Description of methods and sources for Albania - INSTAT

IPA 2009 Multi-beneficiary StatisticalCooperation ProgrammeCHAPTER 16: PUBLICATION TIMETABLE AND REVISIONPOLICY OF QNA16.1 Publication timetableIt is important that INSTAT is reliable to all users, and in order to achieve thisobjective, it is necessary to give the data it has in a short period of time, especially toprovide them to the customers within a well defined date. It is also important that theseries provided will not have many changes of their data; on the contrary, it has togive detailed explanations why it has happened. For the moment, INSTAT (QuarterlyNational Account Sector) produces only Quarterly GDP by production approach.This publication is done for the first time in December 2008, for the third quarter of2008. Quarterly GDP is planned to be published 90 days after the reference quarterhas finished. For the third publication which includes the first quarter of 2009, it hasto be published on 30 June 2009. All data necessary to estimate the respectivequarter need to be collected approximately 60-70 days in advance.16.2 Revision policyRevision Policy is very important to the compilation of the Quarterly NationalAccount. They should be available as soon as new basic data becomes available. Itgives to users all data which are timely and accurately possible. Preliminary data arecollected and later they are revised when larger and better sources of informationbecome available.The frequency and the cause of these revisions are as follows:16.2.1 QuarterlyAs additional data become available for the last quarter, some other data orimprovement of existing data comes with respect to the previous quarter. This giveseffects to the series, because of data changes and the season’s effect of last quarterdata provided.16.2.2 AnnualWhen annual GDP is published, it will also influence the quarter’s series. It happensbecause annual GDP is based, except on quarterly data, on annual sources too. Asexplained below, quarter indicators are benchmarked with annual respective valueadded, so they will produce effects on quarterly series. Annual changes occur as aresult of updated annual resources. The first revision based on new annual data tookplace with the publication of the first quarter of 2009, which is published in June ofthis year, because in May 2009 we published the final GDP of 2006 and the semifinalGDP of 2007. As it can be seen, we have changes in two years which willproduce effects on all Quarterly GDP series. It means that, there will also be changesin the publication of the first quarter of 2009, which come from changes in annualdata. So, the changes in these two years will produce effects on the quarterly series156/236