ISLAMABAD: The Gove­r­ning Council of the Pak­istan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Tuesday approved a proposal to initiate around 40 surveys for the next rebasing of national accounts to capture data of various sectors of the national economy.

The rebasing after completion of surveys will be for the year 2022-23, which will be taken as a base year for the next rebasing of national accounts.

The decision was taken in the 19th meeting of PBS Governing Council chaired by Federal Minister of Planning Asad Umar.

The meeting also approved the rebasing of National Accounts from (2005-06) to (2015-16). The PBS had conducted 42 surveys for the rebasing of 2015-16.

An official source said that work on the surveys will start from January 2023 after the Population Census-2022. The government has already announced to complete the next census before December 2022, which is the deadline and de-limitation for the next election.

According to the official, there is nothing in writing for the specific time period in writing.

An official announcement said that PBS Chief Statistician Dr Naeem Uz Zafar briefed the forum about the agenda items to be discussed as well the implementation status of decisions made in the last meeting.

The meeting was appraised about the change of Base of National Accounts (CBNA) from (2005-06) to (2015-16). The meeting was briefed about the change of base of Trade Indices from (1990-1991) to (2017-18).

Published in Dawn, March 16th, 2022