IMF releases Quarterly National Accounts Manual to help countries meet international standards

• Author: Kimberly Zieschang
• Position: IMF Statistics Department
• Pages: 184-185

Page 184

Quarterly national accounts are an increasingly important specialty within national accounting as more and more countries recognize the importance of quarterly series of national accounts in the management and analysis of the economy. Accordingly, while only a minority of IMF member countries have the benefit of a wellestablished system of quarterly national accounts, their number is rapidly growing. To address the rising demand for information and training on producing these quarterly series, in May 2001 the IMF released a new Quarterly National Accounts Manual. The IMF Statistics Department has drafted the new Manual to help countries establish or strengthen their quarterly national accounts to meet international standards and best practice principles in concepts and compilation.

The Manual takes its place alongside the other manuals the Statistics Department has prepared or is preparing, including the Balance of Payments Manual, the Government Finance Statistics Manual, and the Monetary and Financial Statistics Manual. The new Quarterly National Accounts Manual, like all of these manuals, is fully consistent with the overarching international statistical accounting standard-the System of National Accounts 1993.

The new Manual draws on the technical assistance experience of the Statistics Department in support of IMF member countries' desire to subscribe to the Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS), one requirement of which is the production and dissemination of timely quarterly national accounts statistics. The Manual also draws heavily on material prepared for regional seminars on quarterly national accounts in Thailand (1997 and 1998) and Jordan (2000). Finally, the Manual has benefited from comments from country experts during a focus group meeting the IMF convened in June 2000.

Like the IMF's seminars on quarterly national accounts, the Manual's intended audience is compilers who already have experience in applying national accounting concepts and methods to the production of annual national accounts series and are in the process of introducing or improving a quarterly system.

It will also be of interest to national accounts compilers in general and to users requiring an indepth knowledge of sources and methods of quarterly national accounts data.

Guidelines

The Manual promulgates some broad guidelines for compiling quarterly national accounts:

* Quarterly national accounts should...