ZAMBIA COUNTRY PRACTICE IN COMPILATION OF ECONOMIC STATISTICS

1
Republic of Zambia Central Statistical Office

• ZAMBIA COUNTRY PRACTICE IN COMPILATION OF
  ECONOMIC STATISTICS

PAPER PREPARED BY SHEBO NALISHEBO AND PETER
MUKUKA TO BE PRESENTED AT SEMINAR TOWARDS
IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY FOR INTERNATIONAL
STANDARDS ON ECONOMIC STATISTICS 6-9 JULY,
2010 PORT LOUIS, MAURITIUS
2
Presentation Outline

• Overview of Zambia
• Organisational structure of the CSO
• Economic Statistics Division
• National Accounts
• Industrial Production
• External Trade and Balance of Payments
• Living Conditions Monitoring
• Prices and Consumption Studies
• Public Finance
• Sources Estimation Methods
• Dissemination of economic statistics
• Short comings
• Constraints

3
Zambia - Geography
4
Zambia - Demographics

• Surrounded by 8 other countries
• Total area 752, 000 km2
• Populated by 12 million people
• Copper remains the main export (80 )
• Economic growth rate 6.4 (2009)
• Inflation rate 7.8 (June 2010)

5
Organizational Structure of the CSO

• The Central Statistical Office is one of the TEN
  Departments under the Ministry of Finance and
  National Planning (MoFNP)
• Mandated under the Census and Statistics Act of
  the Laws of Zambia to produce official national
  statistics
• These include
• Population and housing census (conducted every
  ten years)
• Economic Census (to be carried out every five
  years)
• Census of Agriculture
• Other periodical national social and economic
  surveys
• The CSO consists of the Head Office in Lusaka and
  provincial offices in each of the nine provinces
  of Zambia
• Headed by a Director and is divided into four
  divisions each headed by a Deputy Director

6
Organizational set up
7
Economic Statistics Division
8
National Accounts Branch

• Responsible for the compilation of GDP on an
  annual basis
• Carry out establishment-based income accounting
  surveys (National Income Inquiry)

9
External Trade and BoP

• Responsible for the production of merchandize
  trade statistics. This is done on a monthly basis
  with a one-month time lag.
• Also supplies trade data to National accounts
  branch for purposes of production of expenditure
  GDP.
• Balance of Payments statistics, however, are
  compiled at the Central Bank Gentleman's
  Agreement

10
Industrial Production Branch

• Responsible for the compilation of the quarterly
  Index of Industrial Production
• Covers mining, manufacturing and electricity
• Census of Industrial Production

11
Prices Branch

• Responsible for the compilation of the Consumer
  Price Index used to calculate inflation
• Compiled on a monthly basis
• Most timely-produced economic indicator
  disseminated every last Thursday of the reference
  month
• Provides indices for use in the deflation of GDP

12
Public Finance Branch

• Responsible for the compilation of Government and
  quasi-government Financial Statistics
• Functional and economic classification of general
  government expenditure
• Secondary collection and compilation of monetary
  statistics

13
Living Conditions Monitoring Branch

• Conducts the Living Conditions monitoring survey
  every other year
• Used for computation of poverty estimates and
  poverty maps
• Updating of CPI weights
• Direct measurement of Household Final Consumption
  Expenditure

14
Data Sources

• National Accounts Branch
• The primary sources of data for the compilation
  of GDP include
• Census of industrial production covering mining,
  manufacturing and electricity
• Census of Construction
• National Income Inquiry covering the services
  sector
• The Government accounts for community, social and
  personal services and government final
  consumption expenditure.
• The 1993/1994 Household Budget Survey (HBS) for
  estimating household final consumption
  expenditure and the informal sector.
• Imports and exports from the External Trade
  statistics and transactions with the rest of the
  world from Balance of Payments statistics.

15
Data Sources

• Secondary sources for GDP compilation use of
  volume and price indicators
• Annual crop forecast and post-harvest surveys
• Quarterly index of industrial production
• Consumer Price Index
• Turnover from VAT register

16
Data Sources

• External Trade statistics
• Main data source is customs data from the customs
  and exercise division.
• Non-Customs sources (e.g. electricity and crude
  oil)
• Monthly survey of major importers and exporters
  for data verification
• Industrial Production statistics
• Data obtained directly from a sample of
  establishments in 4 provinces (for the quarterly
  Index of Industrial Production)

17
Data Sources

• Prices statistics
• About 15, 000 price quotations obtained on a
  monthly basis from nearly 2, 000 retail outlets
  throughout the country
• Public Finance statistics
• Data obtained from annual financial reports on
  income and expenditure of government, and
  quasi-government institutions

18
Data Sources

• Living Conditions Statistics
• Data obtained directly from household surveys
• Indicator monitoring survey conducted every two
  years
• Longitudinal survey with HBS module planned to be
  undertaken every five years

