National Statistical Institute

'Trade Statistics' Department

Lilqna Ralinska

Chief expert

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

[email protected]

+359 2 9857 128

The index of retail sales reflects short-term trends and changes in the structure of the market consumption of the two main groups - 'Food, beverages and tobacco' and 'Durable and other consumer goods' and commodity groups, defined according to the classification of individual consumption COICOP. The information can be used for preparing economic analyzes, evaluations and short-term forecasts.

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

The indices of retail sales are calculated for non-financial enterprises committed retail sales of own products and/or goods without the end user in the country as a principal or business, regardless of their sectoral reference under NACE.BG 2008.

Retail sales in the country include the value of own production sold, finished goods and materials to end-user prices of the sales (incl. VAT and excise duties), except those in the catering.

Non-financial enterprise

Non-financial enterprises committed retail sales of own products and/or goods without the end user in the country, as a principal or business, regardless of their sectoral reference on NACE.BG 2008.

At national level: The indices are calculated and published total for the territory of Bulgaria.

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 2010 as a base year.

Per cent (%)

Quarter

• National Statistical Programme;
• REGULATION (EC) №1893/2006 - translation to NACE Rev.2 and groups of activities of STS.

Not applicable.

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 in a democratic society. 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 retail sales' indices are published about 37 - 40 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 Retail sales' indices are available to all users of the NSI website: http://www.nsi.bg/en/node/4723

Micro data are neither distributed nor provided to the users.

Not applicable.

Methodology 'Retail sales' indices': http://www.nsi.bg/sites/default/files/files/metadata/dTrade_Method_26_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.

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.

•  Bulgarian state institutions and local authorities;
•  Business and NGOs;
•  Analytical and associate professionals;
•  Internal users: Directorate 'Macroeconomic Statistics'.

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 National Statistical Programme is calculated and published.

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.

Monitoring of retail sales is used for sample turnover 'Wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles' to which are added all the sample companies from other sectors that meet the necessary criteria. There is representation of the two major groups, 'Food, beverages and tobacco' and 'Durable and other consumer goods'. The sample is planned at the national level by the method of 'Stratified Random Sampe'. It is formed by two criteria - group and turnover distributed in stratums (intervals), with guaranteed representation of the results for all groups. The stratums are: 1 - complete, 2 and 3 - sampling. Sampling errors are not calculated.

Non-responders companies are valued according to the stratum in which they are faced. In stratum comprehensive assessment is done individually for each enterprise using available information on trends in the establishment and adjusted trends in reported units of the same group and stratum. Sampling strata for each cell group and an overall assessment of non-response using extrapolation coefficients calculated from the data reported in the enterprise group and stratum after eliminating extreme values. In these cases it is assumed that there are no significant differences in the behavior of responders and non-responders enterprises. Actions to reduce non-sampling errors: sending informative reminders and phone calls to collect data.

NSI provides information on indices from 37 to 40 days after the end of the reporting quarter.

Retail sales' 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.

The quarterly indices are presented as time series from the first quarter of 2000 to the last reported quarter.

The 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 retail sales' indices usually are revised two times. Each quarter data for the current quarter are published as preliminary and for the previous quarter as final. At the beginning of each year the indices for the previous year are reconciled on the basis of the comprehensive annual data from SBS.

The revised data are published on the NSI.

The indices are based on survey 'Sales in industry, construction, trade and services'. Retail sales include the value of own production, finished goods and materials to the end-user selling prices (including VAT and excise duties), except those in the catering.

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).

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

Retail sales' indices are estimated for two main groups of 'Food, beverages and tobacco' and 'Durable and other consumer goods'. Price effects are eliminated by the use of deflators obtained by rearrangement of products in the consumer basket in accordance with the content of the commodity groups and calculated based on average prices of the base year (2010).

Indices of retail sales not apply seasonal adjustment.