The surveys are part of the Bank of Greece's obligations to provide statistical information to international organisations such as the European Central Bank (ECB), the European Commission (EUROSTAT), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD) and other bodies in Greece and abroad.

The compilation of the Balance of Payments, the International Investment Position, Foreign Direct Investment statistics and statistics on the structure and activity of Foreign Affiliates are governed by rules and guidelines set by the European Central Bank (ECB), the Statistical Office of the European Commission (Eurostat), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD).

Purpose

The purpose of the surveys is the annual collection of statistics on foreign direct investment (FDI survey), the expansion of foreign-controlled enterprises by institutional units resident in Greece (OFATS survey) and the stocks of resident versus non-resident assets and liabilities (A/L survey).

These data will be used to compile statistics on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), the country's International Investment Position, Balance of Payments, National Accounts, as well as to update the European Groups Register (EGR).

 

To whom it is directed

The Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)FDI) survey is addressed to any resident natural or legal person who has a direct investment relationship with a non-resident, either as a direct investor or as a direct investment company:

• if it is a subsidiary or associated company of a non-resident.
• if it has a non-resident subsidiary or associated company,
• if it is a branch subject to a foreign parent or owns a branch abroad,
• if there are holdings (less than 10%) or placements in debt instruments with non-resident sister companies.

The Foreign Affiliated Business Survey (OFATS) is addressed to any legal entity resident in Greece:

that exercises control (directly or indirectly) in foreign affiliated companies and

is the final institutional unit that controls them (UCI). The ultimate controlling institutional unit (Ultimate Controlling Institutional Unit) is the institutional unit that is at the top of the chain of control of the foreign affiliated enterprise and is not controlled by any other institutional unit.

The Claims-Liabilities against non-residents (A/L)A/L) survey is addressed to every non-financial company – resident that has financial stocks/balances (stocks) against non-residents of the following categories:

• Portfolio Investments
• Shares and shares of investment portfolio companies
• Securities
• Financial Derivatives and employee rights to acquire shares
• Employee Stock Options
• Options
• Futures contracts
• Interest Rate Exchange Agreements (Swaps)
• Forwards
•  Leasing
• Trade Credits
• Loans
• Cash – Deposits
• Insurance plans, pension plans and standardized guarantee plans
• Other accounts receivable/payable

 

Confidentiality

It is pointed out that the data are confidential, are used exclusively for statistical purposes and are not disclosed to third parties.

The persons who exercise or have exercised activity on behalf of the Bank of Greece are prohibited from disclosing to any natural or legal person and to any public authority the information or data provided in accordance with the above provisions, subject to the exceptions provided by the applicable EU legislation. This prohibition does not include the announcement in an aggregated form of the data and information in question, if the identity of the persons referred to is not established. Persons who carry out or have carried out an activity on behalf of the Bank of Greece are punished according to the provisions of article 371 of the Criminal Code if they violate the above confidentiality. According to the provisions of the same article, any other person who communicates the data submitted to the Bank of Greece in any way, even if he/she becomes aware of them, is also punished.

In case of violation of the above obligations and refusal, inconvenience or delay in providing the requested information or in case of providing inaccurate or incomplete information, the Bank of Greece may impose a fine on the obligees as well as their legal representatives in favor of the Greek State.

 

Periodicity - Submission Deadline - System Availability

The data is submitted

• annually between 1 April and 31 July of the year following the reporting period, for FDI and A/L surveys.
• within 17 months of the end of the reporting period, for the OFATS survey.

The system will be open for submission on all days and hours of the week, but technical support will only be available on working days from 8.00 am. until 3.00 p.m.

 

Reference period

The reference period is 31/12 of the year for which the data is submitted.

If the accounting period does not end on 12/31 of the reference year, the 12/31 figures are requested to be calculated. If this is not possible, to avoid additional workload, the requested data shall be submitted based on the date of the last (approved or not) balance sheet and each year the consistency of the annual change of the data should be observed.

 

Unavailability of data

If any of the requested information is not (yet) available (e.g. due to unfinalized accounting statements), the announcers are invited to submit provisional or estimated information to avoid late submission of the questionnaire. Announcers are required to submit revised data only if the final data deviates significantly from the provisional data submitted.

t is emphasized that, the announcer should not proceed with a submission with deleted statistics that he is unable to update or estimate. In this case, the data submitted in the previous reporting year must be copied. The data is only deleted when the position has ceased to exist.

 

Late submission

In the event of failure to comply with the submission deadline, the External Sector Accounts Preparation Department should be contacted. Refusal to provide statistics and information is punishable by a fine in accordance with the provisions of article 55C of the Statute of the Bank of Greece, as sanctioned by Laws 2609/1998 and 2832/2000.

Submit details

Supporting documents (user manuals, technical instructions, brief instructions and templates) are sent electronically to registered IRIS users. New users of IRIS should contact the External Sector Accounts Preparation Department of the Statistics Directorate.

The announcers are invited to complete the survey template for which they are required to submit and to send it electronically (upload) through the "ESS" application of the IRIS system.

It is emphasized that, before submitting data to any of the annual surveys (FDI, OFATS, AL), the successful submission of the "General Information of the Notifier" template for the specific reporting year must be preceded.

Automated processing of the submitted file is then performed to ensure the quality and correctness of the data. After this is completed, an automated message is sent to the e-mail address of the notifier with the result of the processing (Accepted - Accepted with omissions - Rejected). For each submission, the corresponding "Proof of Submission" is posted in the "ESS" application, which includes all the submitted data and the result of their automated processing.

 

Data review

The notifier can revise the submitted data of the reporting period provided that the submission period has not expired. Every time he makes a final submission, the previous one is canceled and the "submission file" is updated. Only the last successful final submission is considered valid and considered.

Late revision of data is possible after communication and approval by the Department of External Sector Accounts Preparation of the Directorate of Statistics.

 

File sharing history

The applicants, through the "ESS" application, have access to the history of the submitted files, without the possibility of changing them. In this way, there is a single point of reference for the notifiers and the relevant Department of the Statistics Directorate, based on which they can communicate and resolve any problems in the process of submitting the questionnaire or even in the correctness of the data itself.

Elina Karamanou

CEO / Business Consultant