Information on data

The national statistical business registers (NSBR) are repositories of data on different statistical units. They are used for the production of European business statistics. 

NSBR contain information on the following units and variables:

Legal units

• identification variables 
• demographic events 
• stratification parameters 
• links with enterprises, other registers, and  enterprise group 
• control and ownership of units

Enterprises

• identification variables
• demographic events 
• link to other units 
• Statistical classification of economic activities (NACE) activity code(s) 
• number of employees and self-employed persons 
• turnover 
• institutional sector

Local units

•  identification variables
• demographic events
• link to other units
• NACE activity code(s)
• number of employees and self-employed persons
• geographical location

Kind of activity unit

• identification variables
• demographic events 
• link to other units 
• NACE activity code 
• size indicators. 

EU countries can decide to record a kind-of-activity unit (KAU) as a physical unit or as a secondary activity of the enterprise.

Enterprise groups

• identification variables 
• demographic events 
• structure of the group 
• the group head 
• country of global decision centre 
• country of residence of the ultimate controlling unit 
• main activity code , based on NACE, of the group 
• consolidated employment and turnover of the group

 
EU countries record all-residents groups and national parts of multinational groups (MNEs), including domestically and foreign controlled MNEs.

The EuroGroups register (EGR) is a central statistical business register of Eurostat, EU countries, and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries. 

EGR contains information on the following statistical units and variables:

Multinational enterprise groups 

• Identification variables 
• demographic events 
• structure of the group 
• the group head 
• country of global decision centre 
• country of residence of the ultimate controlling institutional unit 
• stratification parameters 
• economic variables of the group, such as main NACE activity code  of the group, the consolidated employment and turnover of the group, etc.

This profiling is a cooperative process which is carried out by profilers in different national statistical institutes (NSIs) in the EU and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries, with the support of Eurostat. 

European profiling analyses the legal, organisational, and economic structure of large multinational enterprise (MNE) groups and some of their main variables. 

Eurostat does not publish data of the European profiling. The results of European profiling are used to update the global enterprise groups (GEGs) in the national business registers and in the EuroGroups Register in order to help producers of business and macroeconomic statistics to have a global and complete view on the worldwide population of statistical units belonging to GEGs, their structures and economic activities.

Eurostat publishes a selection of data on multinational enterprise (MNE) groups, according to the data available in the EuroGroups register (EGR). This is the only statistics on the statistical unit MNE group as this statistical unit is not used in any other official statistics of Eurostat.

Eurostat also calculates statistics on industry concentration in the EU for sections of the statistical classification of economic activities (NACE). These are released as experimental statistics and use data available in the EGR and from the structural business statistics (SBS). 
 

The national statistical business registers (NSBR) are continuously updated. EU countries make an annual copy of the national statistical business registers that reflects the state of registers at the end of the year and keep this for at least 30 years for  analytical purposes.

The EuroGroups register (EGR) is updated annually. The EGR frames are disseminated via secure applications and can be retrieved by statisticians in EU countries and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries through the secure European Commission data transmission channel EDAMIS. 

The data dissemination process is as following:

• T+11 months: the EGR initial frames for reference year T are available for users;
• T+14 months: a preliminary frame is produced; 
• T+15 months: the final 'frozen' EGR frame is available in March. 

The first reference year is 2008. Since then, frames have been produced for all following reference years.

Eurostat does not revise data of the EuroGroups register (EGR) final frames.

The data are updated annually, according to a calendar which is agreed with the national statistical institues (NSIs) in the EU and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries. 
The European profiling process mainly follows the publication of the annual financial reports by the Global Enterprise Groups as the information in these reports is used as underlying information for the profiling.

The selection of data on multinational enterprise (MNE) groups is updated annually. The process follows the publication of the final ‘frozen’ EuroGroups register (EGR) frame.

Countries can exchange information on the major restructurings of the large MNEs via the early warning system. Once, the common methodological approach has been agreed by the affected EU countries where the MNE group operates, the data is revised in a consistent and harmonised approach in the respective domains and countries.

The national statistical institutes (NSIs) of each EU and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) country use multiple kinds of data sources for establishing and updating their national statistical business register. 

These data sources can be grouped into 3 categories:

• administrative sources: These consist of data files collected by government bodies for the purposes of administering taxes and benefits or for monitoring business populations. In the context of a broader definition, they are sources containing information that is not primarily collected for statistical purposes. In many countries governments have either completely or partially outsourced this function, to the private sector.
• statistical sources: These include feedback from economic surveys, profiling and statistical business registers, and quality or improvement from specific surveys.
• other sources: These include data from private suppliers and information available on the internet that can be retrieved using web-scraping techniques.
   

The EuroGroups register (EGR) uses data on the units that are resident in the EU and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries from the respective national statistical business registers (NSBR). 

Commercial sources are also used, mainly for covering units outside the EU and EFTA countries and to provide consistent structures and data on the largest multinational enterprise (MNE) groups.

The main input sources of European profiling can be grouped into 2 main categories:

• statistical sources, such as for instance the EuroGroups register, outward foreign affiliates statistics (OFATS)
• sources provided by  groups:
  • specific information provided during direct contacts between profilers and the groups’ representatives
  • annual financial Reports published by the group which provide a presentation of their activity, their consolidated accounts, and other qualitative information on restructurings, investment plans etc.
  • websites which provide many useful information on the governance structure of the groups, its business segments, figures on employments and countries of affiliates.
     

The experimental statistics on the multinational enterprise (MNE) groups uses the data available in the EGR. In the case where a large MNE group changes its structure or the distribution of its business model across countries, the early warning system (EWS) was put in place to trigger the affected countries and statistical domains on this event. 

The EWS is a structured, light (non-legislative) procedure based on the voluntary cooperation between national data compilers and Eurostat. It relies on a network of national EWS correspondents, coordinated by the Eurostat EWS Secretariat, who work on concrete restructuring cases.