China’s Input-Output Survey and
Tabulation Method
Comments
13th OECD – NBS Workshop on National Accounts
November 40- December 4, 2009
Haikou, China
Contact: nadim.ahmad@oecd.org
General Observation
• IO and SU tables are extremely important
components of the national accounts
framework and on-going work and
developments in China are welcomed and
strongly encouraged.
Detailed Comments
• Paper describes a number of survey
sources used to populate the output,
intermediate consumption and valueadded cells in the IO table.
• 52 questionnaires categorised by 3 types:
– Census questionnaires
– Focused questionnaires
– Typical questionnaires
Detailed comments
• Census questionnaires:
• Investment composition of fixed assets:+30m
Yuan
• Composition of manufacturing costs of the largesized industrial enterprises above designated size:
+ 5m Yuan –
– Gross industrial output and sales volume and output
of major industrial products
– Investigation information of costs and expenses of
industrial enterprises
Detailed comments
• Points of clarification
– Not clear which enterprises are included – all? or just
manufacturing?
– How are small and medium enterprises (<5 m Y)
captured?
– What use is made of the business register? And how
are survey results grossed-up to the entire
population? What percentage of enterprises (as a per
cent of value-added or output are surveyed?)
– How is the business register updated?
Detailed comments
• Focused questionnaires – basic units of medium and
small sized industrial enterprises above designated size of
construction and service enterprises
• Points of Clarification
– Are these questionnaires for the construction and
service industries? Or are they questionnaires that
target expenditures on these activities by small and
medium enterprises?
Detailed comments
• Typical questionnaires – compositions of
transportation expenditures and travelling expenses etc
• Points of Clarification
– More detail required on these questionnaires? It’s not
entirely clear what they are and how they are used.
Commodity by commodity
• Tables are produced on a C by C basis.
• Questions
– Given the information available to produce C by C tables it
should be possible to produce corresponding SU tables. Is the
reason they are not produced because it is assumed that IO
commodity coefficients (cost structure) can be used to estimated
the intermediate consumption and value-added of enterprises not
directly surveyed (but which have been able to provide estimates
of output)?
– If this is the case, it is important to better understand at what
level of industry classification it is applied; as it presupposes
strong homogeneity in production processes – which is
questionable when comparing large and small enterprises.
– How is value-added allocated when secondary products are byproducts?
General questions
• Are estimates of own-account production
made? (software, construction etc)
• How is the informal economy (and
unincorporated enterprises) measured?
• How are estimates of margins on products
derived?
• How detailed are the tables (commodity
classification)?
General questions
• Are estimates of own-account production
made? (software, construction etc)
• How is the informal economy (and
unincorporated enterprises) measured?
• How are estimates of margins on products
derived?
• How detailed are the tables (commodity
classification)?
Responding to NBS questions
• Which level of the 5 levels of CPC should be used in
commodity balancing for compiling accounts of goods
and services and for balancing of further supply and
use? Could we say the 4th or the 5th level of CPC must
be adopted?
• The SNA is not prescriptive in this regard. It depends
entirely on the information available in a country. The
general principle is that the compilation of tables
(especially those that require assumptions based on
observed coefficients in surveyed enterprises) should be
as detailed as possible .The publication level of tables
however need not (and rarely does) follow the
compilation level. Generally these are less detailed
depending on the quality of balancing, microdata and
confidentiality constraints.
Responding to NBS questions
• In US, information from economic census is very rich,
with detailed output data of goods and services, and the
complete output data by detailed commodity can be
gathered. However, for countries where there is not
economic census yet, or just part of establishments has
been investigated, how are the complete output data by
commodity compiled, or how are the complete output
data by commodity imputed?
• A business register is a pre-requisite. Most business
registers will also provide an indication of size – either
via turnover or employment. And this information can be
used to stratify enterprises into different bands. But it is
essential that at least some enterprises are surveyed in
each of these bands. Tax/administrative records provide
an additional useful source for compiling a BR.
Responding to NBS questions
• In addition, must the objects of investigation be
establishments? Could the enterprises be objects of
investigation, while the industry to which the enterprise is
attached is determined by nature of the enterprise’s
central product? In other words, for better adopting the
suggestions by SNA, what are the most essential
requirements?
• The SNA still prefers establishments. However in
practice there is an increasing tendency to collect
information from enterprises (and this forms part of the
2008 SNA research agenda). Many EU countries for
example already compile their tables using enterprise
information – which is useful for analytical applications
such as productivity measurement, R&D, innovation etc.
Responding to NBS questions
• How should auxiliary activities be captured? Are different
questionnaires needed? How are auxiliary
activities/expenditures allocated to commodities?
• Para 5.9 of the 1993 SNA defines ancillary activities.
The costs of these activities must be allocated to using
establishments/commodities and these can be allocated
on the basis of (preferably) value-added or output
shares.
Responding to NBS questions
• We’d like that you introduce us the main information
used and compilation procedures in compiling supply
and use tables through case studies of a developed
country. How do you account the value added and its
composition by industry when you compile the use table?
Do you use investigation data of establishments to
calculate the value added by production approach?
Whether is the operating surplus derived by aggregate of
value added minus the sum of the three components of
compensation of employees, net taxes on production and
depreciation of fixed assets? Or other calculation
methods are adopted?
• See the previous US BEA presentation.
Responding to NBS questions
• When supply table and use table are compiled, which
level of classification by industry and by commodity is
used at least?
• This varies enormously by country. It is important to note
too that the level of detail used for compilation is usually
different to that used for publication. In the EU countries
are currently required to provide tables at the NACE 60
level but many produce tables at a more detailed level.
Responding to NBS questions
• How the basic price, the producer’s price and the
purchaser’s price are reflected in input-output accounts?
Which kinds of taxes are included in each of them?
• The 1993 SNA provides clear guidance here. In most
countries IO tables are produced at basic prices and so
will include other taxes and subsidies on production.
Tables compiled at producers prices will additionally
include any taxes/subsidies on products (e.g. VAT) that
are not separately invoiced to the purchaser.
• Purchaser’s prices include all taxes/subsidies on
products.
• Supply-use tables in theory should show value-added
and output at basic prices and consumption at
purchaser’s prices.
Responding to NBS questions
• How do you deal with value-added tax? Is the sales tax
added to the output in basic price, and the purchase tax
added to the intermediate input? Or is the “value-added
tax that should be turned over to the state” added to the
output in basic price, while without consideration of the
purchase tax in the component of intermediate input?
• The answer depends on the valuation basis used for the
tables. IO tables produced at basic prices should have a
separate row for any VAT incurred by enterprises (which
is rare for market enterprises but not for non-market and
small enterprises). In other words for IO tables at basic
prices output should not include VAT neither should any
of the transactions between industries/commodities.
Inter-relationship between China’s IO
estimation, production-based GDP and
expenditure based GDP
13th OECD – NBS Workshop on National Accounts
November 40- December 4, 2009
Haikou, China
Contact: nadim.ahmad@oecd.org
General Comments
• Recommended reading – 8th Workshop on
National Accounts:
• 5. Accounting frameworks for constant
price measures
- GDP Balancing in Constant and Current
Prices, Mr. AHMAD Nadim, OECD
• > Paper in English (PDF)
> Paper in Chinese
> PowerPoint presentation
General Comments
• Recommended reading – 11th Workshop
on National Accounts:
• Supply-use tables; techniques for
consistent estimates of missing data AHMAD, Nadim (OECD) - PPT doc.
english