Metadata

The official websites of National Statistical Offices of the ECO Member States provided a comprehensive and detailed record of the respective countries- complex economic activities in the ECO-s six core economic activity areas and of countries- interactions, using ECO-s agreements outlining their performances in the aforementioned economic activity areas.

ECO, among other available sources of data, also avails use of reports and other official documents related by the ECO countries to the United Nations through the Statistics Division-s quarterly and annual dissemination issues, as posted on the UNSD-s web. This source has come to be most accessible. When full data on some of ECO-s selected countries was not available, the hierarchy methodology of other data sources was used to collect data on ECO countries- economic performances. Thus, the data/information has been collected in the following order: (1) Official data and information releases and websites of NSOs of the ECO countries, (2) Statistical Committees/Agencies/Centers, (3) central or national banks or relevant government ministries; (4) official statistics disseminated by UN, World Bank, IMF, (5) official statistics disseminated by economic surveys and estimates prepared by UNECE, ESCAP, UNIDO, UNCTAD; Eurostat, FAOSTAT, UNFPA, WTO, (6) information provided by Permanent Missions to the ECO; (7) publications of ECO-s partner organizations with whom ECO is in data sharing agreements via MoUs, Agreements and other legal frameworks with a strong focus on statistical data sharing.

In deriving the data relating to ECO-s economic performance, the metadata used by the ECO regional statistics has followed one adopted by the UN through its statistical indicators with the view that the classifications applied for economic sectors are aligned with ones adjusted for the official statistics. For the countries such as Turkmenistan and, in some instances, Afghanistan, the measurements adopted by the World Bank to developing countries, through its World Bank-s (WDI), whence the indication of the involved measurements has specifically been pointed out, are being applied.

When deriving the data relating to trade, the 2010 prices served for conversion to the constant price data. The latters when in national currency units (n.c.u.) of individual ECO countries have been converted to US dollars using the 2010 exchange rates as well. In the instances, when price levels in an individual ECO country were generated with no account to inflation rate as pertinent, the prices have been reflected in relevant n.c.u. The metadata for ECO countries describing the methods and sources used by an individual country data, including on the economic activity areas (Transport, Trade, Energy, Agriculture, Industry, Manufacturing and Tourism) are now available via respective meta-data links on official websites of government entities, in charge of statistics.

The regional aggregates have been defined as the sum of data in units of measurements in each sector and wherever appropriate, in units, and in US dollars for the countries, areas and territories within the ECO regional countries- grouping.

The growth rates and implicit price deflators have been calculated from the regional aggregates, using appropriate methods of averaging the country-level growth rates or implicit price deflators.

All official data derived by ECO regional statistics from primary and wherever required secondary data of the ECO countries- relevant authorities is checked for errors prior to incorporation in common data pool. The double checking ensured that aggregate indicators be equated to the sum of their components and that indicators, which are provided in multiple tables, be represented in line with statistical principles of data coherence and consistency. Footnotes are provided to the data whenever those were deemed necessary.

The data estimation ensures that estimates have been derived for each year is comparable versus previous years so that estimates are reflected consistently from year to year. Plus, growth rate from year to year has been analyzed to identify discrepancies in the data.

The technique of filling in data gaps is applied to define the share distribution of each of ECO-s economic sectors with pertinence to a specific time series. The missing data components, in instances of Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, are processed based on secondary data source for sector-based indicators and breakdown of components.

Wherever secondary source is not available but some of years of available data include breakdown by components, the average share of preceding or following five-year period (or more) is used to estimate the missing data. If missing data appears for components of an economic sector performance indicators for a period of time in the middle of the time series, then half of the missing years are calculated using the preceding five years and the other half using the following five years. When the gap covers an odd number of years then the middle year is calculated as the average of the preceding and following five years.

Alternatively, the back casting technique is used in cases of vacuum of source available for some of years in the estimation period. In this, the average trend of several years preceding or following the data item is used to extrapolate a value for a specific year. Also, to equate different time series, the method of juxtapositioning disparate time series on a year on year basis, is used, especially in cases as applied to Pakistan and Iran where a reporting period does not start from January 1^st.