Improving LCU operations within the National Bank of Belgium

ended

Due to the globalisation of production models and knowledge sharing, the complexity of Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) increases every year. This reduces the capacity to grab the full picture of the MNE at national level. Since in Belgium several important MNEs are present, a large impact of those MNEs on the macro-economic statistics can be detected, leading from time to time to inconsistencies, breaks in time-series and large revisions over time. To cope with these issues, a Large Cases Unit (LCU), that brings together expertise from different fields, started in January 2021 at the National Bank of Belgium, where the ultimate goal exists in improving the quality, consistency and coherency of the data and by consequence the macro-economic statistics. By the end of 2021, we hope to achieve our first objectives: putting in place the LCU organisation and staffing, laying down the foundation of our IT application and executing the first tasks in the follow up of the MNEs who fall under the GNI transversal reservation. From January 2022, in line with Module 2.2 of the grant, we will further expand the work started. The main objectives for end 2022 are: - Further development of the IT application towards a system that is ready to use - Lifting the GNI transversal reservation - Contacting the 3 MNEs of the GNI transversal reservation and enlarging the scope with 5 other MNEs which will be contacted too. - Developing a ranking method - Working closer together with other NSAs in case of inconsistencies - Taking the first steps in the transition to a quarterly frequency - Making a link with business statistics and profiling In attaining these objectives, not only all the numerous official statistics produced by the NBB will benefit from these reconciliation exercises, but also the business statistics and profiling of Statbel, the statistics produced by other NSAs and those by Eurostat.