The migration of short-term economic statistics to the new ATECO 2007 classification

Starting from 1st January 2008 Istat has adopted the new Ateco 2007 classification of economic activities, which is the national version of Nace Rev. 2, the European nomenclature adopted with Regulation (EC) no.1893/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20th December 2006.

The migration of economic statistics to the new classification follows a shared plan set out at the European level which will see data expressed in the two separate classifications used conjointly for a number of years to come.

In Italy, with the publication of short-term economic indicators for the first month or quarter of 2009, a new classification scheme has been introduced, while for indicators subject to the European Union Regulation Short Term Statistics, the transfer was undertaken with 2005 as the reference year (for data about foreign trade the changes only regarded the classification of economic activities). This transfer entails a thoroughgoing revision of the system used to calculate the indicators, with the adoption of a new weighting system and a new sampling scheme.

The combining of the new base and the new classification can bring about a modification of retrospective data. The 2005 base indices expressed in the new ATECO 2007 may show a different evolution, potentially to a substantial degree, compared with the evolution measured previously by the 2000 and ATECO 2002 base indices.

In order to enable the new data to be used, Istat will carry out a retrospective reconstruction which, as a rule, will extend back as far as 2000. The reconstructed data series will be available in the ConIstat databases on short-term economic statistics and Coeweb on foreign trade statistics.