OECD Working Party on National Accounts The SNA Update: Progress Report OECD Working Party on National Accounts October 10-12, 2006 Carol S. Caron Project Manager

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?

A lot has happened since! Issues Papers Leases Contracts Licenses Full Set of Provisional Recommendations Toward Rev.1

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

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

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

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

FSPR Brought together all recommendations Circulated in late April 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

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 All to be covered later on this morning’s agenda

… 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

… individual issues (cont’d) “Consistency issues” posted on web site: “we are getting there” Market/non-market distinction Subsectoring of NPIs Annuities Property income Decision tree to guide sectoring

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

Draft chapters (cont’d) Volume is a balancing act: keeping the familiar structure while integrating new material Numbering retained through the sequence-of-accounts 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

Draft chapters (cont’d) Chapter list 1. Introduction 2. Overview 3. Flows, stocks, and accounting rules 4. Institutional units and sectors 5. Establishments and industries 6-13: Accounts 14. Summarising and presenting the accounts 15. Supply and use and … 16. Prices and volume measures 17. Role of capital services… 18 Cross-cutting and other special issues 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

Draft chapters (cont’d) First chapters ready for comment were posted last week in a 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

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

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

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

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 production, primary distribution, secondary distribution And supply and use, price and volume, cross-cutting

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

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 No one ever said that the Update would be “a piece of cake,” so let us get on with it

Contact:: ccarson@imf.org Thank you Contact:: ccarson@imf.org