National Statistical Institute

'Shotr-term business statistics and Transport statistics'  Department

Lilqna Ralinska

State expert

2, P. Volov Str.; 1038 Sofia, Bulgaria

[email protected]

+359 2 9857 128

The index of turnover is a key indicator for assessing the current state and short-term trends in the development of the section 'Accommodation and food service activities'. The index follows the dynamics in the supply and demand of accommodation and food services, also records the influence of the ongoing economic processes in the country.

Quarterly turnover index measures changes in the turnover of enterprises section 'Accommodation and food service activities'. This information is suitable for monitoring of current economic developments and short-term forecasts.

Classification of Economic Activities (for international use NACE.BG-2008)

Section I 'Accommodation and food service activities' under NACE.BG-2008. The indices are calculated by section (a two-digit NACE.BG-2008) and section.

The turnover includes net revenues from sales of products, goods and services survey units(excluding VAT and other deductible taxes), and revenue from raw materials sold.

A enterprise in section 'Accommodation and food service activities'.

The population of firms in section I 'Accommodation and food service activities' includes about 26 600 units, which are form sampling population of approximately 18 000 enterprises with an annual turnover exceeding over 10 thousand BGN. Of these observed a sample of about 2 000 enterprises, which form approximately 60% of the turnover of the section.

At national level: The indices are calculated and published total for the territory of Bulgaria
At European level: Eurostat calculates and publishes aggregated data for EU Member States (EU28) countries and the euro area (EU19). Eurostat publishes data received from the 28 EU Member States, Norway and Switzerland.

The indices are published as time series from the first quarter of 2000 to the last reported quarter of the current reporting year.

The indices are calculated and published at 2015 as a base year.

Per cent (%)

Quarter

• COUNCIL REGULATION (EC) №1165/98 of 19 May 1998 concerning short-term business statistics (STS); 
• REGULATION (EC) №1158/2005 of the European Parliament and of the Council amending, Regulation (EC) №1165/98; 
• COMMISSION REGULATION (EC) №1503/2006 of the European Commission as regards of definitions and the periodicity of indicators on STS;
• REGULATION (EC) №1893/2006 - translation to NACE Rev. 2 and groups of activities of STS;
• COMMISSION REGULATION (EC) №472/2008 for the conversion of data base according to NACE Rev. 2

The indicators are transmitted to Eurostat at the same time with their national publication.

Regulation (EC) №223/2009 on European statistics (article 20, paragraph 4) of  March 11, 2009, stipulates establishing common principles and guidelines to ensure the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential information as required for scientific and technological development and needs of users. Law on Statistics is stated that the individual data received and collected at the time of statistical surveys shall be statistical confidentiality and shall be used only for statistical purposes. Individual data obtained for the purposes of the statistical surveys, shall not be used as evidence to the bodies of the executive powers and the judicial authorities. Requirements, obligations and measures for data protection, as well as fines that can be imposed, are treated in separate chapters of the Law on Statistics, namely Chapter 6 'Protection of secrecy' and Chapter 9, 'Administrative penalty provisions'.

Individual data, data which could be indirectly identified, as well as aggregations of less than three statistical units and/or when the relative share of one parameter is more than 85% of the total volume of this parameter for all population units. Data which according to the Law on Statistics are confidential not published.

At the national level - according to the terms set out in the Release Calendar presenting the results of the statistical surveys carried out by the National Statistical Institute. The turnover indices are published about 50-55 days after the end of the reference quarter.

The calendar is available on the NSI website: http://www.nsi.bg/en/node/480

Data are published on the NSI website, section Business statistics in accordance with the Law on Statistics and the European Statistics Code of Practice respecting the professional independence and aimed at objectivity, transparency and equal treatment of all consumers.

Quarterly

Not published.

The indices are not presented in publications.

Data on section I 'Accommodation and food service activities' are available to all users of the NSI website under the heading Business statistics - Multi-domain statistics - Short-term Business Statistics - Quarterly data - Turnover Indices in Services: http://www.nsi.bg/en/node/6887 

and online sistem INFOSTAT http://www.nsi.bg/infostat/pages/reports/result.jsf?x_2=217

Micro data are neither distributed nor provided to the users.

Not applicable.

