21 st Wiesbaden Group Meeting on Business Registers OECD, 24 th -27 th November 2008

1. 21st Wiesbaden Group Meeting on Business RegistersOECD, 24th-27th November 2008 Session Conveners Summary Thursday, 27th November 2008, p.m.

2. Session 1: Country Progress Reports • Some 32 reports were presented • A true “vademecum” of what is going on and what the problems and solutions are • Rich variety of commonalities, differences and adopted solutions • Detectable trend towards • BR integration or matching • Linking to trade • Entrepreneurship, Micro –data, firm growth • Systemic overhaul of systems in some countries • Delegates accepted OECD’s proposal to prepare a country synopsis and summary of key issues to be carried forward

3. Session 2a : producer perspective • Survey frames from BR are common, but do not automatically lead to a common frame • Adding information to the units in the BR is a high value starting point to interconnect data bases • Tackling new tasks for statistics should begin with feeding information into the register • Globalisation forces us to reconsider the appropriateness of the statistical units used (“global” units?) • BR= bookkeeping system for bigger, complex units; statistical system for small units • BR as backbone of statistical system requires close co-operation with other statistical departments • => building up a system must mean establishing co-operation

4. Session 2b: User perspective • OECD/STI: Experience from matching BR with Patent Applications (France): • Main difficulties were lack of identity of observation units (SIRENE <-> INPI) • Large size of datasets • Available information for identification and matching often too limited • ECB: Register of Institutions and Assets Database (RIAD): • Core benefit to BRs is that RIAD is complete, ESA 95 conform, and up-to-date register on financial institutions

5. Session 2b (Cont’d) • OECD/CFE: Analysis of impact of globalisation on entrepreneurship and SMEs- some data requirements: • Trade by size-class: develop more of this linkage data (more years, inclusion of services, more countries) • Are there official sources for FDI by size class? • Need to establish database linking innovation to administrative/firm-level data • Financial data by size class: sources ?Links with other firm-level databases?

6. Session 3 – Business Profiling • Covered current practice based on questionnaire and country presentations followed by developments in multinational profiling • Issues raised: • The role of the business register in profiling • Defining metrics for profiling based on impact • Role of the global group in profiling, as business does not recognise national boundaries

7. Session 3 – Business Profiling • Creation of organisational units that cut across legal units • Managing dynamic business structures • Skills needed by profilers • Controlling the quality of clerical profiling • Role of profiling in reducing burden • IT tools for profiling • Sharing data between countries – a future workshop?

8. Session 4 The four presentations of Denmark, Finland, Portugal and Switzerland and the discussions of these presentations resulted into the following general conclusions, especially with a focus on data sharing between NSIs and other government institutions: • Information and Data sharing with administrative institutions is an important topic for business registers and will become even more important in the future (response burden, e-government, etc.) • The NSI have a privileged status as concerns access and use of administrative data that other government bodies do not have; this gives the NSI a certain responsibility in the development of the government data system.

9. Session 4 (cont’d) • The role of the NSIs in relation to coordination, interface/integration and data sharing needs to be changed from a mere customer requesting administrative data for statistical purposes to a pro-active partner of the administration, as well as the government bodies should not only be seen as data provider. • Even if legal constraints in the exchange or provision of (individual) data to other government bodies or the public may not be given, such an exchange or publication have to be considered or reconsidered seriously as the trust in the NSI should not be broken. On the other hand, the trade-off between efficiency, reduction of burden and data secrecy should openly be discussed and evaluated and obvious limits be respected.

10. Session 5 (1/2) • Several activities to improve Business Registers • Lot of common problems, no miracle solutions • Share information with other registers • Standardisation of ID • More communication • New surveys • New modules / tools

11. Session 5 (2/2) • Use of linguistic science • Future: • Quality of BR as a central point (Timeliness, Actualisation, Clarity of information, Accessibility, Consistency, Modernisation) • Eurostat Grants for 2009

12. Session 6a Summary: • The focus of session 6a was on "Entrepreneurship Indicators" (employer business demography and high-growth enterprises) and the timeliness of business demography data. • Italy analysed the current measurement of high-growth enterprises and demonstrated some of its weaknesses, such as the 10 employee threshold which neglects about 95% of the business population and leads to unequal weights of economic activities in the data because of the different average size of enterprises in different activities. • The UK explained their work on the more timely release of business demography data. • The discussion focused on the delineation of the employer business population and on a harmonised measurement of employment in business demography.

13. Session 6a (cont’d) Outlook: • Italy was invited to share their findings of their ongoing work on more meaningful measurement on high-growth enterprises (composite indicators), bearing in mind a possible implementation in all EU/OECD member states. • The UK was invited to share their experience with obtaining timely estimates of business demography data. • More discussion on the measurement of employment in business demography is necessary to further harmonise employer business demography results; this is particularly necessary before attempting a data collection on economic enterprise births/deaths based on a 2-employee threshold.

