^{CARIBBEAN                                                    COMMUNITY                                                       SECRETARIAT}

^{TWENTY-NINTH MEETING OF THE}                                                                                              

^{STANDING COMMITTEE OF}

^{CARIBBEAN STATISTICIANS                                                                                                       SCCS/2004/29/25}

^{Hamilton, Bermuda}                                                                                                                    

^{22-24 November 2004                                                                                                                22 November 2004}

STATISTICAL OFFICE

ST.VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES

REVIEW January-October 2004

Work Programme 2005

INTRODUCTION

The Statistical Office continues to play a pivotal role in the development of St Vincent and the Grenadines by providing social and economic statistical indicators for planning purposes.

The specific objectives of the unit are as follows:

1.                  To ensure adherence to the provisions of the Census and Statistical Act of 1983.

2.         To collect, compile and analyse statistical information relative to the agricultural, commercial, industrial, financial, social and general activities and condition of the inhabitants of St.Vincent and the Grenadines.

3.         To tabulate statistical data and to publish reports including:

            a. The Digest of Statistics (annually)

            b. Trade Reports (annually and half-yearly)

            c. Balance of Payments Report (annually, in conjunction with the ECCB)

            d. National Accounts Report (annually)

            e. Consumer Price Index bulletins ( monthly, with half yearly and yearly reviews)

            f. Vital Statistics Report (annually)

3.                  To provide local, regional and international organisations with timely statistical data.

4.                  To conduct surveys and censuses in order to improve the database.

5.                  To maintain a close working relationship with the Economic Planning Unit, Physical

            Planning Unit and other Government Departments to have available timely Statistical             

            Information for planning purposes.

OVERVIEW - January 2004 - October 2004

 During the period January - October 2004, the Statistical Office through the efforts of a hard working, efficient and productive staff, completed all of the major activities in its work programme.

National Accounts

During the week Tuesday 16^th - Friday 19^th March 2004, National Accounts estimates for the year 2002 were finalized and preliminary estimates for the year 2003 were done. The Statistical Office was again the recipient of technical assistance from Mrs. Hazel Corbin of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank.

The findings from the National Accounts exercise were presented to the Cabinet Committee on the Economy (CCE) by Ms. Louise Tash, Senior Statistician, National Accounts Section. The presentation was well received.

For a 2 week period, May 17^th - May 28^th 2004, the Statistical Office in conjunction with CARTAC (Caribbean Technical Assistance Center) continued work on the production of the Supply and Use Tables (SUT) for St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Mr. Jan W. van Tongeren, Advisor Econometrics, Statistics, Mr. Arthur Giesberts, National Accounts and IT Specialist and Mrs. Hazel Corbin, Head, National Accounts, ECCB were the consultants.

The exercise was extremely successful. However, the National Accounts staff in the Statistical Office will continue updating the database. Initial data for the exercise were collected for the years 1999, 2000 and 2001.

As a follow up, Mr. Arthur Giesberts and Mr. Ron Faria were at the Statistical Office on Monday November 14th – 15th. The mission was to provide additional assistance with the SNA framework developed for St.Vincent and the Grenadines and to discuss ways in which the established framework could be used to compile National Accounts estimates in the future. 

The annual Survey of Establishments commenced on November 1^st 2004. As of this week all questionnaires would have been sent to all establishments on the updated register.

For the first time, the Statistical Office has embarked on an intensive Public Relations programme for National Accounts. The programme actually started on November 8^th. Several establishments have already been visited and based on reports from the staff, the exercise seems to be progressing successfully.

Progress Report on the Implementation of the 1993 SNA

1.      The compilation of the SUT tables for the years 1999, 2000 and 2001.

2.      The compilation of the Government Accounts as well as for the Financial Sector.

3.      Establishment of a business register coded according to ISIC Rev 3 and by Institutional Sectors.

4.      Compilation of the GDP data according to the ISIC Rev 3 categories will be done during the 2005 compilation.

Progress Report on Statistics on International Trade in Services

1.      Work on the Implementation of the project to compile Trade in Services Statistics began during the week October 4^th  and concluded on October 15^th 2004.

2.      The BOP worksheets were reviewed in relation to the common guidelines of the Extended Balance of Payments Statistics (EBOPS) classification for each line item transaction.

3.      Compilation of the EBOPS statistics for the years 2002 and 2001 were done using the worksheets generated from the ECCB CEBOPS programme.

