Overview of the system of national accounts
(chapter 1 of the esa 2010 gni inventory)
Slovenia
reference year 2011
following the agreed recommendations as laid down
in document GNIC/280 rev. 2 EN - "ESA2010 GNI Inventory Guide".
VERSION MARCH 2016
Revised in December 2017
esa 2010 gni INVENTORY
SLOVENIA
march 2016
Revised in December 2017
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 OVERVIEW OF THE SYSTEM OF ACCOUNTS 4
1.1 INTRODUCTION 4
1.2 THE REVISIONS POLICY AND THE TIMETABLE FOR REVISING AND FINALISING THE ESTIMATES 6
1.3 OUTLINE OF THE PRODUCTION APPROACH 9
1.4 OUTLINE OF THE INCOME APPROACH 16
1.5 OUTLINE OF THE EXPENDITURE APPROACH 20
1.6 THE BALANCING OR INTEGRATION PROCEDURE, AND MAIN APPROACHES TO VALIDATION 26
1.7 OVERWIEW OF THE ALLOWANCES FOR EXHAUSTIVENESS 29
1.8 TRANSITION FROM GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT TO GROSS NATIONAL INCOME 34
CHAPTER 1
OVERVIEW OF THE SYSTEM OF ACCOUNTS
1.1 INTRODUCTION
1.1.1 Gross domestic product and the national accounts of Slovenia
The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia (SURS) is responsible for the estimation of gross domestic product (GDP) in line with the European System of Accounts 2010 (ESA 2010). Regular estimates of GDP by the production, income and expenditure approach were introduced in national accounts at the beginning of the 1990s covering the period since 1990. National accounts estimates for a particular year are first published at the end of February (t+2 months) as the sum of four quarters estimated within quarterly accounts. Annual GDP estimates for the year are first published at the end of August (t+8 months) and this includes GDP by the production, income and expenditure approach. Gross national income (GNI) is published within accounts by institutional sector at the end of September (t+9 months).
SURS signed the Memorandum of Understanding with the Bank of Slovenia (national bank of Slovenia) and the Ministry of Finance regarding institutional arrangements and division of responsibilities for ESA95 and ESA 2010 implementation and further development. With this agreement the implementation and compilation of financial accounts became the responsibility of the Bank of Slovenia and the responsibility for nonfinancial accounts was placed on SURS. Joint responsibility has been set up between SURS and the Ministry of Finance regarding government deficit and debt reporting according to the Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP).
1.1.2 The balance of payments and gross national income
The Bank of Slovenia monthly compiles the balance of payments (BoP) according to recommendations of the 6th Balance of Payments Manual of the International Monetary Fund. BoP data are entirely incorporated in the national accounts compilation of gross national income (GNI).
1.1.3 Geographical coverage
The economic territory of Slovenia is equal to the geographic territory under the administrative control of Slovenian government institutions. Geographic territory includes territorial sea waters and airspace under the control of Slovenian authorities. To perform economic activities, all business entities in Slovenia, regardless of their legal or institutional form, must register at the primary register body (court, ministries, chambers, Tax Administration, etc.) which provides all relevant data to the Business Register of Slovenia. Government bodies are created and entered into the Business Register on the basis of law. With this act all business entities also become part of the statistical system and are obliged by law to respond to statistical surveys and inquiries. Transactions on the economic territory are performed in the national currency euro (EUR). Until 2006 the national currency was Slovenian tolar (SIT), and the fixed exchange rate to convert historical data to EUR is 1 EUR=239.64 SIT.
Slovenian representatives and embassies in the rest of the world are part of the economic territory of Slovenia. Data on their transactions are being collected and shown in the central budget. On the other hand, foreign representatives and embassies in Slovenia are not part of the economic territory of Slovenia. Their specific position and status is regulated by official agreements with the relevant countries. The economic territory of Slovenia includes ships under the Slovenian flag regardless of their geographical position and a special statistical survey is carried out to cover relevant transactions.