• Methodology Quarterly turnover indices in section I 'Accommodation and food service activities': http://www.nsi.bg/sites/default/files/files/metadata/dTrade_Method_3_en.pdf;
• Eurostat Methodology of short-term business statistics. Interpretation and guidelines: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/short_term_business_statistics/documents/KS-BG-06-001-EN.pdf

Regulation (EC) №1165/98 and Regulation (EC) №1158/2005 on Short-term statistics required by the European Commission (Eurostat) regularly (every three years) to report to the European Parliament on the applicability of short-term data, their quality and revisions of the data. In March 2004 was launched a project to capture the quality of short-term indicators. Every year Member States should present to Eurostat detailed information about the quality of particular short-term indicators, which is part of the Principal European Economic Indicators.

The legal framework that regulates the production of short-term business statistics indicators states that statistics collected within the EU system must be of satisfactory quality and this quality and administrative burden that comes from what must be comparable across Member States. These criteria have been drawn up to ensure that these requirements are met, and that is reflected in the quality reports of the individual short-term indicators.

The quality of the short-term variables is measured by each Member State according to common criteria. The quality of the variables is measured regularly by comparing them with other statistical information, if it is possible some quality indicators are calculated and in addition these indicators are checked for internal consistency.

• Eurostat;
• Bulgarian state institutions and local authorities;
• Business and NGOs;
• Information and polling;
• Analytical and associate professionals.

User reviews are collected by:

• Direct contact - via phone and email;
• Indirect contact - through regional statistical offices; 
• The customer satisfaction is not measured.

All levels of detail that are required by the Regulations concerning STS is calculated and published.

The total population in section I 'Accommodation and food service activities' includes about 26 600 units, which form a sampling population of approximately 18 000 enterprises with an annual turnover exceeding 10 thousand BGN. Of these monthly observed sample about 2 000 units, which form approximately 60% of the turnover.

The main source of errors is the measurement errors which arise at the data collection stage for variety of reasons, for example respondents misunderstanding what information is required or non-providing precisely the desired information.

Shall be made efforts to avoid these errors by providing assistance to the reporting units, improv the instructions attached to the questionnaire, assist the statisticians in Regional statistical offices. Most of measurement errors are detected and corrected through the logical and arithmetical controls of the Information system 'Short-term statistics' (Online Information system for data collection, editing and processing of the STS information). The system carries out the statutory and warning controls and in a case there are errors, it displays a warning dialog error in the report. The system does not allow completion of the report until they have corrected these errors by statutory controls.

The specific sampling method is 'Stratified Random Sample' in which the first enterprises stratify by section (2-digit numeric code NACE.BG 2008) and then in each section by turnover. Each section has three stratums: 1-complete, 2, 3-sampling. Coefficient of variation is used as an indicator on precision. It is computed as a percentage. Coefficient of variation for second quarter 2018:

Non-responders companies are valued according to the stratum in which they are faced. In stratum comprehensive assessment is done individually for each company using available information on trends in the establishment and adjusted trends in reported units on the same stratum and section. Sampling strata for each section evaluates non-responders using extrapolation coefficients calculated from data reported by enterprises in stratum corresponding section after elimination of extreme values. In these cases it is assumed that there are no significant differences in the behavior of responders and non-responders enterprises. The response rate for the second quarter of 2018 is 91% in terms of the number of enterprises and 94% in terms of turnover. Actions to reduce non-sampling errors: sending informative reminders and phone calls to collect data.

NSI provides information on turnover index from 50 to 55 days after the end of reporting quarter.

Turnover indices present ontime, according to the terms in the Release Calendar presenting the results of the statistical surveys carried out by the National Statistical Institute.

The turnover indices are representative for the whole country, they are not representative for the regions of the country. To calculate the indices of turnover NSI applies a methodology in accordance with international standards. In this sense, the comparability of the indicators across countries can be considered as very good.

The quarterly indices are presented as time series from the first quarter of 2000 to the last reported quarter. In accordance with Regulation (EC) №472/2008 of January 2009 in the STS was introduced a new version of the Classification of Economic Activities (NACE.BG 2008). The data for all quarters back to 2000, were recalculates according to the new Classification (NACE.BG 2008) and published in the NSI website.  For conversion of data rows was applied ‘macro’ method. The indices at the old classification (NACE.BG-2003) are recalculated according to the new classification  (NACE.BG 2008) using transition coefficients, which are calculated from transition matrixes, based on micro data.

