The System of National Accounts, 1993 (SNA 1993) was adopted by the United Nations Statistical Commission in its twenty-seventh session, held in New York, from 22 February to 3 March 1993. The system represents a major advance in national accounting, providing a comprehensive, consistent and flexible set of macroeconomic accounts to meet the needs of economic and social analysis. It represents an integrated statistical framework designed for use in all countries irrespective of their economic, social or institutional arrangements and economic development.

The system presents a comprehensive accounting structure for recording balances and flows according to their sequence in the process of economic activity. The accounts record the production of goods and services and the value added through the production account, followed by generation of income account showing compensation of employees and operating surplus. The system focuses on the processes of distribution, redistribution and use of income via a set of accounts ending with the balance of savings.

Within these accounts, the system provides a set of economic aggregates, significantly useful for economic and social analysis, e.g., primary income which reflects the national income, disposable income and the adjusted disposable income. The system names this set of accounts as current accounts. The other set of accounts is named accumulation accounts where the system shows the changes in assets and liabilities as a result of transactions (sale, purchase, transfer). Also, these accounts show changes in assets and liabilities resulting from external circumstances, e.g., inflation, wars, natural disasters … etc. The system ends its sequential set of accounts with the balance sheets showing value of the stocks of assets and liabilities at the beginning and end of the accounting period, hence measuring net worth and the changes that took place during the accounting period through transactions or as a result of external circumstances.

Whereas, the 1993 System of National Accounts is a comprehensive system, it embodies within its central framework a set of matrices, e.g., supply and use matrices, input-output tables which forms an integral part of the system. Similarly, the system took care of constant prices, indices, purchasing power parities and real changes in the GDP.

Whereas the system is considered to be an integrated system, its implementation requires a huge amount of statistical information, the provision of which requires the promotion and development of the statistical programs in accordance with the international classifications and definitions. Harmonization between the system and other international statistical standards is more apparent than before, e.g., linkage with Balance of Payments Manual (rev. 5), Government Finance Statistics Manual (2001) and other standards.

Promoting and developing these statistics requires the coordination and cooperation of the concerned institutions in the State, e.g., the Central Bank, Ministry of Finance, and others. Many of the developing countries began implementing this system on phases, depending on availability of statistical information, provision of technical staff as well as their economic and social analytical needs. The implementation of the system will secure a significant quantitative and qualitative development in the statistical setting of the State.