Survey on “Global value chains” 

CAM

The Survey on « Global value chains » is collected every three years by the official statistical system. It helps to improve knowledge of companies' internationalization strategies. The survey studies the fragmentation process implemented by companies, which leads them to outsource in France or to relocate abroad work previously carried out in-house, or even to relocate in France activities carried out abroad.
The Global value chains survey is a European initiative survey under a mandatory European initiative. It has been mandatory since the 2023 vintage and is integrated into the Fribs regulation (EU regulation 2019/2152).
The survey was conducted under gentlemen’s agreement for the 2012, 2016 and 2020 vintages.

For over twenty years, Eurostat has actively supported and contributed to the development and implementation of surveys on global value chains, resulting in the integration of these data into the European EBS regulation. In general, globalization and its implications for the productive apparatus are important topics in economic and social debate: issues of outsourcing/reshoring, foreign dependency, and more broadly, economic sovereignty, have gained renewed interest since the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Global value chains" refer to the fragmentation of production processes implemented on an international scale. To remain competitive, companies increasingly organize their production globally, whether by organizing or reorganizing themselves or by engaging suppliers worldwide.
On one hand, this fragmentation of production processes by companies may lead them to reorganize certain activities, either by outsourcing in France, relocating (from France abroad), or reshoring (from abroad to France). Information on the types of activities affected by these reorganizations over a three-year period is requested, as well as their impact in terms of employment (job creations and job losses). Regarding relocations, information is also requested on which geographical areas they were relocated to, as well as whether they were relocated to units (foreign) belonging to their group. Companies are also questioned about the motivations and obstacles encountered when they have relocated or considered doing so.
Throughout the questionnaire, types of activities are harmonized by "functions," based on an international breakdown ("CBF" for Classification of Business Functions) defined by the United Nations statistical body and used by Eurostat. These functions or areas of activity are defined as groupings of common tasks that companies regularly perform (internally or externally) to bring goods or services to market. The breakdown used in the GVC survey is as follows: industry; construction; transport and logistics; trade, marketing, after-sales services; IT services, information technology; administrative and financial services (human resources, accounting and legal services, procurement management, insurance, etc.); engineering and technical services/design; R&D; other activities.
On the other hand, the survey focuses on companies' positioning in the value chain, particularly on purchases and sales of goods and/or services abroad: companies are asked to specify the types of these products, the major geographical areas of trade, and whether these are conducted with companies belonging to the same group.
Finally, a module assesses the impacts of recent global events on the value chains of the surveyed companies.
European regulations set out the requirements for mandatory data transmission (on a triennial basis) to the European institution. Working groups are organized annually by Eurostat in the form of Task Forces, and discussions have led to the development of a common harmonized questionnaire, allowing for comparison among all EU countries. The majority of items related to positioning in the value chain (purchases/sales of goods and services), relocations, and the impacts of recent global events are to be mandatory. The periods under study are imposed by Eurostat.
The French version of this questionnaire is therefore largely based on the European proposal.

Survey

Punctual or aperiodic

Global value chains of SME