19
Compilation methods

• Economic statistics compilation based on
  internationally recognized methodologies
• 1968 1993 SNA, BPM5, 2001 GFS Manual, etc.
• Classifications used include
• ISIC Rev. 3, HS, SITC Rev. 3,COICOP
• Plans are underway to implement ISIC Rev. 4 for
  the upcoming Economic Census, COICOP for CPI

20
Dissemination

• The Monthly bulletin, released every last
  Thursday of the month through a press briefing
• Monthly CPI press releases
• Website www.zamstats.gov.zm
• Publications External Trade, National Accounts
• Soft copies by request

21
Users

• Users are invited to dissemination fora
• User-producer workshops held before surveys are
  carried out to take their concerns on board
• Mixed reactions
• Some users are very supportive
• Statistics may still be misunderstood, so some
  express dissatisfaction

22
Shortcomings in NA compilation

• Remote benchmark year (1994)
• Outdated weights for deflators
• No appropriate volume indicators for trade,
  business and personal services
• There are a lot of small-scale operators in these
  industries
• Coverage of informal sector was only at the
  benchmark year
• No current price estimates for private
  consumption derived residually

23
Shortcomings

• For External Trade
• Quantity data from customs sources poor
• No Trade indices produced (e.g. unit value
  indices, unit price indices) due to poor
  quantity/price data.
• Industrial Production
• Census of Industrial Production not conducted
  regularly
• Outdated weights
• Public Finance
• Poor coverage of local government sector

24
Shortcomings

• Prices
• Outdated weights (1994)

25
Industry

• The classification used for industries is the
  ISIC rev. 2
• Rev. 3 was implemented when the 2003 enterprise
  surveys were carried out yet to be incorporated
• For the Economic Census, rev. 4 will be used

26
Industry

• GDP is reported using three major sectors
• Primary
• Secondary, and
• Tertiary
• Under the primary sector
• Agriculture, forestry and fishing
• Mining and quarrying

27
Industry

• Under the secondary sector
• Manufacturing
• Construction
• Under the tertiary sector
• Trade
• Hotels, bars and restaurants
• Transport and communications
• Financial intermediation and insurance
• Real estate and business services
• Community, social and personal services

28
Agriculture

• Primary data source (Census of Agriculture)
• Secondary data source Annual Crop forecasting
  survey Post harvest survey
• Agriculture season Oct 1 30th Sep
• Output recorded in the year of harvest
• Broken down into crops, livestock and vegetables
  fruits
• Weights Crops (60) livestock (30) fruits
  vegetables (10)

29
Forestry Fishing

• Data on forestry obtained from the Department of
  Forestry
• Number of logs in cubic metres
• Alternate sources Forestry establishments
• Data on fish catches in metric tonnes obtained
  from 11 major fishing areas across the country

30
Mining and quarrying

• Industry broken down into metal mining and Other
  mining and quarrying
• Metal mining consists of copper and cobalt
  production
• Other mining includes coal mining and stone
  quarrying
• Mineral export index used as deflator

31
Manufacturing

• Data obtained from Census of Industrial
  Production and the quarterly Index of Industrial
  Production
• Scope
• Food, beverages and tobacco
• Textiles, clothing footwear
• Wood and wood products
• Paper paper products
• Chemicals, rubber plastics
• Non-metallic mineral products
• Basic metal products
• Fabricated metal products

32
Electricity Water

• KWh of electricity generated by Zambia hydro
  power stations and diesel stations
• Hydro stations generate 99 of total electricity
• Water data from Water regulatory body

33
Construction

• Primary data source Census of Construction
• Secondary indicators Input indicators used to
  estimate output
• Cement sales
• Stone quarrying
• Index of building materials used for deflation

34
Trade, Business Personal Services

• No direct indicators used for these sectors
• Trade industry assumes output from Agriculture,
  manufacturing and imports of consumption goods
  are disposed of through trade
• Business services follows the same trend as Trade
• Personal services follow the same trend as
  Business Services

35
Hotels Restaurants

• Bed occupancy rates used obtained from the
  Ministry of Tourism
• Bars and restaurant data obtained indirectly from
  the Food, Beverages and Tobacco sub-sector under
  Manufacturing

36
Transport Communications

• Transport broken down into
• Rail transport (data on number of passengers
  tonnage of haulage obtained from 2 firms)
• Road and pipeline transport (passenger cargo
  hauled registered public service vehicles)
• Air transport (passengers embarking
  disembarking at the 4 main airports)
• Postal and telecommunications services

37
Financial institutions Insurance

• Employment
• FISIM
• Number of policies issued

38
Real estate business services

• Real estate urban population growth rates
• Business services assumed to have the same
  trends as Retail Trade

39
Community, social personal services

• Data mainly for government sector
• Uses costs (Intermediate consumption,
  compensation of employees) to estimate output
• Data obtained from Public Finance unit which gets
  it from Budget Office
• Personal services assumed to follow the movements
  of Business Services

40
Constraints

• Budgetary constraints in other government
  agencies affects production of statistics (e.g.
  tourism, fisheries, local authorities)
• Poor quality customs quantity data
• Outdated and Weak Statistics Act

41
End of Presentation

• Thank You For Your Attention