and statistical processes.

The Quality policy is defined and publicly accessible in the Quality Declaration and Quality Policy documents. The Quality Declaration expresses the basic ideas and commitments of the President and top management of the SOSR for the Quality Policy as well as increasing efficiency and effectiveness of the integrated management system of the SOSR.
Quality Declaration

Quality policy is based on the mission of the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic: to provide high quality and objective statistical products and services by keeping confidentiality of statistical data and by minimising burden on interested parties using effectively existing resources with the aim to support improvement of the information and intellectual capital of our customers. In this way we want to contribute to reduce risks and improve effectiveness in their decision making processes and so to support the sustainable development of the Slovak Republic as the part of EU.
Quality policy

The Quality manual (only available in Slovak) describes the documented procedures of the quality system that are used for implementation and continuous improvement of the quality management system in SOSR. It contains a description of the quality management system and the fulfillment of requirements ISO 9001 standards. Application of the manual in practice ensures that all activities that have an impact on the quality of the products created are planned, managed, reviewed, evaluated and meet requirements.
Quality manual

The European Statistics Code of Practice is the basis of the common quality framework of the European Statistical System. It is a self-regulatory tool and it is based on 16 Principles covering the institutional environment, statistical processes and statistical outputs. A set of indicators of best practices and standards for each of the Principles provides guidelines and benchmarks for reviewing the implementation of the Code of Practice, thus increasing transparency within the European Statistical System.
European Statistics Code of Practise

Coverage, reference period, data collection, control and data processing are in line with the Eurostat methodological guidelines. The data collection process is conducted in the Integrated statistical information system called ISIS. SOSR creates technical projects of the statistical surveys describing data collection and its evaluation, including a description of statistical controls and algorithms within the integrated ISIS. The data collection process is ensured by the regional offices of the SOSR during the phase of electronic data collection, ensure using statistical controls and algorithms the data collection process itself. Data validation is done during the data collection, processing and validation of relevant data by the SOSR experts. A data comparison is done with previous periods. Statistics are available in the system to evaluate the quality of the completed questionnaires, the number of questionnaires with errors or outliers, the number of reminders etc. SOSR also performs internal methodical audits. Evaluation of statistical surveys and methodological audits including the analysis of the results are integrated into the existing quality management system.

STS compliance assessment is carried out by Eurostat. Concerning the results of particular data production processes, the overall quality of the indicators is considered to be as good.

The requirement to conduct consultations with users of statistical information is stipulated in the Act on State Statistics itself. Consultations during the preparation of state statistical surveys take place within the framework of the preparation of the Program of State Statistical Surveys (PSSZ). PSSZ is a generally binding legal regulation compiled by the SOSR in collaboration with ministries, other central authorities and state organizations and contains statistical surveys organized and carried out by the SOSR, ministries, other central authorities and state organizations. SOSR publishes the Program of state statistical surveys by decree in the Collection of Laws of the Slovak Republic. The Coordinating Council for State Statistics ensures the fulfilment of the tasks of the SOSR. Key users of specific statistical products are listed in the Marketing Plan, e.g. international organizations - Eurostat, OECD, UN and national institutions, e.g. National Bank of Slovakia, etc.

Since the 2009, SOSR carries out satisfaction surveys of customers with their products and services at two-year intervals. The goal of surveys is to determine customer satisfaction with the products and services of the SOSR, to obtain information about users, their interest and opinion on provision and quality of statistical products and services. The facts obtained are a valuable resource for the direction of other activities of the SOSR. One of the main goals defined in the Development Strategy. The goal of the SOSR until 2022 is to systematically increase the value of the institution and its recognition at the national and international level. The office also monitors the fulfilment of the stated goal with the help of indicators of the credibility of the SOSR and the rate of use of the information provided by the public.

SOSR conducts credibility surveys through an external independent organization once every 2 years, with the intention of ensuring the objectivity and indisputability of the results from public view. The credibility survey and the satisfaction survey is only available in Slovak.

Credibility survey

Satisfaction survey

Time series of indicators in accordance with the regulation are available from 2008 in Datacube and historical time series in SLOVSTAT.

Overall accuracy is considered very good. SOSR makes great efforts to prevent the occurrence of errors in the data and performs data verification to detect the errors. Most errors are directly consulted at regional offices with the reporting units.

Sampling errors are monitored during data processing.

The technical project of data processing is part of ISIS. This project includes a description of all logical data controls at the microdata level performed during electronic data collection. The electronic questionnaire and information system ISIS itself provides many arithmetic and logical checks between variables, which we distinguish between serious and informative. Data collection is provided by the office of the SOSR in Banská Bystrica. After the deadline for submission of the statistical questionnaire, the reporting units that did not respond are contacted again to fulfil their legal obligation. In case of serious errors in the form, this form is not accepted and with the help of experts from the regional office its correctness is ensured so that it can enter into the data processing. Automatic validation checks during data collection and informative checks are incorporated with the aim to follow logical checks, reducing the rate of partial non-responses, anomalies and outliers. The purpose of this process is to minimize errors already in the data collection itself and subsequently during data processing. The basic step in the process of calculating unit non-response is the analysis of the population with regard to the state of activity of the reporting units. For this purpose, we use a specific classification of responses and non-responses codes. Individual codes describe active and inactive units and are assigned to each reporting unit. Subsequently, we determine the population of active units entering the data processing.

