NATIONAL STATISTICS COMMITTEE

In accordance with paragraphs 32 and 33 of the “Roadmap for the implementation of the National Strategy for the Development of Statistics of the Republic of Uzbekistan in 2020-2025”, approved by the Decree of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan No. PD-4796 dated August 3, 2020, the State Committee on Statistics is entrusted with the task of fully introducing into practice “Systems of National Accounts – 2008” (SNA 2008) and improving the practice of assessing the structural components of gross domestic product (GDP).

In pursuance of these tasks, the State Committee on Statistics is working to improve the practice of assessing national accounts statistics indicators, including the structural components of GDP in accordance with international standards.

In particular:

1. The methodology for assessing the services of owner-occupied dwellings (imputed rent) produced and consumed by households has been improved on the basis of international recommendations and the practice of foreign countries.

As part of this work, based on the recommendations of experts from the International Monetary Fund and the Asian Development Bank, as well as taking into account the specifics of the housing market in the country, the State Committee on Statistics has developed “Methodological guidelines for assessing services of owner-occupied dwellings produced by homeowners for their own consumption”.

On the basis of these methodological provisions, a revision of services of owner-occupied dwellings in the Republic of Uzbekistan was carried out using the user cost method and its impact on GDP for 2010-2020 was estimated.

For reference: if a person rents a house and pays for rent, then this is an economic operation and, accordingly, is taken into account when calculating the indicators of the service sector. If a person lives in his own home and, therefore, does not pay anyone for it, then, it would seem, no rent is observed in this case. Nevertheless, the SNA methodology provides for the accounting of the so-called notional housing rent, when the owner of the dwelling is imputed a notional income in the amount that he would pay if he rented a similar dwelling.

Consequently, based on the SNA principles, the imputed payment for living in their own dwelling is included in the production boundary and forms part of household consumption (paragraphs 6.34 and 6.117 of the “2008 SNA” manual).

One of the methods for assessing the services of owner-occupied dwellings recommended by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Bank and widely used in international practice is the user cost method. In this case, the cost of of owner-occupied dwellings services is calculated as the amount:

- intermediate consumption (current expenses for the maintenance and repair of housing);

- other taxes on production (property tax);

- consumption of fixed capital (notional depreciation of housing);

- net profit (conditionally estimated net profit from renting out housing).

As a result of the implementation of an improved methodology for calculating notional housing rent, nominal GDP for 2020 increased from 580.2 trillion soums to 602.6 trillion soums (by 3.9%). Real GDP growth rates increased from 1.6% to 1.7%, and the share of services of owner-occupied dwellings in GDP - from 1.5% to 5.1%.  

For reference: according to the results of a survey by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, the share of owner-occupied dwellings services in GDP in 2019 was: in the Russian Federation - 5.9%, in Kazakhstan - 5.5%, in Ukraine - 4.8%, in Belarus - 3.5%, Azerbaijan - 3.1%.

Comparative table based on the results of the GDP revision in the Republic of Uzbekistan

2. Ensured consistency between the System of National Accounts and the Balance of Payments in the calculation of GDP by the final use method.

In order to ensure consistency of the data of the System of National Accounts and the Balance of Payments, together with experts from the International Monetary Fund, the methodology for calculating individual components of GDP by the final use method was improved by:

- formation of export and import indicators based on data from the Balance of Payments of the Republic of Uzbekistan, compiled in accordance with The Sixth Edition of the Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual (in previous practice, these indicators were formed on the basis of data from customs statistics);

- inclusion of the “travel” component of the Balance of Payments (i.e. expenses of residents of the Republic of Uzbekistan associated with travel abroad) in the indicator of household expenditures on final consumption (in previous practice, the “travel” component was not taken into account in the calculations);

- reflecting changes in the official international gold reserves of the Republic of Uzbekistan as part of the indicator of changes in inventories (in previous practice, changes in international gold reserves were not taken into account in the calculations of GDP by the final use method).

At the same time, the services of owner-occupied dwellings, estimated according to the new methodological approach, are included in the final consumption expenditures of households when calculating the GDP by the final use method. 

As a result of the implementation of improved methodological approaches, the share of household’s final consumption expenditures in GDP increased from 54.5% to 57.2%, changes in inventories - from 0.4% to 2.7%, imports of goods and services - from 36.7% to 37.7%, and the share of exports of goods and services decreased from 26.3% to 24.3%.

As a result of these changes, the calculations of GDP by the final use method have been improved, in particular, in its structure, the coverage of indicators of foreign trade, household expenditures for final consumption and changes in inventories has been expanded.

For more details on the results of the revision of national accounts statistics indicators, you can find on the website of the State Committee on Statistics at the link https://stat.uz/en/official-statistics/national-accounts.

In the future, the State Committee on Statistics will continue to work on improving the statistical methodology and implementation new provisions of the 2008 SNA as part of the implementation of the National Strategy for the Development of Statistics of the Republic of Uzbekistan.