The SNA Update:
Progress Report
OECD Working Party on National Accounts
October 10-12, 2006
A year ago
• Pace of work on the 44 agreed issues was
picking up; some important issues were on
the next AEG meeting’s agenda
• Website was promoting country involvement
• Editor and ISWGNA had begun more
detailed thinking about the Rev. 1 volume
– What, if anything, could be omitted?
– How should new material would be
incorporated?
2
Plan of the presentation
• Milestones
– Frankfurt AEG meeting
– Statistical Commission
– Full Set of Provisional Recommendations
(FSPR)
– Follow up on individual issues
– Draft chapters posted for comment
• Next steps
3
Reminder: the Framework
• The Statistical Commission set the
framework
– Work programme: research, consultation,
governance, etc.
– List of 44 issues to be considered
– Timetable for Commission’s consideration:
• Consolidated Set of Recommendations in March
2007
• Full set of chapters for Rev. 1 in March 2008
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Frankfurt AEG meeting
• Fourth, and last, of the issues-oriented
AEG meetings
• Reached agreement on recommendations
for most issues, but some work needed
mainly on…
– Leases and licenses
– Pension schemes
• Opened discussion of consistency
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Statistical Commission, 2006
• Focus was on process:
– Commended progress on issues
– Attributed progress to project management approach
and use of the project website
• On substance,
– Welcomed chapter on informal sector
– Noted concerns about unfunded government pension
schemes and need for consultation, but positive outlook
• Accepted ISWGNA offer to prepare a programme
of implementation
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FSPR
• Brought together all recommendations
– Called for in the work programme
– Serves as a basis to examine the consistency
and overall robustness of the recommendations
• Circulated in late April
– On web at http://unstats.un.org/unsd/nationalaccount/snarev1.asp
– Countries invited to comment by mid September
– Discussion at several meetings
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Follow up on individual issues
• Pension schemes: work toward solution,
especially in Europe
• Leases and licenses: AEG e-discussion
• Classifications of financial assets and
sectoring of financial corporations: world
wide questionnaire
8
… individual issues (cont’d)
• Guarantees: AEG e-discussion of
treatment of standardized guarantees due
to close this week
• Freely available R&D: may come up in
tomorrow’s agenda
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… individual issues (cont’d)
• “Consistency issues” emerged from FSPR,
resolution achieved
– Market/non-market distinction
– Subsectoring of NPIs
– Annuities
– Property income
– Decision tree to guide sectoring
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Draft chapters
• Background
– Rev. 1 is to go to the Statistical Commission in
2008, so…
• draft Rev. 1 on basis of the FSPR to meet timetable
• comment period is provided before 2008
– Organization of drafting and review phase
• Divide chapters into two roughly equal tranches
• Proceed sequentially: draft, review, and AEG
meeting for each tranche
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Draft chapters (cont’d)
• Volume is a balancing act: keeping the
familiar structure while integrating new
material
– Numbering retained through the sequence-ofaccounts chapters--that is, through chapter 13
– Recommended changes incorporated as they
come up
– Major blocks of new material to be pulled
together in separate chapters
• Leads to 27 chapters
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Draft chapters (cont’d)
Chapter list
1. Introduction
2. Overview
17. Role of capital services…
18 Cross-cutting and other special
issues
3. Flows, stocks, and accounting
rules
4. Institutional units and sectors
5. Establishments and industries
19. Measuring corporate activity
20. Government and public sectors
21. NPIs
22. Households
23. Informal sector
24. ROW account
25. Link to financial and monetary
statistics
26. Population and labour inputs
27. Satellite accounts and other
extensions
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6-13: Accounts
14. Summarising and presenting
the accounts
15. Supply and use and …
16. Prices and volume measures
Draft chapters (cont’d)
• First chapters ready for comment were posted
end September via Progress Monitor at
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/sna1993/draftingPhase/pubdefault.asp
– Chapters ready
• 9: Use of Income
• 14: Summarising and presenting the accounts
– Progress monitor is comprehensive tool for tracking
the drafting and review stage
• Issue-by-chapter matrix
• Colors for chapter column change to show progress
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Draft chapters (cont’d)
• AEG, NSOs, central banks, and experts
invited to comment on the draft chapters
– Comment period is 60 days from the time of
posting
– Template for commenting is on the web
• Template is flexible but structured
• Comments go to UNSD
– Comments will be assembled and used to
frame the AEG meeting and revise drafts
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Next steps
• Where we are: meetings, letters from central
banks and NSOs, and consultations with those
working on other manuals shows…
– Wide agreement on most recommendations
– Reason to proceed with special care on a few:
• Pension schemes
• R&D
• Capital services, especially on own assets of nonmarket
producers
• Military expenditures
• Goods for processing
17
Next steps (cont’d)
• Recommendations: ISWGNA is in the
midst of a process to consider comments
and reach agreement on what to bring
forward to the Statistical Commission
– This will lead to a Consolidated Set of
Recommendations
– Report of the ISWGNA to the Statistical
Commission
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Next steps (cont’d)
• Chapters: Editor to continue on first tranche
– Next batch
•
•
•
•
•
•
Capital account
Financial account
Other changes in assets account
Balance sheet
The link to monetary and financial statistics
Role of capital services in the accounts
– Then cross-cutting, primary distribution, secondary
distribution
– And production, supply and use, price and volume
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Next steps (cont’d)
• Implementation: ISWGNA committed to
presenting a strategy in March 2008
– Canvassing now to learn from experiences
after the 1993 SNA
– OECD’s survey on countries’ plans is useful
input
• Other issues that come up: keep focused
on the 44 and build the long-term research
agenda
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In conclusion
• The consultative process has served us
well so far:
– We know a lot about countries’ views—
probably more than ever before on such an
international venture
– We should strive to continue to make it work
• The Update process is ambitious but we
are working to achieve it as planned
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