1. Statistical Business Register– the Estonian experience
22nd Meeting of the Wiesbaden Group on Business Registers
Tallinn, September 2010
Marielle Borthwick

2. Content Registering business in Estonia
History of the Statistical Business Register
Coverage and Structure
Classification
Data sources and users
Survey frame – Statistical Profile
Business Demography
Enterprise Groups
Register statistics and dissemination
Future developments
27-30 September 2010 Tallinn

3. Registering a company in Estonia
Registering a company can be done electronically within an hour, successful registration is confirmed via generally within 24 hours (checks for suitability of name)
Step-by-step demo makes the process simple and understandable
It is also possible to register business at the notary’s office, time depends on notary’s appointment schedule (varies between days and weeks)
Taxes can be declared and annual accounts report can be submitted electronically
27-30 September 2010 Tallinn

4. History of the Statistical Business Register
1992–1994 — the legal Business Register as the sampling frame for economic statistics
1994 — establishment of the Statistical
Business Register ( the Register)
1999–2002 — re-engineering the Register from FoxPro to ORACLE
27-30 September 2010 Tallinn

5. Coverage Units included in the statistical register:
enterprises,
sole proprietors,
non-profit associations and foundations,
central government and local government institutions
non-resident enterprises, which pay taxes in Estonia
Units not covered:
foreign embassies and other extra-territorial organizations and bodies
27-30 September 2010 Tallinn

6. Population of the register
27-30 September 2010 Tallinn

7. Kind-of-Activity Unit Local Kind-of-Activity Unit Enterprise Group
Statistical units
Enterprise
Local Unit
Kind-of-Activity Unit
Local Kind-of-Activity Unit
Enterprise Group
27-30 September 2010 Tallinn

8. Structure of the register
27-30 September 2010 Tallinn

9. Classification Main classifications: Legal form – 16 types
Form of ownership – 4 types
Economic activity – NACE (EMTAK)
Institutional sector – 35 divisions
27-30 September 2010 Tallinn

10. Data sources
27-30 September 2010 Tallinn

11. Survey frame – Statistical Profile
a database of economically active units
a sampling frame for all economic statistics
based on the Business Register for Statistical Purposes
compiled by November every year
used for forming samples for the structural statistics of the same year and for the short-term statistics of the next year
all economically active units and all units active during at least a part of the reference period are included
27-30 September 2010 Tallinn

12. Units in Statistical Profile by legal form
27-30 September 2010 Tallinn

13. Business Demography
Business Demography – information about enterprises’ births, deaths and survivals
2003 — feasibility study
— projects on harmonised data collection
2005 — implementation of the sole proprietors data
Since 2007 — project of BD on employer enterprises
Since 2008 — data collection according to the SBS regulation
Since 2010 — production of BD data by NACE Rev.2
Planned: implementation of Quality report on BD, production of more recent business demography data
In 2008 nearly as many enterprises ceased to exist as were born.
27-30 September 2010 Tallinn

14. Enterprise Groups
Included in the register - information on foreign controlled EGs of which the group heads are situated outside Estonia and all-resident EGs
Data sources - public and other databases, data on foreign subsidiaries of Estonian enterprises are currently not available in any administrative source
2004 – implementation of EGs into the register
Since 2005 – production and publication of all-resident and truncated (foreign owned) EGs
Since 2008 – participation in EuroGroups Register ESSNet project
Planned: implementation of Estonian EGs with subsidiaries abroad
27-30 September 2010 Tallinn

15. Number of Enterprises in Enterprise Groups
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16. Register statistics and dissemination
Statistical Profile
Business Demography
Enterprise Groups
Dissemination:
Statistical database on Statistics Estonia website
"Statistical Yearbook of Estonia" (in print and on CD)
Bulletin “Cities and Rural Municipalities in Figures”
Bulletin “Business” (Business demography data and Enterprise Groups data)
27-30 September 2010 Tallinn

17. Future developments SRS – Unified System of Statistical Registers
Coverage: persons, economic units, agricultural households, buildings and spatial units
The purpose:
- to create and maintain links between statistical units;
- to create frozen frames or profiles;
- to create and maintain survey populations;
- to produce output for queries;
- to produce statistics on economic units, business demography and enterprise groups.
27-30 September 2010 Tallinn

18. Thank you!