1.1.4 Main data sources in the national accounts of Slovenia
1.1.4.1 GDP by the production approach
The most important data source for GDP by the production approach are annual accounting statements (profit and loss account and balance sheets data), collected by the Agency for Public Legal Records and Related Services (AJPES). They are collected from corporations, selfemployed, units of general government, and from non-profit institutions serving households. A complete set of data for the previous year for all institutional sectors is available to SURS in May each year. Special arrangement of accounting data submission is set up with the Bank of Slovenia for banks and with the Insurance Supervision Agency for insurance companies and pension funds. For self-employed also annual income tax declarations are available from the Tax Administration. For agricultural and forestry production SURS compiles the Economic Accounts for Agriculture and the Economic Accounts for Forestry. Other administrative data are obtained from the Financial Administration and the Public Payments Administration covering taxes on production and imports. Budgetary statistics at central and local level are used for estimates of subsidies.
1.1.4.2 GDP by the income approach
GDP by the income approach is estimated at the same time and with the same data sources as GDP by the production approach. For compensation of employees an additional data source is the Labour Costs Survey. A supplementary source is the annual income tax declarations of individuals provided by the Tax Administration. Within the methodological revision the perpetual inventory method was developed for estimates of the consumption of fixed capital of all institutional sectors covering the period since 1995.
1.1.4.3 GDP by the expenditure approach
Household final consumption expenditure is estimated with many data sources; primary data sources are the Household Budget Survey and the Retail Trade Survey. The main source for gross fixed capital formation and acquisitions less disposals of valuables is the Annual Survey on Gross Fixed Capital Formation. Additional sources are different surveys carried out by construction statistics, R&D statistics, transport vehicle registration statistics of the Ministry of the Interior, VAT reports, and annual accounting statements. Changes in inventories are estimated with data sources of GDP by the production approach and within the Economic Accounts for Agriculture. Final consumption expenditure of general government and of nonprofit institutions serving households (NPISH) is estimated within the compilation of GDP by the production approach. The source for estimating exports and imports of goods is external trade statistics data. Exports and imports of services are based on the balance of payments statistics.
1.1.5 The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia
SURS is the main producer and coordinator of national statistics in Slovenia. SURS implements the activity of national statistics on the basis of the National Statistics Act together with authorised producers determined by the Medium-Term Programme of Statistical Surveys 20132017 and Annual Programmes of statistical surveys. Authorised producers of national statistics are:
– Agency of the Republic of Slovenia for Public and Legal Records and Services (partly business statistics)
– Bank of Slovenia (balance of payments, financial and monetary statistics)
– Institute of Public Health (health and health care statistics)
– Ministry of Finance (general government debt and deficit, public finance statistics)
– Employment Service of Slovenia (partly employment and unemployment statistics)
– Pension and Disability Insurance Institute (pension statistics).
SURS coordinates the implementation of statistical surveys between the institutions authorised for implementing national statistics in certain areas and is authorised for international cooperation in the field of statistics and for determining methodological and classification standards. One of its duties is also to take care of the confidentiality of collected data and strive for modern data dissemination adjusted to the needs of various user groups.
The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia operates on the basis of the National Statistics Actand Regulation (EC) No. 223/2009 on European statistics; in performing its tasks it follows the general principles of quality management, the European Statistics Code of Practiceand the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics. In line with the stated, SURS declares that it takes into account the following principles: professional independence, process orientation, quality of products and services, planning of improvements, stimulating working environment for employees, data providers-friendly official statistics, user-oriented official statistics. The principles are more in detail presented in the Quality Statement of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia.
The quality of statistical data used to be dealt with mostly in connection with data accuracy in the narrow sense (as coherence between statistical data and exact values). In the last decade the statistical profession has made great progress towards broader understanding of the quality of statistical data. Quality is now dealt with in terms of different quality dimensions: relevance, accuracy of estimates, timeliness and punctuality of publication, accessibility and clarity of information, comparability of statistics and coherence of results. SURS regularly publishes reports on the quality of statistical surveys, which contain detailed descriptions of individual statistical surveys regarding all quality dimensions. Quality reports also contain the values of quality indicators, i.e. numerical values of achieved quality levels for individual quality components.
