The Central Balance Sheet Office compiles statistics from data in the annual accounts filed by enterprises and by non-profit institutions and foundations. These statistics can be consulted on-line free of charge. They can also be purchased in some cases on CD-ROM or on paper.

• Key figures of the Central Balance Sheet Office
• Statistics on legal grounds
• Statistics intended for European databases
• Indicators relating to the continuing on-the-Job training

The key figures of the Central Balance Sheet Office contain a number of indicators concerning the financial health of the Belgian enterprises. This publication consists of three parts:

• a summary of the evolution of the activities of the Central Balance Sheet Office (filing and publication of annual accounts), of the demography of enterprises and of some important financial indicators
• a separation, according to sector of activity and to region, of establishments and bankruptcies of enterprises
• a more detailed description of financial indicators made up on the basis of standardised annual accounts filed by non-financial enterprises.

A detailed description of the methodology used can be found in the document "Methodological reference for the key figures of the Central Balance Sheet Office" (Dutch - French).

Normally, the National Bank publishes new Key figures of the Central Balance Sheet Office every six months. The last publication concerns the key figures of April 2013.

Contents

The legislator has authorized the Central Balance Sheet Office to establish three categories of statistics based on the data transmitted:

• those concerning annual accounts filed by enterprises under the full-format or abbreviated format model for enterprises: these include overall figures from globalised headings (including the social balance sheet sections), financial ratios and supply and use tables
• those concerning annual accounts filed by non-profit institutions and foundations according to the full-format or abbreviated model for associations: these data comprise overall figures (including the social balance sheet sections) and - as of the 2009 financial year - financial ratios
• those concerning all social balance sheets, whether incorporated into the annual accounts filed by companies, non-profit institutions or foundations or sent in to the CBSO separately: these data comprise only globalised headings.

The statistics are compiled according to the sector of activity and to the legal form.

No statistics are published over this if a certain grouping counts less than 11 enterprises, non-profit institutions or associations.

The explanatory note (Dutch - French) gives all useful information on the composition of the statistical population, the classification for which statistics are available, the meaning and calculation of financial ratios, as well as the classification of the NACE-BEL codes in the sectors of activity.

Following statistics can be consulted on-line free of charge:

• annual accounts statistics for companies by sector of activity
  Available accounting years: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011
• annual accounts statistics for NPIs and foundations by sector of activity
  Available accounting years: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011
• annual accounts statistics by legal form
  Available accounting years: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 

The statistics are also available on the CD-ROM "Statistics". Each annual edition contains all available statistics for the last five years. The latest edition contains the years 2007 to 2011 included. With the CD-ROM:

• you can define a personalised layout
• you have access to additional distribution criteria for the financial ratios (including the value of deciles and the standard deviation)
• if you possess the Access 97 software or more recent, you can directly use certain basic files.

Each edition costs 25,00 euro (including VAT and postage). More information on how to order the CD-ROM can be found in the Terms of delivery (Dutch - French), and in the Order Form (Dutch - French).

Finally, the statistics can be retrieved on paper. The charges are as follows:

• statistics compiled on the basis of the annual accounts filed according to the full or abbreviated model: by grouping according to the sector of activity or legal form: since 1994:
  • all the statistics: 9,08 euro
  • financial ratios (by model): 1,45 euro
• for the years prior to 1994, in the form of photocopies of microfilms: the page: 0,30 euro
• overall presentation of all social balance sheets: by grouping according to the sector of activity or legal form: 1,45 euro.

The National Bank of Belgium draws up statistics intended for the European BACH  (Bank for the Accounts of Companies Harmonised) database, on the basis of the annual accounts of the Belgian companies. The BACH database is managed by the Banque de France and contains by sector the authorised and harmonised information on the annual accounts of non-financial companies from 12 European countries. More in particular, it concerns the weighted average and the spreading in quartiles of:

• the most important posts of the balance sheet and the profit-and-loss account
• 29 financial ratios.

Following the conclusions of the Employment Conference of October 2003, the National Labour Council and the Central Economic Council have taken the initiative of calling upon a group of experts for developing a simple measuring tool giving a true and fair view of all efforts made in the field of continuing vocational training.

The working group's final report suggests a scoreboard structured around four key indicators based mainly on data available from the social balance sheet, complemented with information taken from other sources, such as: the labour force survey carried out by the National Statistical Institute, the European CVTS survey ("Continuing Vocational Training Survey"), sectoral training funds and centres, statistics relating to sensitive jobs as supplied by the regional employment agencies and tables relating to the number of beneficiaries of educational leave.

The "Table with indicators relating to the continuing on-the-job-training" presents the development of the key indicators selected by the working group, as they can be currently calculated on the basis of the data available from the social balance sheet. The indicators relating to the continuing on-the-job training are related to:

• formal continuing training. Formal training generally refers to courses and training schemes developed solely with the purpose of providing a professional training or education given by trainers or lecturers; the courses and training schemes must not be given in the workplace, but rather for instance in a classroom, a training centre or a workshop developed for that purpose
• informal continuing training, including
  • activities involving training, tutoring, coaching or acquisition of know-how by making use of working tools, which take place directly in the workplace or in the working environment
  • training or apprenticeship planned by job rotation, exchanges or personal monitoring
  • participation in apprenticeship and quality control circles
  • o self-study (or open learning) and distance learning (reading, cassettes, cd-roms, correspondence courses...)
• initial training: this category includes alternating training (industrial apprentices, independent trainees, part-time schoolgoers).