Percentage Change on the Same Period of the Previous Year (Rates)

Harmonised indices of consumer prices (HICP) (prc-hicp)
Reference Metadata in Euro SDMX Metadata Structure (ESMS)
Kosovo Agency of Statistics (KAS)-Republic of Kosovo
For any question on data and metadata, please contact:
Web-page:
1. Contact
1.1 Contact organisation / KAS-Kosovo agency of Statistics
1.2 Contact organisation unit / Department of Economic Statistics and NA
1.3 Contact name / IbishAsllani
1.4 Contact person function / Head of Price Division Statistics (KAS)
1.5 Contact mail address / Street “Zenel Salihu” no 4. 10000 Prishtina
1.6 Contact email address /
1.7 Contact phone number / +381 (0) 38 200 31 125 CEO +381(0) 38 200 31 112
1.8 Contact fax number / +381 (0) 38 235 033
1.9 Contact name CPI-HIC staff / Raif Gashi-senior staff
Contact email address / Raif. +381 (0) 38 200 31 117
2. Metadata update
2.1 Metadata last certified / 1st January 2015
2.2 Metadata last posted / 1st January 2015
2.3 Metadata last update / 1st January 2015
3. Statistical presentation
3.1 Data description
Harmonised indices of consumer prices (HICPs) give comparable measures of inflation for the countries and country groups for which they are produced. They are economic indicators that measure the change over time of the prices of consumer goods and services acquired by households. In other words, they are a set of consumer price indices (CPIs) calculated according to a harmonised approach and a single set of definitions.
3.2 Classification system
The HICPs are classified according to the five -digit level categories and sub-categories of the COICOP/HICP (Classification of individual consumption by purpose)
Adapted to the needs of HICPs). (COICOP FIVE-DIGIT STRUCTURE AND EXPLANATORY NOTES)
Edition of 06 December 2013 (Unit B5 "Management of Statistical Data and Metadata")
Contact: )
Main COICOP/HICP headings:
00. All-items (global index)
01. Food and non-alcoholic beverages
02. Alcoholic beverages and tobacco
03. Clothing and footwear
04. Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels
05. Furnishings, Household equipment and routine maintenance of the house
06. Health
07. Transport
08. Communication
09. Recreation and culture
10. Education
11. Restaurants and Hotels
12. Miscellaneous goods and services
3 Sector coverage
HICPs cover the whole household sector, more precisely the goods and services that are acquired by householdsincluding both resident and non-resident households.
3.4 Statistical concepts and definitions
The Consumer Price Index in Kosovo was established in May 2002. It has been / is being continuously developed and improved in accordance with EU Regulations and standards. With the index of December 2014, new weights largely based on National Accounts data were introduced bringing the coverage of the CPI more into line with European Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices. As such the CPI from December 2014 is in effect an HICP. To reflect this, from the January 2015 index, the CPI was renamed the HICP. The HICP will be continually developed going forward to implement all current and future HICP Regulations and guidelines which at present have only partially been implemented.
The published data is as follows:
Monthly data:
- Indices (HICP December 2014=100) – CPI base moth May 2002=100
- Annual rates of change
- Monthly rates of change
- 12-month average rate of change
Annual data:
- Average index and rate of change
- Country weights
- Item weights
3.5 Statistical unit
Each published index or rate of change refers to the 'final monetary consumption expenditure' of the whole household sector of the corresponding geographical entity.
3.6 Statistical population
The target statistical universe is the 'household final monetary consumption expenditure' (HFMCE) within the economic territories of the countries compiling the HICP. The household sector to which the definition refers includes all individuals or groups of individuals irrespective of, in particular, the type of area in which they live, their position in the income distribution and their nationality or residence status. These definitions follow the national account concepts in the European System of Accounts (ESA 1995).
HICPs comprise all products and services purchased in monetary transactions by households within the territory of a country; those by both resident and non-resident households (i.e. 'domestic concept').
HICPs cover the prices paid for goods and services in monetary transactions. The prices measured are those actually faced by consumers. The HICPs exclude interest and credit charges, regarding them as financing costs rather than consumption expenditure.
3.7 Reference area
Geographical coverage
The target population of the Kosovar HICP is all households, which is international best practice. Kosovo’s HICP does not stratify its population (as is completely appropriate for a small country). Both the HBS and the NA cover the population of the 34 municipalities over which the government has control.
Prices are collected in 10 large municipalities with about 60 percent of the population of the country’s 1.8million; in the urban parts of the municipalities prices are collected for all items, but in the rural parts only food items are collected.
3.8 Time coverage
HICPs for Kosovo are available from January 2015. CPIs (which mainly used the HBS as the source of the weights and covered resident households only) are available from May 2002 until November 2014.
3.9 Base period
The index reference period is December 2014=100.
