The United Nations Economic and Social Council recommends that member States consider using the 1993 SNA as the international standard for the complication of their national accounts statistics. Economic Planning Agency of Japanese Government is now trying to use the 1993 SNA as the standard for their review of national accounts.
The 1993 SNA embodies many new features. Many of the important ones can be summarized as aspects of updating, clarifying and simplifying, and harmonizing. But the 1993 SNA did not indicate the standard system of the regional accounts.
The 1993 SNA says that three types of institutional units have to be considered in the context of regional accounts. First, there are regional units, the centre of interest of which is in one region and most of their activities take place in this region. Secondly, there are multi-regional units, the centre of interest of which is in more than one region but does not relate to the country overall. Finally, a small number of nuits are national units, which means that thier centre of interest is really not located geographically even in the sense of multi-regional location.
Locating transactions of the regional institutional units does not raise any conceptual problem. These units are clearly regional resident units. Allocating the transactions of multi-regional units between various regions raises more difficulties. Part of the transactions of multi-regional units is not regionalizable, in conecpt. The location of national institutional units raises more complex issues. In their case, breaking down their centre of interest between all the regions is conceptually dubious. These units do not seem properly regionalizable.
One may think of allocating all transactions of multi-regional units or even national units between regions according to some rules of thumb. However, this should not be considered simply as a practical approximation. It implies a conceptual adaptation of the System. Which mean, in principle, building up a full set of accounts for establishments.
Japanese prefectual accounts is using the method of building up a full set of accounts for establishments. So Japanese prefectural accounts is not under the SNA. But we think this method have a practical usefulness. We should use this method for the present.
According to this idea, we must fill up the system of prefectural accounts which is the core of Japanese regional accounts. For this purpose, we must form the new system of prefectural accounts that focus a few main accounts. Every prefectures must be effort to advance the date of delivery of this system.
Secondary, we must make up the supplemental system of prefectural accounts. The supplemental system consists of two types of regional accounts system. The ffrst is the system of regional accounts for cities, towns, and villages. Though many cities, towns, and villages are now making regional accounts, but there are a few cities, towns, and villages do not make the accounts. Every cities, towns, and villages must make up the accounts. The second is the system of regional accounts for blocks that consist of group of prefectures. It focuses to catch for interregional transaction. This system is made by division of national accounts, so we can have the information of regional economy so early than the prefectural accounts.
