Economic affairs
Agriculture, forestry, fishing, and
hunting
Fuel and energy
Mining, manufacturing, and
construction
Transport
CommunicationHealth
Outpatient services
Hospital services
Public health servicesEducation
Pre-primary and primary
education
Secondary education
Tertiary educationAdopting a level-2 classification will result in an important synergy with the IMF system, something to
be taken into account in relation to the minimization of the statistical burden and foster international
comparability^3. Even taking such synergies into account, expanding table 11 to the COFOG groups will
result in additional administrative burden which should not be ignored. In order to reduce this burden, it
is suggested to restrict the voluntary transmission (of the expanded table 11) to the general government
sector only. However, the production of data for general government will involve considerable data
analysis on the level of sub-sectors.
For the analysis of QPF-questions, longitudinal data are very important. This poses the question of
backward calculation of level-2-COFOG data. When conducting a first and informal survey among its
members, the WGQPF found that only some of them would see the possibility of producing series
extending back as far as 1990. More members saw chances to produce level-2-data from the late 1990s
onwards. Still, the WGQPF would like to suggest an expansion of the general government sector of table
11 on a voluntary basis. Thus, the plea for backward calculation should be extended to 1990 onwards, so
that every country “willing and able” can go along as far as its individual circumstances allow.
Finally, the WGQPF suggests considering two additional breakdowns for transactions in table 11, again
both on a voluntary basis. Here, more analysis by economic category implies considering very few other
economic items in addition to those already contained in table 11 of the ESA95 transmission programme.
They are already included in table 2 of the ESA95TP, so that the additional effort to be made by national
accountants might be often very limited. The first breakdown would be to distinguish the item “TR51
Gross fixed capital formation” within the category “TRP5 Gross capital formation”, because only the
investment component of TRP5 can potentially influence the economic growth. (The remainder, i.e.
“Changes in inventory” and “Acquisitions less disposals of valuables”, will probably not be effective in
such a manner.) The second additional breakdown relates to distinguishing the item “TRD92 Investment
grants” within the category “TRD9 Capital transfers” for the same reason: only investment grants are
capital transfers that are aimed at enhancing the growth potential.
The intersection between the second level COFOG classification and the proposed more detailed
classification by economic category generates the table 3 below, which represents the WG proposal of a
new table 11 of the transmission programme to be filled in on a voluntary basis.
(^3) Probably, for some new Member States this IMF request could be particularly relevant in this context because most of
them have a long tradition of complilingIMF GFS statistics (with reference to the function “Economic Affairs”, an
example is that of Slovenia: see the paper presented at the 3rd meeting of the WGQPF held in Berlin, 15 October 2004).
This could facilitate them in the minimization of efforts requested by the implementation of the enlarged database
proposed in this paper.