Documentation on statistical surveys is an important part of the statistical process. A good documentation system improves the quality of data, statistics and metadata. For the preparation of documentation on statistical surveys STATDOK system for document management statistical surveys is used. It is based on the processes and sub processes of our general process model. It has a nature of internal documentation. For each of the processes one manager (or unit) is designated. For the dossier as a whole for each area the head of the section is responsible. He/she further reports to the head of the division. The STATDOK documentation is subject to revision ones a year.
From an organisational point of view, SURS is divided intodivisions (further divided into sections) and services. At the end of 2015, 32 people were employed, 76% of them with higher education. Two thirds of employees were women. The average age of an employee in 2015 was 44.5 years. Divisions and services are:
– processes and communication division;
– macroeconomic statistics division;
– business statistics division;
– demography and social statistics division;
– environmental statistics division;
– data collection division;
– electronic data processing infrastructure and technology division;
– legal and human resource matters service and
– financial and administrative operations service.
National accounts section is part of the macroeconomic statistics division. There were 19 employees in the beginning of 2016. Work is organised in the form of projects, so there are no units within the section. The responsibilities of the section are: annual and quarterly estimation of GDP, GNI and other main national accounts aggregates, general government accounts and EDP, supply-use and input-output tables, nonfinancial sector accounts, non-financial assets, statistical part of the VAT report and regional accounts. Annual and quarterly financial accounts are not produced within SURS, but are the responsibility of the Bank of Slovenia.
1.2 THE REVISIONS POLICY AND THE TIMETABLE FOR REVISING AND FINALISING THE ESTIMATES
Revisions are an integral part of the statistical process and GDP as well as other national accounts data are being constantly revised due to different reasons. Revisions are basically necessary due to routine and due to benchmark and methodological reasons.
1.2.1 Revision policy and the timetable for revising and finalizing estimates
National accounts figures for a particular year are first published at the end of February (t+2 months) as the sum of four quarters estimated within quarterly accounts. Annual accounts estimates for the year are first published at the end of August (t+8 months) and this includes detailed production, income and expenditure GDP. GNI is published within accounts by institutional sector at the end of September (t+9 months).
All routine revisions of first annual GDP estimates are relatively small and usually not above 0.1%. The main reason for this is in data sources for GDP by the production approach, which are for the first estimate available at the end of April each year (t+4 months) and cover all institutional sectors with almost complete coverage (part of NPISH data source is available by mid-May). Complete coverage is the reason that GDP by the production approach is the primary approach to get the nominal GDP level.
National accounts data for year t are normally by routine revisions revised and finalised in four steps and the final data for year t are usually published in August of year t+4 or 44 months after the end of the reference year. The four steps and the time in which estimates are first published, routinely revised and finalised are:
– t+2 months: first complete GDP estimate on the basis of quarterly accounts;
– t+8 months: first complete annual accounts estimate of GDP;
– t+20 months: first revision of annual accounts estimate of GDP;
– t+32 months: second revision of annual accounts estimate of GDP;
– t+44 months: final revision of annual accounts estimate of GDP.
The main basis for the first complete annual accounts estimate of GDP in t+8 months is complete and exhaustive data sources of GDP by the production approach as all data sources are for all institutional sectors now available in the middle of May each year. In the t+8 versions of national accounts estimates also the latest data of the balance of payments are used and entirely incorporated in the national accounts.
In the first routine revision of annual accounts (t+20 months) all statistical and other data sources for the expenditure approach are available and used in the compilation. When feasible, in this step also first data from supply and use tables are incorporated, which is usually important for the product structure of gross fixed capital formation. In the second (t+32) and final (t+44) revisions additional and final data from supply and use tables are incorporated and also any remaining points of other routine revisions.
As a rule, the national publishing is done before or at least at the same time (day) as the data are transmitted to Eurostat. All published data are available in electronic form on SURS's website (http://www.stat.si) in two languages, Slovenian and English. On the website all publications of national accounts are available as well as all time series of GDP by the production, income and expenditure approach and other national accounts aggregates for the period since 1995.