4. Unit of measure
Following units are used:

• Index (unit less, however, the HICP can be thought of as the amount the average consumer would have to spend in a given year to buy the same basic goods and services that one would have to pay 100 monetary units for in the base period.)
• Percentage change on the same period of the previous year (rates)
• Percentage change on the previous month (rates)
• Percentage share of the total (weights).

5. Reference period
Monthly
6. Institutional mandate
6.1 Legal acts and other agreements
Harmonised Indices of Consumer Prices (HICPs) are harmonised inflation figures required under the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Council Regulation (EC) No 2494/95 of 23 October 1995 (OJ L 257/1) sets the legal basis for establishing a harmonised methodology for the compilation of the HICPs, the MUICP and the EICP.
Under this Regulation, the Commission has brought forward detailed Regulations establishing the specific rules governing the production of harmonised indices. To date, 19 specific regulations governing issues as quality of weights, transmission and dissemination of sub-indices, coverage of goods and services, geographical and population coverage, minimum standards for the treatment of tariffs, insurance, health, education and social protection services, timing of entering prices, treatment of price reductions, treatment of service charges, revisions policy, new index reference period, temporal coverage of price collection and sampling, replacement and quality adjustment procedures, andseasonal itemshave been adopted. A recommendation on the treatment of health care has also been published.
All relevant regulations as well as further methodological details can be found in the HICP section on Eurostat's website under=>Legislation.
While progress has been made in implementing the above legal standards, full implementation and compliance has not yet been achieved.
6.2 Data sharing
None.
7. Confidentiality
7.1 Confidentiality – policy
Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (recital 24 and Article 20(4)) of 11 March 2009 (OJ L 87, p. 164),on the transmission of data subject to statistical confidentiality to the Statistical Office of the European Communities
Kosovo Agency of Statistics acts according to the Law No.04/L-036 which entered into force on 12.12.2011.
web-page:
7.2 Confidentiality - data treatment
Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council, of 11 March 2009, on the transmission of data subject to statistical confidentiality to the Statistical Office of the European Communities. See also point 6.1 on rules governing user access.
8. Release policy
8.1 Release calendar
The release calendar is publically available and published at the end of each year for the full following year.
8.2 Release calendar access
Eurostat website: HICP Release calendar.
8.3 User access
The CPI and now the HICP are published on the KAS website each month and in other KAS statistical publications. At present data are not regularly supplied to Eurostat, data are supplied upon request.
9. Frequency of dissemination
Harmonised consumer price indices areproduced monthly.
10. Dissemination format
10.1 News release
Data will be published in accordance with the release calendar as a First Release in accordance with the pre-definned publication schedual.
Web-page:
10.2 Publications
The all-items HICP and detailed HICPs (for 12 main COICOP groups) will be available and first released a special publication called 'First Release'. Afterwards data on HICP will also published in the Statistical Yearbook and annually Rapid Reports.
10.3 On-line database
Not yet, but in the future HICP database:
10.4 Micro-data access
Not applicable.
10.5 Other
no.
11. Accessibility of documentation
11.1 Documentation on methodology
A description of the methodology and sources used to compile the HICP will be published in Statistical Office's website: Web-page:
During 2015 work will commence on the compilation of the HICP inventory.
11.2 Quality documentation
Compliance Monitoring Information notes available in the Eurostat's HICP site, under 'Methodology' =>Compliance Monitoring.
12. Quality management
12.1 Quality assurance
Limited resources do not currently allow for detailed data validation. Some controls and checking of data to have quality index are foreseen for the future.
12.2 Quality assessment
The quality of HICPcan be assessed to be very high. Its concepts and methodology have been developed according to international standards and using consumer price statistics experience.
Further work is ongoing to improve the quality and in particular comparability of the index. In particular, the HICP in Kosovo is still under development.
13. Relevance
13.1 User needs
Generally, HICPs are in particular suited for cross-country economic comparisons.
The main users, apart from those above, include National Central Banks and other financial institutions; economic analysts, media and public at large.
13.2 User satisfaction
No information.
13.3 Completeness
All statistics that are required by international standards are calculated. HICP covers more or less all the groups and subgroups of the COICOP/HICP classification, whose share in total consumption is greater than 0.1%.
14. Accuracy and reliability
14.1 Overall accuracy
The goods and services selected for the basket are those of most importance to the customers; have a significant share in total consumption; best reflect the changes of prices of related products. As far as possible, methodology recommendations are taken into account, however, the HICP in Kosovo is still under development. Prices are collected in different type of outlets, supermarkets, markets, etc., in 10municiplities in the country, some of them also via the internet and by phone-centrally. They reflect the price situation for the whole country. Higher level published weights are based on the data from structure of household final monetary consumption expenditure,unpublished weights at the most detailed level are derived from the HBS. The outlets from which prices are collected are chosen to represent the existing trade and service network. Private households are included irrespective of their income. The domestic concept is in force.
