statistics, the ASHSTAT has adopted the 1968 scheme of the System of National Accounts (SNA for short), as advocated by the Statistical Office of the United Nations (1968b). In other words, consistency in this sense is to be established in reference to the current social accounting practices.
Not all the Asian countries are included in the work of compilation; nor can their statistical resources necessarily cover the entire stipulated time period. Moreover, strict comparability, both time and space wise, is difficult to maintain. These difficulties notwithstanding, it is deemed essential, as a matter of the philosophy of the project, to abide with those basic working principles for reasons which I shall explain later.
The Composition of the Database
Table1 below exhibits the proposed composition of the envisioned database, which is listed in reference to three periodic time frames under consideration. In order to underline a few important implications of the table, several remarks are in order.
First, as a direct consequence of the adoption of the SNA scheme, domestic, instead of national, concept will be used throughout the project.
Second, the concepts of products and of expenditures are basically gross of depreciation, marking a significant departure from the earlier, post-WWII practices of social accounting in the Western countries.(2)
Third, the economic actors are classified according either to (a) the flow of goods and services, or to (b) the flow of finance. The first category, (a), which is concerned with the accounts of production, consumption and capital formation, consists of the following four actors: industries, government services, private non-profit services to households, and households. "Industries" here refers to the aggregate sum of production activities by private enterprises, and is subdivided into several groups, according to common elements in technology and/or outputs, by utilising the two-digit classification scheme of The International Standard Industrial Classification (United Nations 1968a), whose abridged version is reproduced in Table 2 below. It is strongly recommended, in anticipation of adjustments which may be needed to reconcile possible
