Abstract
This report on the Observance of Standards and Codes (ROSC)—data module—provides an assessment of the Slovak Republic’s macroeconomic statistics against the Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS), complemented by an assessment of data quality based on the IMF’s Data Quality Assessment Framework. The assessment reveals that statistical agencies in the Slovak Republic generally have a legal and institutional framework that supports statistical quality, although the formal legal mandate to disseminate statistics should be made explicit. Resources are generally adequate for existing statistical programs.
Reaction from the Slovak Republic Authorities on Fund Staff Recommendations
A. Cross-Cutting Recommendations1
Statements by all Agencies
High priority
Address intersectoral statistical inconsistencies and reconciliation procedures. Create an inter-agency group that includes in the core group the NBS, MOF, and SOSR, and as needed, representatives from other agencies (for example, Directorate of Customs, NPF).
An Inter-agency committee was established during 2004. Multiple meetings among experts from the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic (SOSR), the Ministry of Finance (MOF), and the National Bank of Slovakia (NBS), based on contractual relations, had the main aim to assure the flow of information across agencies. The Inter-agency committee was established to appraise the statistical results on foreign trade data before they are published.
In addition, an Inter-agency working group on government finance statistics was established with representatives from the MOF, SOSR, and NBS. The subject of the working group is reconciliation of the main government finance aggregates calculations (deficit and debt). This is the basis of the data harmonization process among the national accounts, government finance statistics (GFS), monetary, and balance of payments statistics.
Provide users with more detailed metadata. Ensure that metadata are regularly updated and disseminated, and in this context, regularly update the IMF’s SDDS metadata.
Supplementary information on implemented methodological changes are regularly disseminated at the time of government finance statistics data publication (using the GFSM 2001 methodology).
The NBS has amended the SDDS metadata on the NMS as suggested by the Data ROSC mission. It will keep the SDDS metadata updated in case of any future significant methodological changes.
The IMF’s SDDS metadata are regularly updated by the SOSR, MOF, and the NBS.
Provide users with advance notification of major changes in methodology, source data, and statistical techniques.
In the context of the quarterly national accounts, the SOSR began to publish in advance on its website, since January 1, 2004, all radical changes in methodology.
The same approach will be applied by the MOF in the field of GFS.
The NBS regularly announces advanced notifications of major changes in the NMS source data and methodology in the Monetary Survey monthly bulletins.
Ensure that users are aware of the regular revisions cycles for each major data set, and that advance notice is given prior to all significant statistical revisions. Clearly identify all revisions and provide explanations of the reasons for the changes.
Information on significant statistical revisions in GFS will be provided on regular basis following the introduction of the revision policy.
Major regular revision cycles in the NMS include updating the preliminary data for December 31st of the previous year and for January 1st of the current year, with final data drawn up from the audited annual financial statements for the first half of the current year. In case of any non-regular revisions, the NBS provides identification of all affected Monetary Survey items and the reasons for the revision in footnotes.
Users are informed by the SOSR about revisions in the framework for each particular IMF standard for data dissemination. Users are informed about data revisions, specifying in detail the reasons for any revisions to time series in the SOSR publications in which the data appear.
Other key recommendations
Review the legislative arrangements of the SOSR, NBS, and MOF to ensure that the responsibility for dissemination of statistics is clearly specified.
The responsibilities for dissemination of statistics among the above mentioned institutions are clearly defined. The NBS is responsible for the monetary statistics, balance of payments statistics, and interest rates statistics. The MOF is responsible for government finance statistics compilation according to the GFSM 2001. This fact is accepted by the SOSR and the NBS. The SOSR compiles and disseminates data in line with the “Data Transmission Program Under the ESA 95” and according to the approved Program of State Statistical Surveys.
The following agreements were signed for improving the cooperation in data compilation and dissemination among the above mentioned institutions:
A skeleton agreement on inter-agency beneficial co-operation has as its aim to exchange data and other information in the area of the statistics between the information systems of the NBS and SOSR. This agreement was written and adopted on November 15, 2004 and it entered into force upon the day of its signing. The agreement was concluded for an indefinite duration.
