Regional Business Demography Meeting of Task Force on Small and Medium Sized Enterprise Data (SMED) 5th February 2015, 6. Feasibility of regional breakdowns Alexandros Karvounis, DG REGIO Economic Analysis Unit 1

Aim The European Commission (EC) needs regional business demography to better assess and monitor the quality of the business environment in the regions of the European Union. Business demography statistics at the national level can hide substantial differences between regions. Given the regional nature of most Cohesion policy programmes, regional business demography indicators can reveal where new businesses are created and how quickly firms grow. The regional business demography (RBD) 2012 pilot data collection followed an explicit request made by the Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy (REGIO) to Eurostat.

Data collection Data have been delivered from eleven Member States based on grant agreements (BG, DK, ES, FR, HU, AT, RO, SI, SK, FI, NL) and from six others on a voluntary basis (CZ, IT, LT,PL, EE, PT). The Regional business demography data collection was carried out by applying the business demography methodology at the national level, based on enterprise demography events. The pilot exercise intended to test the feasibility of a regional breakdown of the available national business demography data for reference years 2008, 2009 and 2010.

Data collection The information was demanded for business demography (BD) and employer business demography (EBD), including number of enterprises, births, deaths and survivals up to three years, as well as the related employment figures (persons employed and employees). In addition, the number of high-growth enterprises, with a 10 % level of growth over a three-year period was requested. Both the NUTS 2 and the NUTS 3 regional breakdowns were requested, broken down separately by size class and NACE Rev. 2.

The 6th Cohesion Report Regional bussiness demography issues in The project analyses were included by DG REGIO in the Cohesion Report, published in July 2014. It includes analysis and maps highlighting the regions where the business environment could be further improved. This helps with policies aiming to improve access to credit, setting-up business incubators or offering joint services to small start-ups etc. Regional bussiness demography issues in Chapter 1 : Smart Growth http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docoffic/official/reports/cohesion6

In 2010 birth rates were high in regions where the economy continued to expand (PL), or experienced a quick recovery after the contraction of 2009 (SK). FR presents both high rates and high variation among its regions.

For IT and ES, sizeable variations exist in death rates. Birth rates of enterprises tend to be higher in the capital region than the national average, while death rates are typically closer to the average.

In summary Main issues of importance for Regional policy Start-up rates (entrepreneurship) Survival rates (access to credit/ ease of doing business) High-growth firms (innovation) DG REGIO intends to launch the RBD 2015 data collection, as a continuation of the previous one (2012), including the 2011, 2012 and 2013 reference years (aim is even higher participation) OECD report on regional business demography (to be signed once EC and OECD agree on new template for joint work) REGIO will request a regional breakdown to be part of regulation on business demography