OECD WORKING PARTY ON NATIONAL ACCOUNTS Paris, 14 to 16 October 2008 ITEM 4: ACCESSION PROCESS REVIEW OF NATIONAL ACCOUNTS David Roberts, Statistics Directorate

STATISTICAL REVIEW Examine the legal and institutional framework for statistics in candidate countries and their conformity with the principles applied in OECD countries Assess the quality of the data in candidate countries and their comparability with data available in OECD countries Ensure that candidate countries can be integrated into the OECD’s reporting and information systems upon accession

NA REVIEW: OBJECTIVES Assess the quality of the annual and quarterly national accounts estimates of candidate countries Inclusion of candidate countries in the annual and quarterly national account databases Limit the response burden on candidate countries

QUALITY OF NATIONAL ACCOUNTS ESTIMATES Coverage: Meeting ECO and STD requirements Compliance with SNA 93 (or ESA 95) Exhaustiveness: Inclusion of the “non-observed economy ” Quality of price and volume measures

INCLUSION IN DATABASE Completion of OECD’s annual and quarterly national accounts questionnaires Integration into OECD collections of annual and quarterly data

STEPS IN 2009 January/February: Draft reports on national accounts reviews March/April: Country visits as required to discuss draft reports May/June: Finalise national accounts reviews, incorporation into first draft of assessment report

STEPS IN 2009 (contd.) July/August: Review of draft assessment reports with countries September: Prepare final drafts of assessment reports October: Discussion of the assessment reports by CSTAT November: Finalise the assessment reports

Thank you for listening Any questions?