A skeleton agreement on inter-agency beneficial co-operation has as its aim to exchange data and other information in the area of the statistics between the information systems of the MOF and the SOSR. This agreement was written and adopted on May 31, 2004 and it entered into force upon the day of its signing. The agreement was concluded for an indefinite duration.
Develop dissemination formats that include long time series of data that can be readily downloaded by users.
The MOF website contains GFS time series data since 1999. Further improvements are planned in the near future.
Full time series of the Monetary Survey are available to general public on request in accordance with the Act of the Slovak National Council No 211/000 Coll. on Free Access to Information. It is possible to fill the electronic request form directly on the NBS internet page or by sending an e-mail to webmaster@nbs.sk.
It is expected that during the first half of 2005 the free public accessible database Slovstat will be available for users on the SOSR website, where long time series of indicators on economic and social development will be disseminated, including quarterly national accounts estimates. These database indicators then will be readily downloadable for users.
Institutional Arrangements
Other key recommendations
Review wage levels in the SOSR, with a view to making them competitive with the rest of the public sector.
The SOSR agrees with suggested recommendation, but until now this problem has not been discussed.
B. National Accounts
Statements by the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic
On accuracy and reliability, the SOSR is participating in the Eurostat Project for improvement of assessments on final consumption of households. Family bank accounts data, data on small businesses, and commodity flow data are used for estimation of the final consumption of households. In 2004, the sampling technique for the households was changed to a stratified two-degree system of random selection, which covers approximately 4,700 households. The sample of the 2003 survey covered only about 1,600 households, and they were selected by simple random technique.
On quality management, the SOSR is implementing the Quality Management System, based on STN EN ISO 9001:2001 and CAF standards.
High priority
Improve the timeliness of the annual independent national accounts estimates.
The SOSR has taken some steps to improve the timeliness of these estimates and has published the estimated data for 2003 within ten months after the end of the year. As of 2005, the institutional accounts will be disseminated within nine months after the end of the year, in order to fulfill the requirements of the new draft ESA95 Transmission Program.
Reconcile the national accounts estimates with the balance of payments and government finance statistics on a regular basis.
We do not agree with the statement that the national accounts estimates are not consistent with the government finance statistics, and the balance of payment statistics. All data sets use consistent methods, following the ESA95 framework. The SOSR would also like to note, that many bilateral discussions have been held between the SOSR, the MOF, and the NBS, respectively, to exchange data, and to provide mutual verification and adjustment to the statistics.
Develop price indices of imports and exports based on direct surveys of price changes, and in the interim, use alternative deflators for imports and exports.
The National Accounts and Prices Directorate now has five main divisions. In addition to the Annual National Accounts Division, Accumulation Accounts Division, Quarterly National Accounts Division, and Price Statistics Division, the fifth division is the Foreign Trade and Administrative Systems Division. This fifth division is responsible for the calculation of trade price indexes (see section G, below).
Price indexes are used only to reflate imports and exports constant price estimates into current prices estimates. Additional data, such as producer prices, exchange rates, administrative data, are also used in the process of the revaluation. In 2005, the SOSR expects to start using prorating techniques to resolve the step problem in the quarterly time series. Currently, these techniques are still being verified.
Inform the users about the results of revisions studies.
We agree with proposed recommendation. The SOSR will inform the public and users either through its website or during the press release meeting at the SOSR.
Other key recommendations
Improve the quarterly compilation benchmarking technique to avoid the step problem in the time series.
In order to eliminate the step problem in the quarterly national accounts time series, the SOSR has started implementing appropriate benchmark techniques. The revised time series are expected to be ready by the end of 2005.
The SOSR participates in an Eurostat project for benchmarking the quarterly national accounts. Staff of the SOSR participates in the Eurostat and OECD workshops on benchmarking. Since the change in the methodology will have an impact on the quarterly national accounts estimates, we plan to inform users about the revised methodology.
C. Consumer Price Index
Statements by the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic
High priority
Develop (in consultation with National Accounts compilers) mechanisms for obtaining more timely annual household final consumption expenditure estimates to support regular index reweighting.
Annual national accounts data on annual household final consumption expenditure now are obtained on a more timely basis. Therefore, starting from January 2005, the SOSR compiles the CPI as a chain index.
