European Commission, L-2920 Luxembourg. Switchboard: (352) 43 01-1.
www.ec.europa.eu/eurostat
EUROPEAN COMMISSION
Directorate D: Economic and Regional Statistics
Unit D-4: Price statistics
HICP COMPLIANCE MONITORING
INFORMATION NOTE
ON THE HARMONIZED INDICES OF CONSUMER PRICES
FOR SLOVAKIA
MARCH 2008
In the context of compliance monitoring and quality assurance, Eurostat reviewed the
HICP for Slovakia in autumn 2007 in view of the possible future accession of Slovakia to
the euro area. The statistical practices used to compile the HICP for Slovakia have been
reviewed against HICP methodology and other guidelines and good practices in the field
of consumer price indices.
This report takes account of publicly available information on the CPI and HICP for
Slovakia, and additional information collected by Eurostat prior to and during a mission
to the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic held on 15 November 2007.
2
I.
OVERALL ASSESSMENT
Eurostat considers that in general the methods used for producing the Slovakian HICP are
satisfactory. The quality of the consumer price statistics for Slovakia has improved
significantly in recent years. In close collaboration with Eurostat and other international
experts, the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic (SO SR) successfully completed
many necessary pieces of work in order to set-up the Slovakian HICP before accession to
the EU.
There were no apparent instances of non-compliance with the HICP methodology. The
Slovakian data pass all standard HICP validation tests – they are internally consistent and
aggregate correctly. It should be considered broadly comparable to the HICPs of other
EU countries.
While the representativity of the HICP, in terms of accuracy and reliability, seems
generally adequate, in some cases the methodology or data used need improvement
and/or further analysis (see Section III). A targeted follow up of these cases will be
carried out by SO SR and Eurostat. In the opinio