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Reference metadata describe statistical concepts and methodologies used for the collection and generation of data. They provide information on data quality and, since they are strongly content-oriented, assist users in interpreting the data. Reference metadata, unlike structural metadata, can be decoupled from the data.

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Producer prices in industry

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National Reference Metadata in Euro SDMX Metadata Structure (ESMS)

Compiling agency: National Statistics Institute - INE Spain

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The objective of the Industrial Producer Price Index (PPI) is to measure the monthly evolution of the prices of those industrial products produced in Spain.

The Industrial Producer Price Index in the domestic market measures the monthly development of the price of products manufactured and sold in the domestic market, during the first step of their commercialisation. In other words, the sales prices of products coming out of the factory, excluding transport and commercialisation costs and the VAT invoiced.

The Industrial Producer Price Index in the non domestic market (Export Price Index for Industrial Products) measures the monthly development of the prices of those industrial products manufactured in the domestic market and sold in the foreign market.

1 April 2025

Aggregate index:

Weighted arithmetic mean of elementary indices.

Basket of products:

Set of products whose price is monthly collected.

Contribution:

The contribution of a product is the extent to which the overall index changes when there are price changes only for that product (that is, all other prices remain constant).

Elementary index:

Ratio of average prices in the current month to average prices in December of the previous year (multiplied by 100). Indices are unitless and measure price changes from the base period to the current month.

Industrial prices in the domestic market:

Prices included in the index are current prices on 15th of the month, excluding VAT, other indirect taxes, transport and commercialisation costs, even though all sales or discounts are included.

Industrial prices in the non-domestic market:

Prices included in the index are producer prices with the following characteristics:

  1. they are the prices existing at the national border, excluding VAT, other indirect taxes or customs duties, even though all sales or discounts are included
  2. they are FOB prices (Free On Board), excluding transport or insurance costs relating to the part of the journey outside Spain
  3. they are current prices on 15th of the month
  4. the currency is euro. If the price is provided in other currency, they are exchanged to euros.

Quality adjustment:

Estimation of the price difference between the new (replacement) product and the old (replaced) one that is due to the quality change.

Quality change:

Change that occurs when the new product (variety or model) that replaces a previously selected one presents a change in specification that results in a significant difference in utility of the product.

Rates of change:

They show price developments between two periods of time.

Subvariety:

Specific model of a product, in a concrete industrial establishment, whose price is collected monthly.

Weights:

Product weight is the relative importance of each product in the basket.

Weights in the domestic market:

They are calculated based on the turnover of each of the products that make up the basket. The turnover information is obtained from the Industrial Companies Survey and the Industrial Products Survey.

Weights in the non domestic market:

They are calculated using turnover from from the Industrial Companies Survey, Itrastat and the Single Administrative Document (SAD).

Local units which manufacture industrial products in Spain. The observation units are the same as the information units.

The target population is all local units which manufacture industrial products in Spain.

The frame for the domestic market is the Industrial Products Survey and the frame for the non-domestic market is the Custom Data.

According to Industrial Companies Survey, in Spain, there were, in 2023, 189036 enterprises which manufactured industrial products in Spain.

The whole national territory is covered except the Autonomous Cities of Ceuta and Melilla, as the industrial activity is non significant.

In the non-domestic market, a breakdown between export market is calculated, distinguishing by euro and non-euro zone. The list of euro-zone countries is updated every time a new country joins the euro-zone.

The reference period for data is the month, in particular day 15th.

The accuracy is tackled at national, Community and market (euro and non-euro zone) levels by eliminating non-sampling errors as much as possible and studying and analyzing revisions.

The main sources of error are non-response and overcoverage. There is no evidence that the response rate is distributed in a way that generates a bias in the index or its evolution. In addition, steps are taken to improve the updating of the sample, replacing, in a more agile way, units that have been deleted from the sample for new ones.

Due to the timeliness of the survey there is a non-response rate of 8% at the time of the initial release. The questionnaires keep being required three months after the end of the reference month. This way new questionnaires are recorded after the first publication of the results and the non-response rate decreases. Another consequence is that the published results are updated monthly including both new and edited data.

Since the cutoff sampling is used, best sampling method to be used taking into account the skewness of the distribution of the Industrial businesses size in Spain, the estimation is biased, although there is no information about how much.

Data editing consists on several phases throughout the process. The first one is microediting and takes place during the data collection. The e-questionnaire contains workflows and several hard and soft edits. It makes possible that the data are cleaned by the respondent and there is no need to recontact. Finally the macroediting phase occurs, for the purpose of checking the results to be published.

During the whole data collection process the response rate is checked and attention is paid to get the data of the influential units.

Indices:

Indices are compiled as ratios of prices in a given month to prices in the reference month (December of the previous year) multiplied by 100. Therefore indices are unitless.

Rates of change:

All rates of change are usually given as percentage changes.

Weights:

For each item or group of items, weights represent the corresponding percentage share of the total value of production.

Data checking
As a general rule, respondents are recontacted in order to justify or correct any anomaly detected in subvarieties or prices during the validation process, in case they have changed the characteristics (both physical and commercial) or the unit of measure of the subvariety.

Index Calculation
First, the elementary indices are calculated as a ratio of the geometric mean of the prices collected in the reference month between the prices reported in December last year.

Subsequently, the elementary indices are aggregated using a weighted arithmetic mean.

Weights
The main sources for the weights of the Industrial Producer Price Indices are the Industrial Companies Survey and the Industrial Products Survey and Custom data (Intrastat data and the SAD).

In domestic PPI, there are weights for each product in each Autonomous Community while in non-domestic PPI, the weights are for each product in each market (Euro zone - rest of the world).

Treatment of missing items
When occasionally the product price has not been reported, the establishment is contacted to see if they can estimate the price that would have had the transaction.

In case this is not possible, the price is estimated using the average change of the rest of prices collected for the same product or the corresponding branch, in the same market.

Treatment of replacement products
When a subvariety disappears, INE contacts the informant to know if it is something temporary or permanent. In the event that the disappearance is permanent, the subvariety is to be replaced by another item of the same product and market.

In case the establishment does not have a substitute for the product, we try to find another establishment to provide information.

Adjustments for quality change
When there is a change in the specifications of a subvariety or it disappears and it is replaced, a quality adjustment must be done in order to determine the share of the price difference that is due to a quality change.

In general terms, estimated prices are used to make this adjustment. This method involves the estimation of a relative price change as the average price change of the aggregate that contains the subvariety (product or class).

The data used to calculate the Industrial Producer Price Indices are obtained by surveys of establishments. The frame of the survey is all establishments that have manufactured industrial products.

The criteria used to define which activities are part of the calculation of Industrial Producer Price Index, base 2021, are:

Domestic market: for the entire country, classes (4 digits NACE Rev. 2) that exceed 0.1% of the total turnover of the industry; for the Autonomous Communities, divisions (2 digits NACE Rev. 2) which exceed 1.0% of the total turnover of the industry in each Community (according to the Industrial Companies Survey of 2021).
In the domestic PPI, base 2021, around 29.000 prices of 1.400 products in approximately 9.200 establishments are monthly collected.

Non-domestic market: for the entire country, classes (4 digits NACE Rev. 2) that exceed 0.1% of the total turnover of the industry; for the markets (Euro zone and non-euro zone), divisions (2 digits NACE Rev. 2) which exceed 1.0% of the total turnover of the industry in each market (according to Customs data of 2021).
In the non-domestic PPI, base 2021, around 14.000 prices of 1.700 products in approximately 4.100 establishments are monthly collected.

Monthly.

As established in the Regulation, the deadline for the data transmission is 30 days after the end of the reference period.

This deadline is met since the results for the non-domestic market and their aggregation with the domestic market are published 30 days after the end of the reference period, unless there is a public holiday. In this case the results are published the previous working day. The results for the domestic market are published 25 days after the end of the reference period.

The comparability between EU countries is ensured by the EBS-Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics, repealing 10 legal acts in the field of business statistics) and its General Implementing Act (Commission Implementing Regulation 2020/1197 laying down technical specifications and arrangements pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics repealing 10 legal acts in the field of business statistic). They provide these statistics with homogeneity regarding the rest of European Union countries, which disseminate the same information on their respective industrial sectors.

The Industrial Producer Price Indices of domestic market were published for the first time in 1975. The Industrial Producer Price Indices of non-domestic market and its aggregation with the domestic market were published for the first time in January 2005. Since then there have been changes in the used classification as well as changes in the base year.

Since January 2009, the Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community, Rev. 2 (NACE-Rev. 2) is used. Indices are available since the beginning of the series with the new classification.

The changes of base have led to changes of some of the methodological aspects in the survey, which have led to a breach in the series which has been suitably treated to provide linked series from the first year of publication of the survey to the present date. Thus, the time series are comparable since their beginning.