Supply and Use Tables for Ireland 2018

The main aggregates in the Supply and Use Tables for Ireland 2018 are consistent with the data in the National Income and Expenditure 2020 (NIE 2020). Both publications follow the European System of Accounts methodology (ESA 2010).

The CSO Structural Business Statistics are used extensively in producing the tables. These consist of the Census of Industrial Production, the Annual Services Inquiry and the Building and Construction Inquiry. The tables also use the Industrial Production by Sector (PRODCOM) data. The tables also use data from CSO National Accounts, External Trade Statistics and International Accounts. The tables also make extensive use of CSO Price Statistics.

Data on purchases is generally more difficult to assemble than data on turnover. The manufacturing inputs in this publication have been assembled with reference to data gathered by the Census of Industrial Production (CIP) Inputs Survey. This is a five-yearly survey of manufacturing industry which was conducted as an integral part of the 2005, 2010 and 2015 CIP.  Annual CIP data is also used to disaggregate Intermediate Consumption. The CSO Business Energy Use survey is used to disaggregate data on fuel use. Estimates are made based on data from the Annual Services Inquiry and on other limited information for non-manufacturing industries. Balancing is necessary in the construction of any Supply and Use Tables to fit the national accounts data with data from other surveys. Allowances must be made for a lack of absolute accuracy in the figures in this publication. These are overall estimates and not absolute definitive data.

The Supply and Use and Input-Output Tables display details of the economy in terms of 58 industry groups and 58 product groups. The industry classification used is the two-digit level of the NACE Rev. 2 referred to as the A64 coding of industry activities. The product classification used is the equivalent CPA Rev. 2.1 grouping referred to as the P64. The tables are initially constructed using 82 industry and 82 product groups and are then condensed for confidentiality and quality purposes.

The basis of the methodology used is described in the Eurostat Manual of Supply, Use and Input-Output Tables and in the UN Handbook of Input-Output Table Compilation and Analysis.

Overview of the Tables

Supply Table at basic prices (product by industry)

This table provides estimates of the supply of goods and services (products) by domestic industries as well as imports of goods and services. The supply of product groups is presented in the rows while the columns show the industry groups that produce these goods and services. Firms are classified by industry according to the product that accounts for the largest part of their output. The principal production, shown on the diagonal elements of the Supply table, is therefore larger than the secondary production shown on the off-diagonal elements.

Treatment of the motor trade, retail and wholesale

Motor trade, retail and wholesale activities are regarded as producing a service which is measured as the price at which their products are sold minus the purchase price of these products (which they purchased for direct resale). This is referred to as the gross margin. For example, a retail supermarket provides retail services (CPA 47) rather than food (CPA 10) or drink (CPA 11). Instead, food and drink is mainly produced by food and drink producers, based in the food and drink industries respectively (NACE 10 and 11). Similarly, a shoe shop provides retail services (CPA 47) rather than shoes (CPA 15). Firms that are not in the wholesale or retail industries may also provide distribution services as secondary production.

Valuation in the Supply Table

The values of the domestically produced products in the Supply table are shown initially at basic prices while they are transformed to purchasers’ prices in the final columns. The basic price is the price receivable by the producer for a unit of a good or service produced, minus any tax payable on its production or sale (i.e. taxes on products), plus any subsidy receivable on that unit as a consequence of its production or sale (i.e. subsidies on products). The basic price excludes product taxes such as VAT, excise duties and import duties. In theory, the basic price also excludes any transport charges invoiced separately by the producer but includes any transport charges charged on the same invoice. It does not include any trade margin earned by reselling the product by another trader following manufacture or importation. The basic price measures the amount retained by the producer and is therefore the price most relevant for the producer’s decision making.

The purchaser’s price is the price the purchaser actually pays for a product including any taxes less subsidies on the product (but excluding deductible taxes). The conversion from basic prices to purchasers’ prices involves distributing the trade margins of retailers and wholesalers among the products on which they are charged. This can be seen in the "trade margins" column of the Supply table. Here the margin in the motor trade and domestic wholesale and retail trades appears as negative values in rows 45 to 47. These margins are distributed in the same column across the products that they fall on.

