Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia

1. Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia “Development of Statistics of Services Prices – Need, Demand and Possibility” Zdenka Repotočnik Radenci, 9. November 2004

2. Purpose • To present requirements on producer price indices of services (PPIS) in the STS amendment Regulation. • To present economic significance of STS service activities in Slovenia as one of the basis for setting up the priorities for the development of services’ price statistics in Slovenia.

3. STS amendment Regulation Well recognized need on development of price statistics on services will shortly become a legal requirement for EU countries. • The proposal of STS amendment Regulation introduces producer price indices for a selection of activities. The selection of activities in the STS proposal is limited to those particular relevant services for which HICPs’ or CPIs do not provide a sufficient information on price development. • The selected activities of STS belong to two service sectors: • I Transport, storage and communication • K Real estate, renting and businnes activities • The PPIS in STS proposal is intend to measure the price changes for the services provided from enterprises to other enterprises as buyers.

4. STS - which activities are covered?

5. STS – other requirements

6. How important are STS activities in Slovenian economy?

7. Value added of STS activities I (I = 100)

8. Value added of STS activities K(K = 100)

9. The most important STS activities The activities of STS are not equaly important. It is possible to identify 5 of them, each of them representing about 1 – 1,6 % share in total value added of the GDP. These activities are: • Freight transport • Telecommunication • Computer related activites • Legal, accounting, book-keeping, etc. different types of consultancy services • Architectural and engineering activities and related technical consultancy & Technical testing and analysis

10. STS activities – enterprises and employment

11. Other features - the size of enterprises The enterprises of the selected activities are in respect of number of employees (with few exception) small. This implies that the burden and the costs of data collection for enterprises as well for statistics will not be negligable. For this reason also the problems in data collection could be envisaged.

12. Other features – types of services The activities differ in respect of types of services rendered: • Traditional services (freight transport) • Technologicaly advanced, complex and dinamic services (telecommunication) • Complex intelectual services, such as different types of consultancies, where the unit of service delivered is difficult to identify.

13. CONCLUSIONS - Possibilities • The development of the PPIS is one of the SORS’ priority task. • The framework for this task is the STS amendment regulation and contractual obligation of SORS to to implement the regulation. • In the development of the PPIS princip of graduality should be employed.

14. CONCLUSIONS (cntd) • Priority activities should be established: • economic importance • other criterias (“easier” services first – easy to price, easy access to the price and other relevant data, experiences of other countries)

15. CONCLUSIONS (cntd) • Extension to other services will follow • The work on development of PPIS will not be easy and will take some time. • By implementing the STS Regulation the development of the PPIS will still not be completed. STS tackle only part of the service sector and leave the door open for the new requirements.