In accordance with its 2014 Annual Work Plan, SESRIC organised the training course on 'Price Statistics' at the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates on 10-12 March 2014. The training was attended by 11 experts from the NBS of UAE, Statistics Centre of Abu Dhabi (SCAD), Dubai Statistics Centre (DSC), and Central Department of Statistics and Information (CDSI) of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Dr. Cem Bas, an expert of the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), was the trainer for the training programme.

As defined in the Classification of Statistical Activities (CSA Rev. 1 - October 2009), price statistics covers any statistical activity dealing with prices, including purchasing power parities (PPPs), international comparisons of GDP, consumer price indices (CPI), inflation, producer price indices (PPI), price indices for specific products and services (e.g. information and communication technology products). The activity category “price statistics” is currently classified under the “Economic statistics” domain.

The training course on 'Price Statistics' covered the following topics:

• General information about price indices
• Concept, scope and coverage of CPI
• Source of weigths
• Sampling procedures
• Treatment of seasonal products
• Quality adjustments in general
• Elementary aggregates
• Data collection method
• Calculation of higher-level indices
• Operation quality of CPI and changing procedures
• Other indices
• Data entry process and index calculation software

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