Imports in the Supply Table are shown by detailed product valued as c.i.f. (cost, insurance and freight inclusive). This is the same valuation as that published by CSO External Trade but is different to the valuation in the NIE, which is valued as f.o.b. (free on board, i.e. exclusive of insurance and freight costs). The Supply Table shows an adjustment term to move from this c.i.f. valuation to the f.o.b. valuation found in the NIE. Exports by product in the Use Table are valued as f.o.b. Similarly, this is consistent with CSO External Trade data but different to the NIE valuation. An adjustment term is also available on the Use Table.

Use Table at purchasers' prices (product by industry)

This table shows the use of products by domestic industry and by the final demand sector. Final demand consists of consumption by households, government, non-profit organisations serving households (NPISH), capital formation (GFCF) and exports. Industries are shown in the columns and products in the rows. Thus, the columns of figures for industries NACE 1 - 97 show the intermediate goods and services that each industry uses. Intermediate consumption refers to products that are used up in production within a year. Capital assets are used in production for more than a year. Capital purchases are shown separately by product. The purchases of households in their private (non-business) capacity as consumers are included under household consumption with the exception of the purchase of dwellings, which is included with gross fixed capital formation.

Additional information for each industry is shown at the end of the industry columns, where estimates of the components of the gross value added (GVA) by each industry are supplied. These are in the form of compensation of employees (COE), non-product (i.e. overhead) taxes (e.g. rates) and non-product subsidies (e.g. employment subsidies), net operating surplus (or profits) and consumption of capital (this term encompasses depreciation and amortisation). The latter two items, when combined, are referred to as gross operating surplus (GOS). The sum of these rows is referred to as the GVA of the industry and is equal to the output of the industry minus its intermediate consumption costs.

Valuation in the Use Table

The products in the Use table are valued at purchasers’ prices. The GVA of the industries shown in the second from bottom row is valued at basic prices. It is equal to the output of the industries valued at basic prices minus their intermediate consumption at purchasers’ prices.

Balancing the Supply Table with the Use Table

The total supply of each product in the last column of the Supply table is equal to the total use of the product in the last column of the Use table. Similarly, the total output of each industry in the last row of the Supply table is equal to the sum of the intermediate consumption and value added of that industry, which is the last row of the Use table.

Supply and Use Tables at previous year prices

The 2018 SUTs in current prices were deflated by the most appropriate price indices available to obtain the PYP versions of the tables. The metadata on the deflators used in the Supply and Use Tables can be found here: Supply and Use Tables 2018 Table 4.1 (XLS 44KB) .

One of the benefits of SUTs in previous year prices is that they facilitate the compilation of volume changes from year to year in the value added generated by detailed business sectors. It is necessary to have Gross Value Added (GVA) in current prices for the previous year for the detailed business sectors to which the data in PYP relates. It is also necessary that both sets of data are comparable. National accounts data are regularly revised. If one set of data incorporates revisions that equally apply to the other but have not yet been incorporated in them then any comparisons can be affected by the methodological differences in the two sets of data.  Volume changes derived alternatively by comparing GVA in current prices from the published 2017 SUTs (based on 2017 data in NIE2019) with GVA in PYP from the 2018 SUTs in PYP (based on 2018 data in NIE2020) will be affected by different data vintages.

The 2018 SUTs are consistent with NIE 2020 in current and previous years prices. The Supply and Use Tables in previous year prices were mechanically balanced and adjusted to ensure aggregate and sub-aggregate consistency with the published national accounts. The required intervention at an aggregate level is generally small. The tables are then re-balanced so that total deflated Supply equals total deflated Use for each product group. This usually involves adjusting domestic supply and intermediate consumption.

Note that GVA can be subject to extreme price movements using the double deflation method when current price GVA is a relatively small share of current price Output. Here are two simple examples.

		Industry 1						Industry 2
		Current €		PYP €		% Price change		Current €		PYP €		% Price change
Output		100		110		-10%		100		110		-10%
Intermediate consumption		90		81		10%		50		45		10%
Gross value added (GVA)		10		29		-290%		50		65		-30%

Consistency with other CSO Publications

Reconciliation with the National Accounts

With the exception of output, the current price tables are consistent with the National Income and Expenditure 2020 (NIE 2020) main aggregates. Table 4.2 displays the aggregates that the relevant SUT components correspond to.