Regulation (EC)  №1165/98 requires 'Every five years, Member States shall rebase the indices using as base years ending with a 0 or a 5. All indices must be rebased on the new base year within three years after the end of the new base year'. In compliance with these requirements since January 2018 the base year for Short-term business statistics has been changed. All short-term indicators presented in the form of index are calculated and published at 2015 as a base year. The time series has beeen recalculated according to the new base year and are posted on the website of NSI.

The turnover indices are compared with the turnover indices calculated based on data from the annual survey on Structural Business Statistics. The differences are due to different coverage. SBS survey is conducted exhaustively and all enterprises are legally obliged to submit their Annual Reports to the National Statistical Institute. The STS surveys are sampling surveys. Sampling population includes companies with a turnover of over 10 thousand BGN. SBS is the source of turnover for calculation (reconciled) STS indicators.

 Not applicable.

Actions to reduce costs and the burden on respondents: stratified sampling and data submitted online through Information system ’Short-term statistics’.

The indices of turnover in hotels and restaurants are reconciled on the basis of comprehensive annual data from SBS.

The revised data are published on the NSI and transmitted to Eurostat.

The indices are based on quarterly survey ’Activity of non-financial enterprises’. The sample includes about 2 000 enterprises which account for about 60% of the turnover of firms in the target population and is representative of all divisions defined in Regulation (EU) 1893/2006. In calculating the turnover index includes all receipts from sales (including revenues from sales of raw materials).

Quarterly

Data collection is done online (IS STS), by mail and by phone.

To reduce non-response IS STS has functionality to send an informative and a reminder letters to respondents:

• Automatic formation of electronic letters informing respondents about the upcoming observations, in which they are included. To enable them to attach and reporting forms in PDF format and official letters;
• Provide automatic sending of e-mail reminders to respondents who fail to report the time (when approaching the deadline for submission of reports by the subsystem). Provide automatic sending of e-mail reminders to respondents who fail to report the time (when approaching the deadline for submission of reports by the subsystem).

Validation of data in the report:

When recording the data, the system carries out obligatory and recommended controls according to set with validation rules.

The system carries out the statutory and warning controls. In case there are errors, it displays a warning dialog error in the report. The system does not allow completion of the report until they have corrected these errors by statutory controls.

Validation of the output data:

Output data is verified at section level with regard to the previous quarter, the same quarter of the previous year and also with regard to extreme values, if necessary data is validated at the level of statistical units.

The turnover indices are calculated for both sections: ‘Accommodation’ and ‘Food service activities’. Price effects are eliminated by the use of deflators based on average prices of the base year (2015).

The software used for seasonal and working day adjustment is JDEMETRA2.2.0 (TRAMO-SEATS). 

First data rows are tested for calendar effects, which usually includes:

• the different number of working days in a specific month;
• the composition of working days;
• the leap year effect, moving holidays such Easter. In working day adjustment the following approach is applied
• RegARIMA approach, with all checks of significance and plausibility of the effects.
• RegARIMA approach, with all pre-tests for number of regressors, length and composition of month, check of plausibility of effects (sign and size of estimated coefficients), etc.
• RegARIMA approach, with pre-tests for Easter and other moving holiday effects.
• The use of national calendar prepared by NSI experts. In seasonal adjustment the following approach is applied:
• The series are checked for outliers of different types, but with the complete automatic procedure for detecting outliers;
• Complete automatic procedure for automatic selection within a large number of models according to the options of the tool, after checking for model adequacy using standard statistical tests (e.g. normality, heteroskedasticity, serial correlation, etc.);
• Fully automatic decomposition scheme selection using information criteria.The decomposition scheme specifies how the various components - trend-cycle, seasonal and calendar component and irregular – combine to form the original series. Usually, the default decomposition scheme is multiplicative, because in most economic time series, the magnitudes of the seasonal component vary proportionally to the level of the series;
• Direct seasonal adjustment is performed. All time series, including aggregates, are seasonally adjusted on an individual basis.

Revisions to seasonally adjusted data are published in accordance with accepted revision policy and release calendar that is aligned with the revision policy and the revision calendar for the unadjusted data.