Transport and communications - 3. quarter of 2007

In Q3, seasonally adjusted sales in 'transport, post and telecommunications' increased quarter-on-quarter by 2.1% at constant prices. Year-on-year, sales rose by 8.6%, not seasonally adjusted by 8.0%. Transport increased by 7.9% and communications by 8.1%. Over a 50% share in aggregate growth came from 'supporting and auxiliary transport activities' and over a 25% contribution came from telecommunications.
In Q3 seasonally adjusted sales in transport and communications rose quarter-on-quarter by 2.1% at constant prices. Sales grew by 8.6%, year-on-year, not seasonally adjusted by 8.0%. 'Supporting and auxiliary transport activities' including especially cargo handling and store, operation of air terminals, control activities in air transport, logistic services and activities of travel agencies and tour operators contributed by more than 50% to an aggregate growth of transport and communications. Over a 25% contribution came from telecommunications. (Table 4)

Transport:
Seasonally adjusted sales in 'transport' increased quarter-on-quarter by 1.8% at constant prices. The trend component grew for the corresponding period by 1.6 %, i.e. by 0.8 percentage point less than the average growth in the previous four quarters (Table 1). Year-on-year, with seasonal and calendar adjustments, the sales increased by 9.0 % , without adjustment the sales grew by 7.9 % which was the lowest increase since Q4 2006.

Graph 1
Compared especially with Q1 2007 a slow-down was recorded for 'other land transport' which might be due to a slow-down in construction. Although, the dynamics of growth slowed down already in May and June only the sales drop (-2.7%) occurring in September caused that the growth in Q3 2007 was the lowest in 2007 (2.1%). A significant growth was recorded for sales in 'air transport' (+11.6%) as well as for sales in 'inland water transport' where in summer months favourable sailing conditions (growth by 20.5%) were reported. Conversely, 'transport via railways' reported the most dramatic drop for the last seven quarters (by 1.6%) especially due the development in freight transport.

Especially due to a marked increase of sales for the 'sale of goods by some of the important enterprises as their secondary activity' in 'cargo handling and store' sales increased by 19.4%, sales in 'activities of other transport agencies' increased by 16.9%. A growing interest in travel was reflected not only in air transport but also travel agencies and tour operators benefited from this development reporting a 9.2% increase in sales which was the highest growth for the last 11 quarters.


Post and telecommunications:
Seasonally adjusted sales in 'post and telecommunications' increased by 2.8 % quarter-on-quarter at constant prices. The trend component for the corresponding period increased by 1.8 %, which was by 0.7 percentage point more than the average growth for the last four quarters (Table 2).
Year-on-year, with seasonal and calendar adjustments, the sales increased by 7.8 %, without adjustment the sales grew by 8.1 %.

Graph 2
In 'telecommunications' in Q3 2007 after a slow-down lasting for seven quarters an acceleration was reported again. A 8.0% sales increase was by more than 3 p.p. higher than the average growth in the last four quarters. The most rapid growth was recorded in sales of enterprises with 20 up to 49 employees but the most significant contribution to the total increase came from enterprises with 100+ employees. Over a 90% contribution of telecommunications to the total growth in communications was attributed to these enterprises. Mainly due to businesses competing with the state post the growth of sales in 'post and courier activities' (+8.9%) started already in Q1 2006 continued.

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Note|:
1) The whole time series are seasonally adjusted every quarter; indices in the graph are changed retroactively.

Contact person: Alena Hellerová, phone: 274052921, e-mail: alena.hellerova@csu.gov.cz
Data source: CZSO direct survey in enterprises
End of data collection: 2 November 2007
End of data processing: 7 November 2007
Data for Q3 2007 are preliminary, revised data for all months of 2007 will be known in June 2008, at the latest.
Quarterly data since 1997 are available in time series ( /sales_indices_monthly_transport_and_communication_time_series )