This session will focus on the updates of the System of National Accounts (SNA) and the Balance of Payments Manual (BPM), providing an overview of the update processes, the main topics addressed, and zooming in on the practical implementation of the new guidance. The update process, with the aim of having new versions available in 2025, is targeting topics in important areas such as globalisation, digitalisation, evolving financial markets, informal economy, and well-being and sustainability, to better reflect changes in the economy and to address specific statistical challenges that have emerged over the past years. While the focus so far has mainly been on developing conceptual guidance, an important element in the coming years will be to assist countries in the implementation of this guidance. To that end, it will be important to assess what new data sources and methods may be required to compile results on some specific topics. This session will address this issue, with a specific focus on topics in the area of well-being and sustainability (such as measuring and valuing biological resources, unpaid household activities, sustainable finance, and household distributional results), but also touching upon other topics, such as the measurement and valuation of marketing assets, special purpose entities, data, crypto assets and artificial intelligence.

Chair
The session will be chaired by one of the colleagues of the international organisations involved in the update of the SNA and BPM, namely Jorrit Zwijnenburg (OECD).

Contact email: Jorrit.Zwijnenburg@oecd.org 

Presenters

The first presentation will be provided by members of the SNA and BPM editorial teams (i.e., Peter van de Ven (lead editor of the 2025 SNA) and Jim Tebrake (IMF)). 

Contact email: jtebrake@imf.org.  

The second presentation will be provided by one of the chairs of the well-being and sustainability task team, namely Catherine van Rompaey (World Bank).

Contact email: cvanrompaey@worldbank.org

Organiser: Mr Jorrit Zwijnenburg 

Chair: Mr Jorrit Zwijnenburg 

Speaker: Mr Peter Van de Ven  

Speaker: Catherine Van Rompaey  

Discussant: Mrs Fabienne Fortanier