4.      The National Accounts worksheets were reviewed.

5.      Compilation of the Foreign Affiliates Trade in Services statistics (FATS) and Foreign Direct Investment statistics (FDI) for the year 2002 is complete. However, year 2001 is still to be done.

6.      The business register has been updated to identify those establishments that are FATS and FDI.

Some Findings

1.      Most of the variables required for the compilation of FATS were available from the BOP and National Accounts worksheets. However, the information regarding the Ultimate Beneficiary Origin (UBO) country was incomplete.

2.      Further research needs to be done on the Insurance sector in order to finanlise classification issues. This investigation is proposed to be carried out in other Caricom countries where most of the companies operating in SVG reside.

3.      The mission was not able to compile the EBOPS and FATS statistics by country of origin and by destination to highlight intra-regional flows. This would require some amendments to the current survey form used to collect data.

Follow up work

1.      Finalising the EBOPS and FATS statistics for 2002 and completing 2001 estimates.

2.      Completion of the FATS and FDI flow variables by ICFA categories.

3.      Work with IT and Sampling expert to generate CPC and other required tables following common guidelines in the manual Trade in Services Statistics (MTISS).

Balance of Payments

The compilation of the Balance of Payments estimates was done during the period June 21st  - 25th 2004. Technical assistance was received from the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank through two of its Statisticians, Mr. Ron Faria and Ms. Jehann Jack. The results of the exercise were presented to senior staff members in the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Development on July 25^th 2004.

1.7.2        Census 2001

During the period under review, the census data processing staff, spearheaded by Mrs. Jacintha Fergus, continued to work tirelessly in order to complete the cleaning of the data files. As a result, the unit was able to transfer all the clean data files to CELADE in Chile. This organization, in collaboration with Caricom is responsible for the production of a REDATAM database for the generation of the census tables for analysis. This however, as of today (November 12, 2004) has not yet materialized.

Therefore, in an effort to expedite the analysis of the census results as requested by the Rt. Hon. Prime Minister, Mrs. Jacintha Fergus with the assistance of Ms. Gatlin Roberts, in a professional manner sat down and wrote programmes in SPSS to produce more than 100 tables for the analysis of the 2001 population and housing census. A draft final report is now with the Prime Minister. The editing and fine-tuning of the final document for publication is continuing.

The Chief Statistician and the staff of the Economic Unit wrote the analysis for the census report.

Consumer Price Index

The collection of prices, the compilation of the data and the production of the monthly consumer price index continued during the period under review. As of November 12, 2004, the month of October 2004 is available for distribution.

Progress Report on the compilation of Merchandise Trade Statistics

Trade Statistics continues to be up to date. Work on the 2002 Annual Trade Report and the 1^st quarter 2004 were completed during the period. Work is on going to produce the 2003 Annual Trade Report before the end of the year.

Two staff members from the Trade Statistics Section attended separate modules of the Social and Economic Statistics training course at UTECH in Jamaica. The training commenced in May 2004.

Two staff members attended a training workshop in the new Windows version of Eurotrace. The workshop took place in St. Lucia during the week September 20 – 24^th.

Progress Report on work in Social Statistics, the compilation and submission of MDG statistics

As of July 31^st 2004, the Statistical Office would have responded to the Caricom Secreatriat by submitting most of the requested Social Indicators. Early responses were forwarded in relation to DECISION MAKING, ECONOMY, EDUCATION and HEALTH.

Subsequently, the sections on WORK, POPULATION, FAMILIES, CRIME and HOUSEHOLDS were forwarded after the census data became available.

The data relating to CRIME was incomplete because of the inability of the Police Department to source data from the rural police stations.

The SIMDG Committee has not met for sometime. Some founding members of the committee were transferred to different departments and the coordinator experienced some difficulty in recruiting persons to replace those original members. An effort will be made to have the committee fully functioning again in the new year.

Progress Report on developmental work in the area of Environment Statistics

The first ever Environmental Report was produced with data for the year 2000. A decision was taken not to do regular reports because of the fact that certain aspects of the environment do not change overnight. Despite this, the Statistical Office will explore the possibility to produce another report with data up to year 2005.

In the interim, several tables with data related to the environment are published in the Annual Digest of Statistics the latest being year 2003.

Progress Report on National efforts at measuring ICT

Apart from indicators generated from the 2001 Population and Housing Census, there aren’t any plans to measure ICT in the near future.

*****