ISLAMABAD: The government has delayed 11 surveys of national accounts which would help determine fresh economic growth rate of the country.

At present, the GDP is computed on 2004-05 base year. The fresh surveys would help determine a new series of national accounts with 2015-16 as base year for computing the economic growth rate.

The surveys were supposed to start from July 1, 2014, and were to be completed before June 2017 at a cost of Rs289.645 million. The PC-1 of these surveys was submitted by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) in the first quarter of 2014, but it is still lying with the Planning Commission which has yet to approve the project, said an official source.

While presiding the governing council meeting of the PBS in December 2013, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar decided that the next rebasing process will be held in 2015-16. It was also decided that subsequent rebasing would be done in 2025 to take into account structural changes which might take place in economy and portray a real picture through macro aggregates. Internationally surveys are revised after five to 10 years.

The fresh surveys would include more sectors, and base of price indices would also be changed, and the base year for consumer price index (CPI), wholesale price index (WPI) and sensitive price index (SPI) would also be revised.

The surveys include family budget survey; rent survey; small-scale and household manufacturing industries; construction survey; wholesale, retail trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles; non-profit institutions (NGO’s etc.); other private services; censuses of electricity establishments; censuses of exploration companies (oil and gas); CMI 2015-16; agriculture and livestock censuses/ surveys.

According to the source, some studies like hotels and restaurants, forestry, road transport and depreciation will also be conducted as part of this project.

The change in the base year will provide reliable and authentic data on macroeconomic indicators, like GDP and Gross Fixed Capital Formation (GFCF).

Surveys/case studies will be conducted by the officials of PBS, in consultation with provincial departments, such as bureaus of statistics, crop reporting/agriculture departments, mining departments etc.).

Short case studies will also be made through experts of national accounts to fill in the data gaps. It is the need of the time to look into the details of structural changes in the institutional and economic sectors through this project.

The project will be instrumental by changing the present base (2005-06) of National Accounts, which needs to be changed due to fast and rapid changes in economy and economic structure and inclusion of new technologies, techniques, infrastructure and direction of national economy to the latest year (2015-16).

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2014