 Comparison with other CSO sources

Although the current price Supply and Use Tables are consistent with national accounts data published in NIE 2020 and thereby consistent with the balance of payments data compiled by the CSO, it is not possible to achieve full agreement with all CSO publications. The exercise of compiling Supply and Use Tables helps to identify discrepancies that exist within different data sources. It is hoped that some of these discrepancies will be removed or reduced over time.

There are four main reasons for differences between the aggregates in the Supply and Use Tables and those in other CSO data sources. Here are some examples of these.

Terminology

Differences in definitions occasionally occur across CSO publications. For example, the output in the Supply table is inclusive of freight and of the margin gained on goods resold without further processing. These two items may not be part of the term ‘production value’ in the CIP. Another example is that the term ‘compensation of employees’ in national accounts includes the employer’s contribution to social insurance and other labour costs, which are not included in the wages and salaries variable in CIP and ASI.

Accounting practices

Some international sales by Irish companies are included in the CIP gross turnover but are treated on a net basis (i.e. sales less purchases) in the balance of payments. This can arise particularly where Irish companies sell products abroad which they have also purchased abroad. The products purchased may never have come into Ireland or undergone any further processing following purchase by the Irish enterprise.  Supply and Use adjusts the CIP data and includes the net amount as an export of a service. Conversely, there are companies manufacturing on a fee basis whose transactions may be recorded gross in the international trade statistics. This can arise where companies process goods for another company in their enterprise group abroad. The goods are imported and exported and may therefore have been included in the merchandise trade statistics although ownership of the goods did not change in the process. In these cases, the merchandise trade is usually adjusted to convert the goods imported and exported to a fee based service for use in the balance of payments and national accounts. In the case of telecommunications, some of the turnover in the ASI arises from importing and exporting telecommunications services, whereas balance of payments uses a net treatment. Supply and Use adopts the balance of payments practice in these situations.

Classifications

Output by product may be classified differently in the Prodcom Inquiry to the export statistics. This difficulty is corrected by realigning at a product level the production with the exports or vice versa. Sometimes the classifications in the two systems are quite unrelated. For example, what appears in one classification as a chemical may be classified as food and beverages in another system. Conflicts in classification also occur at the overall activity level of companies. The company’s NACE code in the national accounts may differ from those used in other data sources. The Supply and Use Tables usually use the same NACE codes as those used in the income method in the latest NIE publication.

Conflicting data

The Supply and Use Tables are compiled using data from different sources. It is therefore not surprising that there are occasional instances of contradictory and conflicting information. Some examples are: the value of production by a company, measured in the CIP, may be less than their exports, measured by the international merchandise trade statistics; the value added of a company, measured by national accounts from administrative sources, may not concur with the same variable derived in the CIP or the ASI; compensation of employees calculated in national accounts based on employment figures can conflict with the wages and salaries figures in the CIP and ASI, which are assembled from company data. Reconciliation of these types of problems can result in differences between the variable presented in the Supply and Use Tables and the same variable in the CIP or ASI.

Changes to this publication over time

The Supply & Use Tables in the current publication are presented using the NACE Rev. 2 sectoral classification. 

In the 2010 tables a change was made to the treatment of NIE item 82(a) Net additions to the breeding stocks. Previously this was included in the changes in inventories figure (NIE item 82), but has been included in GFCF (NIE item 81).

There were three significant changes in treatment in the 2011 tables. These were the exclusion of purchases of goods for direct resale from the output of certain service industries, secondly the use of Balance of Payments (BOP) data to more comprehensively describe the secondary production of certain industries and thirdly the implementation of the latest version of the European System of Accounts; ESA 2010.

The 2012 tables included significant methodological revisions due to the recording of trade in aircraft on the basis of transfer of economic ownership. Under the new National Accounts methodology, all trade in aircraft with the rest of the world is recorded as imports and exports of goods – regardless of where the aircraft is registered for aviation purposes. There are offsetting effects as both imports and exports increase but generally the new methodology has a greater effect on aircraft imports with the inclusion of purchases of aircraft by resident operational leasing companies in Ireland’s imports of goods. The net increase to Imports of Goods and Services (item 84 in NIE Table 5) in the National Accounts was offset by an increase in Capital Formation (item 81 in NIE Table 5) and the new methodology had no effect generally on GDP and GNP. However, there was a significant increase to the National Accounts provision for depreciation (item 28 in NIE Table 2) based on the higher capital stock, which resulted in an offsetting change in the level of Net Value Added at Factor Cost (item 13/27 in NIE Tables 1 and 2 respectively) and related aggregates.