14. Session 6b • Integrating economic business statistics with trade and other structural economic statistics • Linkages: • Issues • Coverage • Estimate of unlinked units • Level of aggregation • Dimensions

15. Session 6 b (cont’d) • Micro • Data Cubes (Integrated Business Database) • Confidentiality • Deemed Employees • Business Register link to other structural economic statistics • FRAMEWORK • CONSULTATION • INTERNATIONAL COMPARABILITY • Common Concepts and Definitions

16. Session 6c • The private data sources (DB and BvD) cannot be used as the main source to produce outward FATS. • The Italian presentation showed different problems that may occur in each country and that need to be solved : • When several sources of information are used, there is a need to define priority rules • For Inward FATS purposes : there is a need to clarify which information is to favour between the country of the group head and the country of the main decision center (headquarter). • How to treat the truncated groups ? • How to deal with natural persons as head of a group ?

17. Session 6c • The role of EGR needs to be clarified: • The EGR should be a tool for EU member states to share information on EGs. • Information and agreements on the characteristics of the groups (Nationality, principal activity, size) • Methodologies in the building of a groups’ register • The EGR should be a sample base for surveys on FATS • It should include the operational structure of the groups

18. Session 7a • Review of OECD Accession Process Israel • Use of integrated survey, VAT, Tax and other sources • Ambitious program of Business Demography Slovenia • “Outsourced” business register and SORS became user • Extensive network of inputs • Extending Business Demography data

19. Session 7b: BIICS countries • Brazil: • BRs since 1991; re-design in 2007 • Unique ID for enterprises and local units, good coverage • First publication in 2009, and first inclusion of enterprise groups planned for 2009 and later • China: • BR update and Census • Concept of basic units, coverage and concepts • Legal units: 6,54 million; establishments: 8,3 million • Economic Census 2004 (and 2008) as basis

20. Session 7b (cont’d) • South Africa: • No single ID, but matching algorithms • Administrative and Business Sampling frame are foundation for all economic statistical surveys • Although single business ID is planned, practical difficulties remain when trying to combine different sources • Quality management framework applied to BR permitted better analysis (e.g. globalisation-related indicators and performance measures

21. Session 7c • NSIs of developed economies are engaged in several BR-related cooperation and capacity building projects with the developing countries. • The reported experience by ISTAT on its on-going cooperation project with the Tunisian NSI (that aims in part to improve operation of the national register of enterprises and to define the NACE Rev.2-based national economic activity classification), illustrated an overall need for: • increased use of administrative sources • well-designed “open” information system

22. Session 7c (cont’d) • UK’s ONS reported on its findings resulting from a capacity building project with the NSOs of Armenia and Azerbaijan. The ONS helps to develop a more comprehensive BR in these countries, by sharing its practice on how: • to incorporate natural persons – individual entrepreneurs - into the BR, • to design a workable model of using these data for sampling frames.

23. Session 7c (cont’d) • UNECE, in its overview of the BR development over the last four years in the countries of the CIS region, pointed out to the need of harmonising their methodological approaches with those accepted internationally. CIS countries should look for the best practices on: • profiling of large and complex enterprises • delineation of enterprise groups • reviewing principal and secondary activity coding • cooperation with central banks, commercial data providers, etc.

24. Preliminary conclusions and way forward • CPRs: • Country progress reports (CPRs) are rich tool to detect common trends and future priorities • BR integration, linking to trade, micro-data are common themes • System overhaul in some countries • OECDs proposal to provide later synoptic summary accepted • CPRs to be maintained in future Wiesbaden Group meetings

25. Preliminary conclusions and way forward: • BR is backbone of statistical system. As such, it needs close co-operation with other statistical departments • It is very important to treat issues from both producer and user perspective to ensure continuous relevance • Profiling is promising. It is recommended to: • Adopt global perspective beyond EU (EGR) • Statndardise applications (tools, documentation etc.)

26. Preliminary conclusions and way forward: • The Group should continue to promote the mutual benefits of data sharing and data linking • BRs as unifying tool lowers costs • Data sharing means exploiting available data to the fullest • Quality framework standards and metadata documentation should be permanently part of work • “Special cases” should be addressed in future parallel sessions (different aspects of the same case0

27. Preliminary conclusions and way forward: • Next meeting could have ½ day of parallel session on specific theme (e.g. Special Purpose Entities) • Country Progress Reports should be asked for 2009 by next convener (Estonia) • An invitation for Developing Countries to attend the 22nd meeting should be issued, including funds to enable participation (UN?)

28. Future work The Steering Group will draft and circulate to participants a priority list of themes and issues for consideration. The Group will benefit from a multi-annual work programme Please note in your calendar: The 22nd Meeting of the Wiesbaden Group will take place in ESTONIA , 27-30 September 2010