As the service sector increases in size and economic importance, so does the importance of accurately measuring its output in constant dollars. Statistics New Zealand participated in two key international service statistics events in October 2006.
The Voorburg Group on Services Statistics has a United Nations mandate to establish internationally comparable concepts and methods for measuring the service sector in constant prices. This requires coordination of input and output measures, price indexes and classification systems.
The Voorburg Group met in October 2006 in Wiesbaden, Germany, home to the Federal Statistical Office of Germany. Twenty-three national statistical offices were represented, as well as the OECD and Eurostat (the statistical office of the European Union countries). At the meeting, an entirely new Content Development Framework for the organisation was presented, focusing on outputs that:
- augment the existing OECD Service PPI (producer price index) manual
- provide countries wishing to undertake Service PPI development and improvement with a structured approach for assessing the quality of conceptual choices related to price and volume measurement
- are the product of collaboration between volume measurement specialists and price measurement specialists, with input from classification experts and national accountants.
In accordance with the new framework, the meeting focused primarily on two service industries: management consultancy, and freight transport by road. Selected countries gave short presentations on current practices for turnover/output data collection, and price data collection and methods. This was followed by a group discussion that led to a set of guidelines that took into account differences in national markets. Between meetings, these suggestions will be worked into sector papers for each industry containing detailed discussion of the main models identified in the presentations and how they led to key guidelines. The intent of these guidelines is to:
- provide member states with a tailored list of options to improve service statistics
- help member states choose wisely when deciding how to invest resources in developing service statistics.
Further information is available at Voorburg-meeting 2006 in Wiesbaden.
The European Union’s Short-Term Statistics Regulation requires all member states to provide price indexes for core service industries, starting from August 2007. Taking advantage of the presence of international experts, Eurostat hosted an Output Prices for Services (SPPI) – Practices and Implementation training workshop in Luxembourg. The aim of the workshop was to share experiences in the compilation of Service PPIs and disseminate more broadly the practices presented in the Service PPI manual. Experts from New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Japan, Germany, France and the United States offered training to representatives from 23 European countries on creating and implementing price indexes for the following service industries:
- Computer and related activities
- Accounting, bookkeeping, and auditing activities; tax consultancy
- Advertising
- Business and management consultancy activities
- Legal activities
- Architectural and engineering activities, and related technical consultancy
- Postal and courier activities
- Air transport
- Telecommunications
- Labour recruitment and provision of personnel
- Freight transport by road
- Cargo handling
- Storage and warehousing.
Further information is available on the Eurostat website.
Back to Price Index News: April 2007