PREFACE
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) is committed to a program of continual improvement to the quality of the statistics it produces. The ABS Annual Report, 1995–96 featured an overview of the major streams of work being undertaken now and over the next few years to improve and extend the Australian national accounts. One of these streams is the implementation of new international statistical standards in the national accounts, together with associated developments to integrate the input-output tables with the national income, expenditure and product accounts, and to introduce frequently reweighted chain volume measures to improve the estimation of economic growth. Work is also underway to extend and improve data sources, especially in the area of services, to develop improved measures of output and productivity for the non-market sector, to develop an integrated set of labour accounts, and to further integrate environmental concerns with the national accounts.
This paper aims to inform readers about ABS plans for the implementation of the new international standards in the Australian national accounts and their first official release on that basis in September 1998. A companion publication Information Paper:
Implementing New International Statistical Standards in ABS International Accounts Statistics (Cat. no. 5364.0) was released on 29 September 1997. A detailed paper reporting on the introduction of frequently reweighted chain volume measures and on other aspects of the work mentioned above will become available in due course.
W. McLennan
Australian Statistician
