Ashgabat, 19 April 2018: The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Turkmenistan, in conjunction with the State Statistics Committee of Turkmenistan, with the support of the project “Knowledge Management and Capacity Building within the Partnership of Russia and the United Nations Development Programme” conducted a training seminar with participation of experts from the Federal State Statistics Service of Russia on modern standards for the evaluation of housing services produced and consumed by homeowners in the system of national accounts.

The seminar was attended by officials from the Ministry of Finance and Economy, the Central Bank and the State Statistics Committee of Turkmenistan. Participants discussed modern methods of evaluation of the housing services and the influence of such evaluation and record on GDP.

“Turkmenistan introduces international standards and applies this experience in all areas of work. One of the areas of work is the introduction of the national accounts system of the 2008 version. In this area, we cooperate with international organizations, such as UNDP and the World Bank. Our today's seminar with the involvement of experts from the Federal State Statistics Service of Russia is an example of our fruitful cooperation,” said Kadyr Kadyrov, Deputy Head of the Department for National Accounts System of the State Statistics Committee of Turkmenistan.

Evaluation of the housing services allows you to consider the virtual income of citizens, i.e. income that does not come in cash equivalent to an account, but in the form of absence of expenditure, such as rental costs. Each person carries out economic activities and accommodation services with his housing. According to international norms, it is important to take these statistics into account, because they affect the accounting of GDP.

According to the experts of the Federal State Statistics Service of Russia, international accounting considers the difference in the number of tenants and owners, as well as housing conditions, in order to reduce the difference in GDP growth across countries. International standards also provide for conditions for the assessment of the housing stock.

UNDP and the State Statistics Committee of Turkmenistan continue their cooperation in studying and implementing international practices on the application of the national accounts system in Turkmenistan.