The Ministry of Finance held a workshop entitled Functional Classifications of Government Finance Statistics, Wednesday, 8 Rajab 1438H (corresponding to 5 April 2017), which is organized by Deputy Ministry for International Financial Affairs (Development of Government Finance Statistics Committee) with cooperation of the IMF Technical Assistance Mission team at the Ministry's Headquarters in Riyadh.
The workshop was inaugurated by the Assistant Deputy Minister for International Financial Affairs, Mr. Mohammed bin Saleh Al Ghufaili, in the presence of officials and specialists from relevant departments of the Ministry, as well as from the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, the General Authority for Statistics, Public Pension Agency and General Organization for Social Insurance. This workshop aimed at discussing the financial statistics for the year 2014 for both economic and functional areas, and to make use of some countries experiences in this field, such as the State of Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.
The workshop discussed the use of classifications of governance functions, measuring to what extent government allocations of resources were made for their general objectives. Nonetheless, they discussed some uses of classification of governance functions, classification problems, and comparative classification of expenditure according to function and type of economy.
In this context, the Economic Advisor Ali bin Ayid Al-Hasosah, secretary of Government Finance Statistics Development Committee, stressed the importance of reclassifying the State General Budget according to the economic classification in the GFS system as it is considered as an essential element in the analysis of public finances, indicating the need for accurate and correct data in general and government finance data in particular which will help for analyzing financial data and identifying their effects on overall economic activity through their impact on growth, inflation, unemployment, balance of payments and public debt.
Mr. Al- Hasosah pointed out that this workshop covers a number of important topics, such as general overview, review of key concepts of the GFSM methodology. It also explores the classification of revenues, expenses, assets, liabilities as well as functional classifications. He pointed out that the workshop comes within the framework of the partnership between the government sectors to achieve the objectives of the Kingdom's Vision 2030, in order to increase the level of coordination for various efforts and to enhance the partnership between different sectors to achieve the aspirations of the Kingdom's vision.