Follow-up actions to the June 2017 Standards Working Group meeting - classifications

Item 6.1 COICOP revision Conclusions: The Working Group participants generally agreed with the proposed new structure for COICOP with some reservations concerning Division 06. Written comments from the Member States to the revised COICOP are asked by 23 June.   Actions: Comments from the Member States to the revised COICOP were taken into account for the revision. In March 2018, the 49th Session of the United Nations Statistical Commission considered and endorsed the revised COICOP classification – COICOP 2018 as the internationally accepted standard.

Item 6.2 Factoryless Goods Producers (FGPs) Conclusions: The Working Group participants welcomed the work conducted by the Task Force but informed that the present methodology do not cover very small enterprises. For some countries FGPs are mainly enterprises with less than five employees. The Working Group participants are asked to submit comments on the report by end June 2017. Hungary is foreseen to present their work on linking SBS with the Community innovation survey for the identification of FGPs in the next Standards WG in 2018. Actions: The work of the Task Force is finalised and the report is available.

Item 6.3 Extraction of case laws from the NACE/CPA CIRCABC discussion forum Conclusions: Adoption of caselaws in three steps Discussion in CIRCABC forum Voting and adoption via e-mail of caselaws that enrich the guidance of the NACE/CPA classifications Publication in RAMON Caselaws published in RAMON on 23 September 2016 will be sent for voting with deadline for answer on 22 June 2017 Working Group participants were invited to inform EUROSTAT by 22 June 2017on any technical problems with CIRCABC that they face.

Item 6.3 Extraction of case laws from the NACE/CPA CIRCABC discussion forum cont. Actions: Caselaws sent for voting on 14 June 2017 - with deadline for answer on 22 June – were adopted according to voting on 26 June 2017. 19 of the 20 caselaws were adopted, uploaded on RAMON, and on CIRCABC. No particular problems with CIRCABC were reported. A new set of caselaws is presented for at the present Working Group meeting, for adoption, in accordance with the procedure agreed on and applied in June 2017.

Item 6.4 Vision 2020 for classifications Conclusions: Main remarks concerned the maintenance of the new system proposed. Member States should be closely involved on the project The performance of RAMON should be improved

Item 6.4 Vision 2020 for classifications cont. Actions: Eurostat has collected user requirements: call for feedback at last year Standards Working Group meeting; post published on the home page of RAMON; post published on Eurostat's intranet; occasional feedback received via the functional mailbox of RAMON; personal notes made over time about possible improvements or corrections. Eurostat has drafted an internal synthesis paper. Eurostat has started drafting a paper listing the functional requirements needed for the new version of RAMON.

Activities involving collaborative consumption Conclusions: Eurostat will send the presentation and the short document produced by Spain to the Working Group participants. The Working Group participants were encouraged to provide, by the end of June, comments on the questions raised.   Actions: Eurostat sent the presentation and the short document produced by Spain to the Working Group participants. A discussion in the CIRCABC discussion forum on "Collaborative activities" was launched on 27 June 2017. The sharing economy was discussed at the UN Expert Group meeting 6-8 September 2017 The findings of the discussions are being presented at the present Working Group meeting.

Item 6.5 Correspondence table CPA to CN with ex-cases Conclusions - The following countries have volunteered: France and Germany volunteered for divisions 28 and 29. Poland volunteered for divisions 10, 11 and 12. Austria volunteered for divisions 10, 16 and 17. The customs service in Finland volunteered for divisions 01-03, 10-12, 16-17. The customs service of Lithuania would also be interested in participating, Italy detected some inconsistencies in the table CPA Ver. 2.1 to CN 2015 - additional information on secondary links was requested. The Netherlands, Bulgaria, Denmark, Latvia, Portugal, Romania and Sweden expect to participate, but will provide later the information on the divisions to work on. Eurostat will send a table with the summary of the contributions by country as soon as all countries have confirmed the divisions that they will like to cover.

Item 6.5 Correspondence table CPA to CN with ex-cases cont. Actions: With the assistance of volunteers from ten countries Eurostat developed a correspondence table CPA to CN with ex-cases in three stages; 1) first results by sections chosen by the volunteers, 2) consultation on September draft among the "volunteers" and 3) consultation of December draft in Standards Working Group. The outcome of the exercise is being presented for adoption at the present Working Group meeting.