Volume indices of construction: documentation of statistics

Domestic turnover refers to the volume of domestic taxable sales in the payment control data of the Tax Administration. In addition to domestic sales, the volume of taxable sales includes own use of (construction)services.

Turnover refers to the information concerning sales obtained from the Tax Administration's self-assessed tax data (total data) and from Statistics Finland's sales inquiry conducted among the 2,000 largest enterprises within their respective industries. In the self-assessed tax data, turnover may also include profit and loss statement items external to turnover, such as sales of fixed assets, other income, extraordinary items, purchases inversely liable to tax, own use of products and agency sales. The largest items deviating in profit and loss account from turnover are adjusted in the calculation. The concept of turnover in Statistics Finland's sales inquiry is fairly close to the concept of turnover in the profit and loss statement. Turnover comprises both domestic and export turnover. Turnover is exclusive of value-added tax.

The volume index of sales of building construction companies describes development in the output of the industry. The index describes relative change in the volume of output compared to the average output in a base year.

The base year of the volume index is 2000 and the series starts from the year 1995. The index is published quarterly. Apart from the original index series, a seasonally adjusted series and a trend series are also calculated.

The index is calculated from deflated data on turnover by individual enterprise. The deflator is the implicit price index of Statistics Finland's volume index of newbuilding.

Data on the turnover of building construction companies are obtained from the Tax Administration's value added tax payment and reporting control records and from Statistics Finland's inquiry of large enterprises. The calculation is based on the so-called estimation of change. Included are enterprises for which comparable data are available for the examined month and for the corresponding month of the previous year. A change percentage is calculated for the industry with the data on these enterprise and the index series is then continued with this figure.

Up to the end of 2001, the 1995 Standard Industrial Classification was used in the calculations. The 2002 Standard Industrial Classification has been used as of the beginning of 2002.

Compilation of the statistics is influenced by the EC Regulation of Short-Term Statistic (No. 1165/98, http://forum.europa.eu.int/Public/irc/dsis/bmethods/info/data/new/legislation/sts.html).