Introduction to the Methodology and Compilation of GFS

Source details

Target audience: officials working in the Ministry of Finance, Royal Monetary Authority of Bhutan, the National Statistics Bureau and in the finance departments of sub national government authorities that are involved in the compilation of fiscal statistics.
Qualifications: No specific qualification required but relevant experience in working with fiscal data is essential.
Pre-requisites: Experience of working with and compiling fiscal data is a prerequisite for participation on this course.

The training will assist staff involved in the compilation of fiscal data understand the conceptual framework of IMF's Government Finance Statistics Manual 2014 (GFSM 2014) and the Public Sector Debt Statistics (PSDS) Guide, which is an extension of the government finance statistics (GFS) methodology.
Specific guidance will utilize actual Budget execution data for FT2022/23 aimed at facilitating Treasury staff's ability to compile annual GFS and PSDS from national source data.
Emphasis on the integrated presentation of stocks and flows as used in the GFS framework.

The objective of the training is to assist the participants in the compilation of GFS data for the latest fiscal year.
The training will achieve this by enabling the course participants to:
- Explain the basic concepts, definitions, and accounting principles of the integrated GFS framework.
- Apply the general principles to classify an entity in the public sector and in relevant subsectors, such as the general government and public corporations specific to Bhutan's public sector.
- Classify basic government flows and stock positions according to GFSM 2014 and thereby derive annual GFS estimates of revenue, expenditure, transactions and stock positions of assets and liabilities for Bhutan.
- Explain how the main GFS aggregates and analytical balances are calculated, and what they show about the government's impact on the economy.
- Recognize the value of comprehensive, consistent, and internationally comparable GFS, and the use of the key GFS indicators in the design, monitoring, and evaluation of fiscal policy.
- Review (and seek to address) previously identified issues that have been found to be pertinent to improving GFS and PSDS data quality.