Rafael Correa requests the Cepal to change measurements

While the 2016 budget presented under the traditional approach, a deficit of 2.6% of gross domestic product (GDP), with the classification made by the regime of subtracting from the permanent income only the expenditure it considers permanent (investment is not included), we would be talking about a surplus of 5.1%.

The example was set by President Rafael Correa yesterday when opening the eighth meeting of the Statistical Conference of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), held at the headquarters of UNASUR until tomorrow.

There, he proposed to innovate concepts used in statistics and new ways of measuring national and regional realities; align statistics of public finances and private accounting, have a balance of results, “whereupon the absurdity of including investment as an expense would be overcome.”

He added that the investment creates assets such as roads, but the value of these is not registered, only the liability arising from it: the debt incurred to build them.

Thus, he explains, it leads to the assumption “that everything has been a loss.” “The assets generated by the state through its investments are invisible.”

He spoke of ” the pioneering exercise (in the country) of creating new categories of public finances.” “Of course, we can make mistakes, this is a mistake-correction process,” he said.

He also spoke of the challenge of innovation in the types of sources used to produce official statistics. And he hopes that in 2020 the last census is carried out, to move to automatic and administrative records.
Source: http://www.eluniverso.com/noticias/2015/11/18/nota/5246760/correa-pide-ante-cepal-cambio-mediciones