These changes were seen most clearly in the SUTs for 2012 as an increase in imports of NACE 30 (Other transport equipment) products with an accompanying increase in NACE 30 Gross Fixed Capital Formation (GFCF). Similarly the consumption of fixed capital (CFC) total in the primary inputs figures in the lower rows at the bottom of the inter-industry use table was higher than in previous Supply & Use Tables. A technical note on the topic is available here. It provides additional information on the revised trade in aircraft methodology and explains the impact the revisions have on Trade in Goods, National Accounts and Balance of Payments. 

In addition, a small number of codes had new entries in 2012 for imports and/or exports. These figures are based on a more detailed split of Balance of Payments data than was previously used for SUTs purposes. Given the degree of uncertainty regarding such detailed splits, these data should be treated with some caution. A number of codes also had new entries in 2012 for final consumption expenditure of households based on further disaggregation for SUTs purposes of PCE data used in the national accounts. Such disaggregated estimates should be treated with caution and as indicative only.

The 2013 tables saw the introduction of an explicit cif/fob adjustment for both imports and exports for the first time.

The 2014 tables included adjustments to imports, exports and PCE for expenditure outside the state and expenditure by non-residents. Direct purchases abroad by residents are regarded as imports while purchases on the domestic territory by non-residents are regarded as exports.

The 2014 tables also included, for both imports and exports, more detailed product split estimates of goods for processing using detailed National Accounts and Balance of Payments (BoP) data.

The 2014 tables feature an amended NACE code split as well as product versus non-product split of Taxes and Subsidies. This is most evident in NACE 1-3 (Agriculture, forestry and fishing) where the estimates provided in the Supply and Use Tables are now consistent with the estimates provided in the Output, Input and Income in Agriculture (OIIA) release published by the CSO. Similarly, the NACE code split of Gross Operating Surplus (GOS), which is the sum of Net Operating Surplus (NOS) and Consumption of Fixed Capital (CFC) has been made available in greater detail and are consistent in most (but not all) codes with the estimates contained within the calculations for NIE Table 21 Gross Value Added at current basic prices.

A new aggregation was introduced in the 2015 tables after the exceptional growth in the national accounts that year. The affected codes were aggregated into a single code (NACE 19, 21, 26, 28, 31-32). Other codes previously aggregated have been split, for example NACE 55 and NACE 56 are now separate. The published tables continue to contain 58 industry groups by 58 product groups, but have a different structure from 2015 onwards.

The 2014 tables were based in part on the revised CIP and ASI time-series first published by the CSO on 27 October 2016 and 4 November 2016 respectively. Output by industry from the Supply Table remains, as previously, generally consistent (except for specific methodological reasons) with the production values by 2-digit NACE sector from both the CIP and ASI. The output by industry data in these 2018 tables are consistent with the CIP and ASI data published on 27 September 2021.

The 2017 tables based intermediate consumption of fuels on the CSO Business Energy Use survey for the first time. The 2017 tables also saw R&D-related capital assets allocated to the R&D product code (CPA 72) rather than the previous practice of allocating this data by product based on the industry that each R&D capital asset was associated with. This makes this item more consistent with the rest of the tables than before. The 2017 tables also used CSO Business Expenditure on Research & Development (BERD) data to allocate secondary production of R&D in ASI and CIP industries for the first time. Furthermore, for the first time, the 2017 tables used Balance of Payments and Structural Business Statistics data that was systematically reconciled with each other at the microdata level.

NACE codes can sometimes differ for the same firm across data vintages and data sources in the CSO. The 2018 tables saw the introduction of a new process to ensure that NACE classifications of firms are consistent with those used in the income method of the latest vintage of the NIE. The 2018 tables also benefited from the reconciliation of goods exports, balance of payments, BERD and Prodcom data at the firm level to allocate secondary production by product for firms covered by the CIP and ASI.

Conventions used

 The following conventions are used throughout the tables of this publication:

                 " - "         is used to denote zero

                " 0 "         represents less than €0.5 million but more than zero

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