Rosstat had to postpone inflation assessment using online check data

Rosstat has placed an order for the maintenance of a system for collecting and analyzing big data from various sources for their use in calculating inflation and maintaining trade statistics, follows from the information on the public procurement website. Judging by the terms of reference, the contractor will process checks of cash register equipment (CRE), which are transferred to the Federal Tax Service by Rosstat. The deadline for completing the task is from the date of conclusion of the contract until the end of 2023. The contract amount is 20 million rubles. At the same time, Rosstat was going to introduce a new method for calculating inflation using the data of online checks as early as this year.

The inclusion of data from online checks in the calculation of the consumer price index (CPI) had to be postponed, a representative of Rosstat told Vedomosti. For now, the department will continue to collect data for calculating the CPI in the old fashioned way – by bypassing retail outlets. The main problems that caused the transition to a more modern automated method of estimating inflation were the limited openness of information due to tax secrecy and the heterogeneity of data.