Review the type and extent of product quality adjustment techniques used.
The SOSR will review the quality adjustment techniques used currently, and will follow up with the requirements of the implementation group on quality adjustment and sampling, established by Eurostat.
Other key recommendations
With the next CPI reweight: (i) revalue the annual weights to align with the price reference period, and (ii) link the new reweighted index to the present 2000-year based index at December 2003, at all levels of the index hierarchy.
(i) The SOSR will consider aligning the annual weights with the price reference period beginning from January 2006.
(ii) Since January 2005, the new reweighted index was linked to the December 2000 index using December 2004 as a link, at all published levels of index hierarchy.
D. Producer Price Index
Statements by the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic
High priority
Review the type and extent of product quality adjustment techniques used.
In 2004 the SOSR introduced, for the first time, the implicit product quality adjustment technique of overlap pricing.
Other key recommendations
Even though the PPI fully observes the DQAF standard in terms of scope, consider maximizing the index utility by developing a more broadly-based, summary PPI through the aggregation of the industrial PPI with the PPI output indices for the construction, agriculture, and forestry industries; potentially incorporate the market services indices as coverage is extended.
The SOSR agrees that it would be useful to resolve the problem of inconsistencies in related producer price indices. Agriculture indices have variable monthly weights, construction indices are compiled on a quarterly basis. The SOSR plans to introduce gradually the survey of market services indices, which will not be completely covered until next PPI revision. The other PPI branches are completed monthly. The construction indices are only used as a substitute indicator for construction costs. Extending the scope of the PPI would require an increase in staff and financial resources, which are not currently available. Therefore, the SOSR does not plan to expand the PPI in the near future. Instead, it plans to use a consistent methodology in compiling the existing PPI output indices for agriculture and construction.
With the next PPI reweight, revalue the annual weights to align with the price reference period.
The SOSR will consider aligning the annual weights to the price reference period in the next revision of the PPI.
E. Government Finance Statistics
Statements by the Ministry of Finance
As part of the Ministry of Finance plans to implement the Government Finance Statistics Manual 2001 (GFSM 2001), general government statistics for 2003 were submitted to the IMF’s Statistics Department and appear in the 2004 Government Finance Statistics Yearbook. These data were prepared according to the GFSM 2001 framework and on an accrual basis. In addition, the MOF has begun to apply the GFSM 2001 functional classifications to general government total expenditure, beginning with data for 2003.
High priority
Regularly compare and reconcile government finance statistics aggregates with equivalent data in monetary and balance of payments statistics, and disseminate reconciliation tables where necessary.
As already mentioned above, an inter-agency working group on government finance statistics was established, with representatives from the MOF, the SOSR, and the NBS. The aim of working group is reconciliation of the main government finance statistics aggregates (deficit and debt), which is a basis for harmonizing national accounts data, GFS data, monetary statistics, and balance of payments statistics.
Disseminate quarterly general government statistics.
The MOF is currently preparing the dissemination of quarterly GFS data following the GFSM 2001 methodology.
Institute a policy, regular schedule, and analysis of revisions. Publish subannual data on a discrete basis to demonstrate the effect of revisions. Disseminate this information on the MOF website.
The implementation of the revision policy will be considered through the Public Finance Management Reform Project application.
Maintain a manual on fiscal statistics compilation. Provide background papers to explain compilation practices.
The Manual on Fiscal Statistics Compilation will be drafted within the Public Finance Management Reform Project application.
Other key recommendations
Formalize the monitoring of user needs and reflect them in a declared statistical program.
The monitoring of the user needs on statistical data is carried out on the regular basis.
F. Monetary Statistics
Statements by the National Bank of Slovakia
The National Bank of Slovakia puts its best efforts to promptly apply measures to bring the Monetary Survey table into accordance with recommendations of the mission of the IMF’s Statistics Department in February–March 2004. Effective from February 2004 (and also revising time series backwards to 2003), the NBS introduced to the periodic Monetary Survey table additional memorandum items to meet criteria recommended by the mission. Even though the NBS still follows the national “country approach” in the main Monetary Survey table (which fits best our analytical framework for internal decision making processes), now the NBS also provides all relevant information for external users to distinguish the details in the global Monetary Survey data to banking sector positions only.
