MACROECONOMIC DATA FOR UNECE COUNTRIES NOW AVAILABLE ON WEB

(Reissued as received.)

GENEVA, 23 February (UNECE) -- The Statistical Division of the Economic Commission for Europe is announcing today the public availability of its free Internet access to macroeconomic statistics on countries in the region.  The statistics provided by this service are the empirical basis for the Economic Survey of Europe and other analysis carried out by the secretariat of the Commission.

Emphasis has been placed on making the data ready for immediate analytical use.  Methodological breaks have been smoothed backwards to provide long continuous series.  Data have been structured in themes to make them easy to find and use.  The country theme, for example, presents data in national currencies for within-country analysis of over 50 countries.  The international theme presents standardized data in a common currency (United States dollars), along with totals for over 30 subregions for those who wish to make international comparisons.  A variety of pre-calculated common transformations, such as growth rates, indices, shares, et cetera, enhance its immediate usability.

Users may be particularly interested in the data on the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Central and Eastern European countries, which are difficult to find elsewhere in a single integrated database.

Data are clearly and succinctly documented and explained, and updated on a daily basis.  The PX-WEB user interface provides some data manipulation, data pivoting and simple graphic capabilities, while downloads in a variety of formats are also available.

PX-WEB comes from a long tradition of electronic dissemination in Statistics Sweden and other national statistical offices in the Nordic countries.  It is part of the PX-AXIS family of software products whose development is managed by a consortium of national statistical offices and international organizations coordinated by Statistics Sweden.

Some of the most important data used for economic analysis are now available via this database.  More will be added in the coming weeks and months.

Those who are interested can find the database on Statistical Division’s Web site at http://www.unece.org/stats/stats_h.htm.

A demonstration of the database will also be given during the Commission session on 24 February, in Salle XX at 2 p.m.

For more information, please contact Darryl Rhoades, Chief, Data Collection, Analysis and Data Base Section, Statistical Division, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), Palais des Nations, CH - 1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland, tel.:  +41(0)22 917 4172, fax:  +41(0)22 917 0040, e-mail:  darryl.rhoades@unece.org.

* *** *