Page 183 - Special Topic Session (STS) - Volume 2

STS479 Saidi H.
statistical production in the country. This part of the paper will focus on the
strengths and weaknesses of economic statistics and the new developments.
Economic statistics include both annual national accounts, income
statistics and short-term and foreign trade statistics from different sources and
from several producers. The production of these statistics within the NIS has
significantly improved in recent years, particularly with regards to short-term
statistics, placing Tunisia at the top of African countries and similar countries.
However, the international environment has changed with a revision of
international classifications and the adoption of the 2008 SNA and the Balance
of Payments Manual No. 6. The political changes that took place after the
revolution in 2011 also had a great influence on the need for economic
statistics on the one hand and for the structure of the economy on the other
hand because the 1997 base became completely obsolete.
To meet these requirements and to overcome the shortcomings observed,
the NIS has emphasized, in the context of the twinning project with the
European institutions, the activities relating to the change of the base year to
better reflect the economic reality of the country, and to introduce the
recommendations of the 2008 SNA progressively according to available
statistics and to produce other statistics on this occasion if we need that. The
NIS has made a considerable effort in this context to improve the map of
available indicators, particularly in relation to the SDGs at first, and to improve
the quality of production of these indicators in a second step. A significant
number of activities have been programmed and taken into consideration as
part of the project to meet these expectations. These activities are summarized
as follows:
 Choosing a base year and transforming to the new system of national
accounts of the United Nations 2008 SNA, using a highly participatory
approach that takes into account the availability of statistics, as well as
the exploration of other sources outside the NIS;
 Development of a methodology for regional distribution of GDP and
the calculation of regional GDP according to the production
perspective, in response to the increasing demand of regional actors
for planning and programming purposes;
 Measuring the contribution of non-profit institutions and the informal
sector, focusing on the proposal of a method for estimating the share
of the informal sector in the economy and expertise of the non-profit
sector;
 Development of flow and wealth financial accounts by evaluating
available sources and methods used for flow-through financial
accounts;
 Development of derivative accounts and environmental statistics with
a focus on water satellite accounts, methodology for drawing up

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