14.2 Sampling error
Not relevant as the sample is purposive and not statistical.
14.3 Non-sampling error
For the HICPs non-sampling errors are not quantified.Eurostat and the NSIs try to reduce non-sampling errors through continuous methodological improvements and survey process improvements such as computer assisted price collection (not yet used for the collection of prices in Kosovo), which can help avoiding coding and typing errors.
Unit Non-Response Rate
Retail prices of selected representative products and services used to calculate the CPI and now the HICP are monitored at selected outlets (e.g. shops, markets, craftsmen and other organisations). At the points of sale, which were selected in the sample at the beginning of the year, each monthinformation on prices should be obtained, since the number of sales locations during the year should not be changed. Therefore, each month we aim to have 100% response of units.
Item Non-response Rate
In the case of item non-response similar methodological limitations are valid as in the case of unit non-response. The number of prices which will be collected for the selected product at selected outlets shall be determined at the beginning of the year and generally does not change, except for retail prices of seasonal products. In the latter case, the price is only collected in those months when they are sold on the market (i.e. during the season.). If an item in a particular outlet dissapears, these are replaced by the price collectors following written proceedural guidelines.
15. Timeliness and punctuality
15.1 Timeliness
Timeliness of the First Release of the survey results is specified as the difference between the date of the first release and the end of the reference period, in our case therefore the last day of the month to which the results are related. First data for HICP are also final data, and are not corrected at a later stage.
15.2 Punctuality
Punctuality of the release is calculated as the difference between the announced and the actual date of release. Generally, the CPI/HICP has been published on time.
16. Comparability
16.1 Comparability – geographical
HICP regulations prepared by Eurostat in collaboration with EU Member States. HICPs are therefore developed on the basis of a harmonised methodology, and as such they should reflect only price movements and differences in consumption of population in an individual country
The work carried out for the harmonisation of quality adjustment and sampling methods across EU countries is expected to further improve the comparability of the HICP – these developments have yet to be implemented in the Kosovar HICP.
16.2 Comparability - over time
The CPI and now the HICP data are not fully comparable over time. As there have been several improvements in methodology since the CPI was first calculated. Most recently (December 2014) the coverage of the weights changed with the introduction of national accounts data which aims but does not fully adhere to the Domestic concept. Methodological cahnges have been introduced with the aim of improving reliability and comparability of the HICP. These changes may have introduced breaks in time series.
HICP is in the first phase of implementation (as a elementary HICP) at KAS, so the efforts are to produce the HICP data fully comporable ower time following regulations, manuals and methodologies.
17. Coherence
17.1 Coherence - cross domain
There are no considerable differences between what was published as the CPI and what is now published as the HICP, except that HICP aims to follow the domestic concept of consumption via the use of national accounts data for the higher level aggregate weights.The CPI untill Novemnber 2014 was based on the national concept of consumption and used largely HBS data for the weights. Thus the difference between the two is in weights. Given resource contraints it was decided to publish only the HICP from January 2015.
17.2 Coherence – internal
HICPs are internally coherent. Higher level aggregations are derived from detailed indices according to well-defined procedures.
18. Cost and burden
Not available.
19. Data revision
19.1 Data revision – policy
HICP series, including back data, are revisable under the terms set in Commission Regulation (EC) No 1921/2001 of 28 September 2001. The published HICP data may be revised for mistakes, new or improved information, and changes in the system of harmonised rules.
19.2 Data revision – practice
The data are final when first released and are not subject to revisions unless mistakes are found.
Major changes in methodology are announced in advance, while information on minor methodological changes is provided in methodological explanations and on Statistical Office's web page Web-page:
The move to the HICP from the CPI was announced in the January 2015 monthly publication.
20. Statistical processing
20.1 Source data
Product selection, sampling and data collection are carried out by NSIs. There is a variety of data sources both for weights (National Accounts, Household Budget Survey etc.) and prices (visits to local retailers and service providers and central collection via mail, telephone, email and the internet are used).
The type of survey used is chosen by NSIs. However, all HICPs are based on the continuous measurement of a sample of prices of specified goods and services. The HICPs must be based on samples sufficient to yield reliable and comparable results, taking into account the national diversity of products and prices. Furthermore, as products or retail outlets disappear from the market, they need to be replaced with new ones. HICPs are required to be based on up-to-date samples, in particular by banning the practice whereby 'missing' prices are simply assumed to be equal to the last observed prices. The HICP will incorporate a new product when it achieves a sales volume of over one part per thousand of total consumers' expenditure covered by the HICP. KAS data collectors, who are based in seven regional centres, collect approximately 5000 prices in more than 800 outlets during the period of 10th - 20th of each month. They obtain prices in stores, markets and other retail outlets in ten municipalities of Kosovo: