Statistical information for businesses from Eurostat

Eurostat is one of the directorates‐general of the Commission of the European Communities. Its aim is to create a European statistical system which will produce comparable statistics, by developing common classifications for products, industries, activities and regions, by surveys and questionnaires prepared by Eurostat in collaboration with the national statistical offices of the Member States and also by detailed methodologies giving common concepts and definitions for such areas as national accounts, agriculture and foreign trade. Eurostat publishes macro economic statistics for the twelve Member States covering national accounts, finance, balance of payments, social, agriculture, foreign trade, industry, energy and developing countries. An effort is made to have comparable information for the Communities, main trading partners, the United States of America and Japan, especially where the short‐term economic indicators are concerned. Three public databanks have been developed. CRONOS contains over a million chronological time series covering all the above subjects in very great detail. COMEXT is the foreign trade databank for the trade between the Member States and over 200 partner countries using the Combined Nomenclature, a goods classification with approximately 10,000 products. REGIO has the macroeconomic regional data for the Member States using the NUTS classification to breakdown the countries into three interrelated levels. A wide range of publications, microfiches, floppy discs and CD‐ROMs are also available. Eurostat's products reflect the economic and social policies of the Commission, especially where agriculture and national accounts are concerned. The information Eurostat requests from the Member States is directed by the needs of the Commission services.