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B.5. Governance of a statistical business register
5.1819. Governance and organizational structure is very important, not only for developing the SBR programme itself, but even more so for the ongoing maintenance of the SBR and support for its users. An SBR should be, where possible, an independent entity with a dedicated manager. It is good practice for the manager’s unit to assume the following responsibilities:
(a) Defining and documenting all concepts, in line with the standards of international, national and local statistical offices;
(b) Planning and directing the development of SBR system processes and functionalities;
(c) Planning and implementing a quality assurance program for the SBR with the goal of:
(i) Assessing quality and ensuring the frame’s continued integrity;
(ii) Defining and producing quality measurements for the SBR;
(iii) Identifying system improvements, or recommending adjustments to the training programme or procedures, if required;
(d) Profiling businesses to delineate those that are larger and more complex, to properly represent their production output;
(e) Ensuring that businesses are classified within the proper standard industry classification;
(f) Assigning or deriving statistical indicators, or creating statistical units, from administrative registers to create a complete and unduplicated SBR aligned with the needs of the system of national accounts and basic economic statistics;
(g) Validating new development strategies, specifications and procedures;
(h) Developing and delivering courses and materials to educate SBR users, including profilers, survey frame specialists, analysts, data coders and the staff of survey divisions and collection units/areas (training could follow a certification process so that those wishing to access the register must first complete the appropriate level of instruction);
(i) Supporting SBR data users by, for example, providing assistance in evaluating the design needs of their surveys;
(j) Providing direction and support on legal issues related to the survey frame, such as access to the SBR and dissemination of SBR-based data;
(k) Maintaining a dedicated group tasked with producing files for users and processing all files related to updating the frame.
5.1920. The creation and maintenance of a unified comprehensive SBR is a long-term objective and a challenging task,[9] and it is recognized that resources devoted to that purpose vary among countries. In spite of this, there are a number of common issues that many national statistical offices may encounter in assessing the suitability of an SBR for trade in services statistics purposes.[10] For instance, a legal framework should be in place to allow access to and use of such administrative records for the purposes of the SBR. In the maintenance process, as many administrative sources as possible should be used to update the SBR, including, for example, the administrative company register, the register of sole proprietors, the register of government units and the register of non-profit units, as well as tax information such as corporate tax, VAT and social security information.
5.2021. Ideally, there should be a unit in the national statistical office that is responsible for developing and maintaining the SBR. Decentralized systems could benefit from the development of a system for reconciling the more significant inconsistencies in the data produced by multiple business registers, to improve the accuracy of the data through more consistent classification of key enterprises and the elimination of overlaps and gaps in coverage.
B.6. Maintenance of an statistical business register
5.2122. An SBR must be continuously updated to reflect changes in the population of economic entities as accurately as possible. In particular, the number and characteristics of economic units engaged in trade in services normally shift very rapidly, potentially resulting in the rapid aging of SBR data, which soon becomes useless. The SBR should be updated at least annually to record unit creations and deletions, as well as changes in address and stratification variables.
5.2223. New enterprises should be recorded in the SBR as soon as information about them is available, preferably before they start trading, so that information about investment in new buildings and plants can be collected. In addition, changes in the data necessary for the conduct of surveys, such as the addresses of reporting units, should obviously be reflected in the SBR as rapidly as possible.[11]
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C.1. Satellite register for trade in services
5.2324. A satellite register of an SBR is a register that covers a subpopulation of the SBR with specific characteristics. For instance, a satellite register for trade in services (TIS-R) contains all economic units engaged in the international supply of services. That subpopulation is identified by linking the SBR with data from other sources, helping the statistician to determine the target subpopulation in the published indicators. Subsequently, survey samples can be drawn from the TIS-R.
5.2425. It is good practice for the TIS-R to be maintained by a dedicated unit within the agency responsible for the compilation of trade in services statistics in the country. However, it is strongly advised that the core information on the economic units in the TIS-R be automatically updated from the central SBR and that its content be harmonized with it. The harmonization of the TIS-R and the SBR entails forwarding to the SBR managers the information on the statistical units identified as engaged in the international supply of services but not yet included in SBR. For example, a TIS-R can include and provide to an SBR information on units, which are identified by the central bank as being active in resident/non-resident services transactions, but not yet registered in the SBR. The international supply of services is, in principle, a possible activity for all units in an economy. Therefore, drawing efficient samples requires the inclusion in the sample frame of all those units that supply services internationally and the exclusion of those that are not engaged in such activity. In that context, in practice, it is useful to have a tailor-made TIS-R for trade in services.
C.2. Objectives of a satellite register for trade in services
5.2526. The objectives of a TIS-R can be described as follows:
(a) The TIS-R must enumerate all the resident economic units that have had, in the recent past, international transactions in services. Ideally, the services subregister should enable an immediate differentiation of its population by major kinds of services, and distinguish the population of services exporters from that of importers, insofar as those populations may have significantly different features;
(b) The TIS-R needs additional indicators that provide information on international transactions, which are generally not included in an SBR. An SBR is a necessary, but not sufficient, source to determine the TIS-R population;
(c) The selection of the population of economic units of interest to statistics on the international supply of services will be an extract of the TIS-R. It generally includes all big players, as well as small and medium-sized enterprises, selected for participation in a sample survey. In other words, we are distinguishing three sets of economic units: the overall population of the SBR, the subset population of the TIS-R and the surveyed sample of the TIS-R.
5.2627. Variables Turnover, economic activity, number of employees, balance sheet variables, foreign trade data, data on foreign ownership and other economic data are necessary auxiliary variables for carrying out the selection, stratification, sampling and estimation of economic units. It is also good practice to use business registers to identify the self-employed population that could potentially be supplying their services through mode 4, because merchants and small manufacturers, including the self-employed and single-proprietor companies, are usually registered in them. An indication of cross-border trade activities might be also available and should be reflected in the TIS-R.
5.2728. Sources The sources used to build and update a TIS-R should be used in two ways: (1) to identify the population as well as the variables used to identify it and (2) to select the enterprises to be surveyed. Potential sources to be carefully tested include the following:
(a) The general SBR lists the businesses active in the country, whatever their activity, domestic and/or international. It may contain relevant information for building and updating the TIS-R: identification variables, stratification variables relating to the activity and size of the enterprises, demographic variables and relationships variables (links between units);
(b) Settlements and international payments databases exist in many countries and contain the detail that can be derived from an ITRS on the resident units carrying out international payments through accounts held in resident banks, with an item breakdown (including trade in services);
(c) Trade registers include a list of resident operators involved in international trade in goods. Generally a link can be established between trade in goods and trade in services (e.g., through information on international freight);
(d) VAT registers are an important source for updating other registers existing in the country. The basic information in the VAT register includes, in general, such variables as turnover, employment, main activity and total goods and services exports and imports, which may be useful for a TIS-R;
(e) Other sources include the register of partial direct reporting companies, the FDI register, balance sheet information and specific registers available from trade associations or regulatory bodies, including insurance companies, postal and telecommunications operators, trusts, securities dealers, the press and other media.
C.3. Using business registers to identify potential mode 4 self-employed service suppliers
5.2829. In some countries, foreign individuals must register with a supervision office. All new entries and changes are recorded and could eventually be published nationally. This means that potential mode 4 persons could be observed, if that information feeds the business register, and subsequently be linked to the trade in services variable. Therefore, the demographics of businesses, including in relation to mode 4, can be derived.
5.2930. In countries in which compilers have direct access to the business register, or can link their own BOP register with the business register, the self-employed category could be accessible. For example, in the European Union, very small enterprises are usually included in the business registers. Therefore, it is recommended that this legal type (that is, physical persons acting on the basis of small business authorization) and size class (microenterprises) be used as a first indication of potential mode 4 self-employed persons.
5.3031. Chapter 7 of the Eurostat Business Register Recommendations Manual stipulates which legal units must be recorded in business registers in European Union member states, while chapter 8 provides relevant information for mode of supply: external sourcing of ancillary services, in section 8.D, and activities of workers under exclusive contracts, in section 8.E, which states that “[t]here are many activities that involve the services of workers under exclusive contracts: commercial representatives, travelling salesmen, insurance agents. Such workers may or may not be treated as employees of the enterprise, depending on the nature of the contract binding them to the enterprise”. Therefore, for countries interested in the self-employed under mode 4, it is advised to take into account the experience of the European Union and to incorporate similar information in their registers to enable compilation of the supply of services by mode 4 persons.
D. Country experiences
5.3132. Section D contains descriptions of three country experiences, each of which represents a specific practice adopted by a given country. The experience of Italy shows that persistent difficulty with access to the general statistical register, in addition to other statistical problems with obtaining a survey frame relevant for cross-border phenomena, may lead to a decision to create a specific SBR to support the compilation system for external sector accounts. The case of Spain demonstrates the complexity of issues that must be overcome to build a tailor-made TIS-R when the general SBR, traditionally used as the statistical frame for almost all business surveys, does not contain the variables needed for the direct identification of exporters and importers of services. The experience of Uruguay proves that sustained efforts can result in developing a register that can provide a basis for the compilation of statistics on the international supply of services under the circumstances that developing countries usually face.
Country experience: Italy
5.3233. In the period 2007-2011, the Bank of Italy modernized its BOP system. The SBR developed by the Bank plays a central role in the new system. It is used particularly to facilitate direct reporting via surveys covering different parts of the BOP and the index of industrial production. Although the use of a single national business register across all domains of economic statistics (not just BOP) would be ideal, the Bank had to create its own SBR because, despite close cooperation in statistics between the national statistical institute and the Bank, legislative constraints prevent the Bank from accessing the institute’s business register.[12]
5.3334. The SBR of the Bank of Italy contains information for the entire corporate sector (about 1.5 million units), with the exception of small, sole-proprietor firms. The coverage of the SBR, in terms of turnover, is nearly 90 per cent, and even higher for cross-border operations.[13] Given the tight deadline for the production of BOP data, timeliness is a particularly critical factor for the Bank’s SBR. The register is therefore updated daily with online data transmissions. This allows for the timely accounting of changes in the population of firms, which in some cases may significantly affect the external sector statistics, especially FDI. An SBR that is always up to date also contributes to the smooth running of back-office activities, such as the help desk, formal communications to enterprises and sanction procedures.
5.3435. Enterprises have engaged in cross-border transactions are flagged in the SBR on the basis of information from quarterly bank reports on firms that have carried out cross-border settlements. Such an integration of sources significantly improves the efficiency of the sample selection. The Bank of Italy’s SBR is built by aggregating various source data (mostly received from external data providers) and converting them into normalized tables. The latter are integrated to form a relational database through a “bridge table” that contains all the identification keys used by the various data providers. The relational database consists of three tables: a structural data table, which contains information, such as a firm’s name and address; a quantitative data table, with balance sheet data and a flag for the presence of cross-border payments; and an FDI table, concerning enterprise ownership features.
5.3536. The final population list used for direct reporting purposes is extracted from the SBR according to well-defined criteria. The complete population list is usually too large to be used efficiently in a survey strategy. Therefore, a threshold is applied, according to which only firms with total assets or turnover greater than €1 million are included in the subpopulation. In the direct reporting system of Italy, the SBR not only allows for the identification of the target population, it also contributes auxiliary information and uses a cut-off strategy to reduce the population in order to stratify it in homogeneous clusters and to derive model-based estimators directly in the estimation process.
Country experience: Spain
5.3637. Since 2005, the National Institute of Statistics has been entrusted to conduct an international trade in services survey , with the aim of helping the Bank of Spain to estimate the “other services” item of the BOP. The survey is sent to enterprises, sampled from the business registers of various institutions, because the Institute’s Central Business Register (DIRCE) does not contain a variable for identifying exporters and importers of services. Populations that are considered are obtained from different registers, including regular declarants of foreign services transactions enterprises from the monthly VAT records of large companies and a sample of enterprises (with 10 employees or more) from DIRCE; care is taken to exclude double counting of the same units. More detail on those populations is available in the online version of the present Guide.
5.3738. The results obtained by the international trade in services survey between 2005 and 2012 showed significant differences in level (but not in trend) from those obtained by the Bank of Spain settlements system. Since 2013, the populations and statistical frameworks used in the surveys have remained very diverse. The intention is, however, to reduce to the maximum the number of survey respondents who may state in the questionnaire that they do not carry out such transactions. In the new sampling design, DIRCE does not form a statistical frame by itself. Instead, its main function is to characterize the companies of the different populations by main economic activity and size, to enable the substratification of each stratum by those two variables.
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