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67-202-XIE
Canada's international investment position
Second quarter 2003


User information

Balance of Payments Division
System of National Accounts
  Symbols
  The System of National Accounts
  Note of appreciation
  Standards of service to the public
  Copyright

Symbols

The following standard symbols are used in Statistics Canada publications:

  . not available for any reference period
  .. not available for a specific reference period
  ... not applicable
  p preliminary
  r revised
  x confidential to meet secrecy requirements of the Statistics Act
  E use with caution
  F too unreliable to be published

The System of National Accounts

In Canada, the National Accounts have been developed since the close of the Second World War in a series of publications relating to their constituent parts. These have now reached a stage of evolution where they can be termed ‘System of National Accounts’. For purposes of identification, all publications (containing tables of statistics, descriptions of conceptual frameworks and descriptions of sources and methods) which make up this System carry the term ‘System of National Accounts’ as a general title.

The System of National Accounts in Canada consists of several parts. The annual and quarterly Income and Expenditure Accounts (included with Catalogue nos. carrying the prefix 13) were, historically speaking, the first set of statistics to be referred to with the title ‘National Accounts’ (National Accounts, Income and Expenditure). The Balance of International Payments data (Catalogue nos. with prefix 67) are also part of the System of National Accounts and they, in fact, pre-date the Income and Expenditure Accounts.

Greatly expanded structural detail on industries and on goods and services is portrayed in the Input-Output Tables of the System (Catalogue nos. with prefix 15). The Catalogue nos. carrying the prefix 15 also provide measures of the contribution of each industry to total gross domestic product at factor cost as well as productivity measures.

Both the Input-Output tables and the estimates of Gross Domestic Product by Industry use the establishment as the primary unit of industrial production. Measures of financial transactions are provided by the Financial Flow Accounts (Catalogue nos. with prefix 13). Types of lenders and financial instruments are the primary detail in these statistics and the legal entity is the main unit of classification of transactors. Balance sheets of outstanding assets and liabilities are published annually.

The System of National Accounts provides an overall conceptually integrated framework in which the various parts can be considered as interrelated sub-systems. At present, direct comparisons amongst those parts which use the establishment as the basic unit and those which use the legal entity can be carried out only at highly aggregated levels of data. However, Statistics Canada is continuing research on enterprise company establishment relationships; it may eventually be feasible to reclassify the data which are on one basis (say the establishment basis) to correspond to the units employed on another (the company or the enterprise basis).

In its broad outline, the Canadian System of National Accounts bears a close relationship to the international standard as described in System of National Accounts, 1993, a joint publication of the Commission of the European Communities, International Monetary Fund, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, United Nations and World Bank.

Note of appreciation

Canada owes the success of its statistical system to a long standing partnership between Statistics Canada, the citizens of Canada, its businesses, governments and other institutions. Accurate and timely statistical information could not be produced without their continued cooperation and goodwill.

Standards of service to the public

Statistics Canada is committed to serving its clients in a prompt, reliable and courteous manner and in the official language of their choice. To this end, the agency has developed standards of service which its employees observe in serving its clients. To obtain a copy of these service standards, please contact your nearest Statistics Canada Regional Reference Centre.

Copyright

Published by authority of the Minister responsible for Statistics Canada

© Minister of Industry, 2003

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission from Licence Services, Marketing Division, Statistics Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1A 0T6.

October 2003

Catalogue no. 67-202-XIE, Vol. 1, No. 2

ISSN: 1480-8412

Frequency: Quarterly

Ottawa

La version française de cette publication est disponible sur demande.



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Date Modified: 2003-10-08 Important Notices