On the Harmonized Monetary Statistics (HMS), the counterparts to HMS measures of liquidity and its capital and reserves are net foreign assets, net claims on central government, credit to local government, social security funds and other resident sectors, and other items net. Other items net comprises interbank balances, fixed assets, longer term deposits (deposits with agreed maturity over two years and deposits redeemable at notices over three months), long term debt securities of depository corporations, and other unclassified assets less unclassified liabilities.
High priority
In the NMS, discontinue the practice of treating the foreign liabilities of government as those of the NBS and cover money market funds.
Net foreign assets of the banking sector (excluding foreign liabilities of government) are available in memorandum items to the table (and also include gross positions). Reliable time series of money market funds data is available for 2004 only, since the official reporting obligations for money market funds came into force in January 2004. During 2003, the NBS had monitored internally the development of money market funds as a new progressive financial market instrument based on selected unofficial data provided by Association of Money Market Funds. For 2004, shares/units issued by money market funds are also covered in memorandum items to the table.
In cooperation with MOF, reconcile government financing data and monetary statistics, and carry out a reconciliation exercise on a regular basis.
Balance of payments as well as monetary survey data originated both from balance sheets of banks, so they are reconcilable. However, a reconciliation table has yet to be disseminated to the public.
The Monetary Survey item “Net Credit to General Government” reflects real cash flows of government’s assets and liabilities as reported by the NBS and commercial banks, which may not be consistent and/or comparable with methodology for the data published by Ministry of Finance. Also, not all government units were included in this position before 2005 (i.e. deposits of higher territorial units, deposits of government in foreign currency (EU funds) and non-budgetary deposits of government agencies in NBS). Information on these residual items was therefore covered in memorandum items to the table.
Other key recommendations
Apply market valuation to financial instruments in line with the recommendations of the MFSM.
The accounting practices in the NBS and other monetary financial institutions are in line with Slovak accounting legislative and international accounting standards (IFRS/IAS).
Improve the presentation of the NMS monetary survey by showing underlying gross data in net credit to general government and to central government.
Gross positions also are available now in the memorandum items to the NMS table. Also, the net position of the National Property Fund has been included since February 2004 and considered part of Net Credit to the General Government in main Monetary Survey table as well as in the text.
Update metadata to indicate that NMS broad money includes nonresident domestic currency deposits in domestic banks, and provide the rationale underlying this practice to users
The NBS has already updated the SDDS metadata as suggested by the Data ROSC mission.
G. Balance of Payments Statistics
Statements by the National Bank of Slovakia
From May 1, 2004 the SOSR records data on foreign trade in the System Intrastat-SK. Trade products (which cover about 90 percent of trade in the system) are converted using the actual exchange rate at the date of the transaction (that is the date when a tax duty applies). Divergence is relevant only when compared with the Extrastat-SK system, which covers a small amount of trade. This is because the Extrastat-SK system uses the so called “custom exchange rate.”
High priority
Work to develop methodology to adjust all investment income flows to approximate an accrual basis (noting that this adjustment is already made for domestic currency-denominated government bonds).
The NBS has introduced valuation on an accrual basis in investment income for the banking sector since 2005. For other sectors and for portfolio investment (establishing a security by security database), income on an accrual basis is planned to be introduced in the near future.
Work with staff of SOSR, MOF and with the compilers of the monetary statistics in the Monetary Policy Department to develop and disseminate reconciliation tables.
The balance of payments is fully reconcilable with national monetary statistics, because data sources for both sets of statistics are based on the balance sheets of banks.
Other key recommendations
Ensure that documentation on sources and methods for compiling balance of payments statistics is readily available to users.
The ECB publishes a document that provides a description of the sources and methods for compilation of the statistics. Links to all document published by international organizations (such as the ECB) in the area of balance of payments are on the web site of National Bank of Slovakia within the SDDS—Balance of payments—category.
Make periodic revisions studies available to users.
There is no substantial demand for revision studies from users. The NBS regularly monitors revisions between preliminary and subsequent changes to the data, as part of its regular data entry and processing. However, the NBS intends to prepare such a document in 2006.
These recommendations apply to two or more sectors or statistical-producing agencies.