2008 SNA CURRENT SITUATION Presentation to the 12 th OECD-NBS Workshop on National Accounts October 2008

INTRODUCTION The SNA Update formally commenced in late 2003 –the Editor and Project Manager were appointed in early 2004 One of the first decisions made about the update was to provide a very open, consultative process An Advisory Expert Group (AEG) was established, consisting of 20 very experienced national accountants from NSOs around the world 2

CONSULTATIVE PROCESS The first AEG meeting was held in February 2004 –44 key issues were identified for review Four follow-up AEG meetings have been held –December 2004 –July 2005 –February 2006 –March 2007 Input was also obtained from various national accounts meetings during these years 3

UN STATISTICAL COMMISSION The 2007 meeting of the UNSC agreed that the Updated SNA should be split into 2 volumes –Volume 1 (chapters 1-17) would contain detailed descriptions of the concepts, including all changes resulting from the 44 issues identified by the AEG –Volume 2 (chapters 18-29)is to provide an elaboration of the concepts contained in Volume 1 4

UN STATISTICAL COMMISSION (continued) The 2008 UNSC approved Volume 1 of the updated SNA in principle, but with an extra 2 months (until 30 April) being allowed for countries to comment on the draft chapters the UNSC emphasised that this extra time was to allow a check of the conceptual coherence and consistency of the Updated SNA with the recommendations on the 44 issues, together with the clarifications and consistency issues flowing from them. But decisions made on the 44 issues were not to be reopened 5

UN STATISTICAL COMMISSION (continued) Other key issues raised by the 2008 UNSC were: Volume 2 has to be presented to next years UNSC meeting for approval the ISWGNA should develop a strategy for implementing the updated SNA Eurostat/UNSD conference in May, with the outcome being the Luxembourg Recommendations the ISWGNA should seek the opinion of Member States on the title of the Updated SNA System of National Accounts, 2008 was favoured by more than two-thirds of countries responding 6

VOLUME 1 The UNSC Bureau approved Volume 1 a couple of months ago – –the SNA codes were removed from Volume 1 A White cover version of Volume 1 has now been released Volume 1 has been through the UN editing process, with only a small number of minor changes required 7

VOLUME 2 There are 12 chapters in Volume 2: Ch 18 – Elaborating and presenting the accounts Ch 19 – Population and labour inputs Ch 20 – The role of capital services in the national accounts Ch 21 – Measuring corporate activity Ch 22 – The government and public sectors Ch 23 – Non-profit institutions in the System 8

VOLUME 2 (continued) Ch 24 – Households Ch 25 – The informal sector Ch 26 – The rest of the world account (external transactions account) Ch 27 – The link to financial and monetary statistics Ch 28 – Input-output and other matrix based analyses Ch 29 – Satellite accounts and other extensions of the System 9

VOLUME 2 (continued) The time for commenting on 8 chapters of Volume 2 has closed –the ISWGNA considered all these comments yesterday The remaining 4 chapters are now on the UNSD website for comment –the ISWGNA is meeting on 10 November to discuss the comments on these chapters 10

AEG meeting An AEG meeting is being held in Washington from November, with the following agenda –Codes –Insurance non-life reinsurance life –Pensions –Emission permits –Issues from the review of Volume 2 11

Remaining process Volume 2 will be redrafted to take account of the comments from the current review –it will be available for UNSC review in December The February UNSC will consider Volume 2 –any changes required will be incorporated after the UNSC Volume 2 will go through the UN editing process An index will be prepared The 2008 SNA to be released in second half of

Major changes in the 2008 SNA New recording of pensions Explicit recognition of capital services Recognition of outcomes of R&D as fixed assets Recognition of offensive weapons as fixed assets Goods for processing on a change of ownership basis 13

Implementation of 2008 SNA OECD (as of October 2008) CountryIntentions Australia2009 for most, if not all, changes Canada2012/13 for all changes US2012/13 for most (outstanding) changes EU2014 Korea2014? Japan2015? New Zealand no schedule yet, but all changes at once Mexicono schedule yet, but introduced piecemeal Switzerland, Iceland and Norway same as EU Turkey?

Implementation of 2008 SNA Summary Australia, Canada and US have quite firm plans to introduce the update SNA quite rapidly. All three intend to adopt at least all the major proposed changes, including –Employers pension schemes (2), –R&D (9), –Government and non-market producers – cost of capital (16), –Military expenditures (19). Australia and Canada more or less all at once US staggered introduction

Implementation of 2008SNA Summary Australia has published an information paper (Introduction of revised international standards in ABS economic standards Cat No ) describing its intentions. Japan and Korea have tentative plans to synchronise their adoptions of the updated SNA and SICs in 2015 and 2014, respectively. Japan is currently considering a firmer schedule. NZ and Mexico have no firm plans

Achieving consistent and internationally comparable national accounts Formulating a strategy to ensure comparability of data Developing handbooks and manuals Defining a research agenda for the OECD WPNA

Formulating a strategy to ensure comparability of data Accepted that countries will implement the 2008 SNA at different times and there will be a lack of comparability during the transition. Countries should undertake a one-off exercise to quantify and publish the impact of the update on their major aggregates. To be included in metadata on OECD databases. Countries should supply data to the Secretariat as per either 1993 or 2008 SNA

Developing handbooks and manuals The OECD is producing a –revised edition of the Manual on Measuring Capital, –a Handbook on Deriving Capital Measures of Intellectual Property Products, –and a Handbook on the Measurement of Volume Output of Health and Education.

Defining a research agenda for the OECD WPNA OECD WPNA will have two streams of work concerned with 2008 SNA –2008 SNA implementation issues: Identify major issues, countries undertake investigations, especially the early adopters, and report to WPNA –Address issues on the research agenda: Identify ones that should be pursued quickly and develop a work programme. May require setting up task forces. Discuss next meeting?