Response rate for September 2022 is:

At the time data are provided to Eurostat:                    97,3 %

Data are released in line with the Release calendar. There are no differences in timeliness between the different aggregation levels or between the statistical variables presented.

Data dissemination in the public database Datacube is in accordance with the set up deadlines.

Data are disseminated on 42. day after the reference period.

Publication deadlines were met.

The statistical survey of Priem 1-12 is compiled for the entire territory of the Slovak Republic.

The time series are comparable from the reference year 2008.

SOSR performs the following analytical data comparisons:
-comparing the results of monthly surveys with the results of quarterly surveys of production industries for the needs of national accounts (used for quick calculation of GDP)
-comparison with data from the structural business survey on an annual basis
-regular monthly analyzes and consultations of industry statistics experts with experts from national accounts to monitor the development of the economy
-comparison of trends in the development of STS indicators with the results of conjunctural surveys

The results of the comparisons show a high level of data comparability for the population of reporting units addressed exhaustively t. j. by addressing all units above a certain level according to stratification criteria. In case of differences between the compared periods and the populations of the reporting units, these are the subject of further analyses.

No differences are detected.

SOSR regularly monitors the cost and burden of reporting units. As part of the optimization of statistical surveys, it takes measures aimed at reducing their burden: e.g. by personalised pre-filling of selected variables in statistical questionnaires, reducing the frequency of selected surveyed variables and using administrative data resources if they are available in the required quality and at the specified time.
The cost and burden measurement at the level of European Statistical Products is in competence of the Resources Directors Group within Eurostat.

The Revision policy regulates the general rules and procedures applied in revisions at the SOSR. The same revision policy applies to national and international users. In accordance with the Revision policy, the reason of the revision is always indicated.

The Revisions policy as well as the Revisions calendar (only available in Slovak) is available to users on the web portal of the SOSR.

• Policy and calendar of revisions of the SOSR

Please mention that the “Policy and calendar of revisions of the SOSR” is only available in Slovak version

SOSR distinguishes the following revisions:

from the content point of view

-incorporation of better quality data based on a more complete source, including replacing imputations with collected data,

-correction of data as a result of updating seasonal factors and changing the base period,

- data modification based on more accurate methodology (in concepts, definitions and classifications) and changes in statistical methods,

- performing corrections in source data and calculations.

In terms of time, SOSR divides the revisions into

- ordinary revisions are revisions without significant modifications of the methodologies. These are usually more significant data corrections, including large values ​​obtained from new sources. They are carried out periodically on precisely set up dates, to update monthly and quarterly data, until the next publication of the data.

-annual revisions are revisions that are made when all monthly and quarterly data are available and more detailed results from annual surveys are already available.

- extraordinary and major revisions are revisions of definitive data due to significant methodological changes resulting from revision of methodologies, changes in procedures and statistical-mathematical calculation methods or data corrections. An extraordinary revision may result (e.g. by changing the definition) in break in time series data comparability.

The main source of information for routine revisions are new or revised data from reporting units.

Monthly report in industry Priem 1-12
Statistical survey Priem 1-12 addresses reporting units (enterprises) registered in the bussiness register and kept in the register of organizations of the Slovak National Register of Statistics with the number of employees of 20 or more persons, whose main activity is included in section 05-39 of the Statistical Classification of Economic Activities NACE Rev. 2 and selected important reporting units whose main activity is other than industrial activity (approx. 14 reporting units) or those whose sales exceeded 5 million euros.

Number of reporting units contacted (September 2022): 2 740

Monthly.

The regional office of the SOSR in Banská Bystrica is responsible for data collection. From January 1, 2016, reporting units (legal entities, natural persons - entrepreneurs) are required to electronically submit statistical reports in accordance with the amendment to Act No. 540/2001 Coll. on state statistics as amended by Act no. 326/2014 Coll. (hereinafter referred to as the law), which contains new rules for submitting statistical questionnaires.
The completed statistical questionnaire must be submitted electronically no later than the 25th day after the reference period on the website www.statistics.sk. In the event that the reporting unit has not submitted the electronic questionnaire, it is contacted by the relevant regional office of SOSR.

The data entry, data completeness and statistical control are organised by specialised regional offices of the SO SR in Banská Bystrica. 

SOSR distinguishes between two levels of data checks:
1 - Formal checks, which are realised in the process of data entry automatically; (compatible with Validation level 0 and 1)
2 - Informal checks aim of which is to control the complexity and relations among the variables ((compatible with Validation level from 2 to 5).

According to the importance there are classified 2 basic types of checks:
 I –  Informative checks- this check gives the additional information, which is important for the following process of corrections. It informs also about some inconsistencies in the state of fulfilment of the questionnaire, about item non-response, exceeding stated limits etc.
Z – Check of great importance - it is mostly check indicating the exact error and it must be always corrected or explained.
Most of the errors are directly consulted with the reporting units by our regional offices.

Non-responses for active reporting units are handled by data imputation. Imputations are made from the data of the intelligence unit from the previous period of max. 3 months after the monitored period or by finding a donor.
The results for the population of small businesses are estimated on the basis of data obtained from annual business surveys.
Administrative data and a model approach are used for estimates for self-employed persons.

Working day adjustment and seasonal adjustment procedures are carried out using JDEMETRA+ 2.2.2 and TRAMO-SEATS,  which takes into account the number of working days, public holidays and fractions of working days in the month.

Not applicable.