EFTA and Statistics Norway host NADABAS workshop in Oslo for SACU and ASEAN countries

The workshop brought together experts from EFTA’s partner countries in the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). A free trade agreement has been in force between the EFTA States and SACU since 2008, and a joint declaration on economic cooperation was adopted by the EFTA States and ASEAN in 2024.

The workshop focused on NADABAS – a piece of software designed to support the compilation of national accounts. These are essential for economic analysis and policymaking as they provide a systematic and internationally harmonised framework for measuring a country’s economic activity and performance. They include comprehensive accounting techniques that track economic transactions, such as the UN System of National Accounts, which specifies internationally agreed standards for compiling macroeconomic statistics.

Many countries use a Microsoft Excel-based system for the compilation of national accounts, but without a database system. NADABAS provides a solution where national accounts are still compiled in Excel but the links between workbooks are replaced with a database, making the system more robust and reliable. This allows countries to build structured, low-cost compilation systems according to their own needs, improving the quality and consistency of their national accounts.

Over the five-day workshop, participants received training in setting up and using NADABAS, including how to build the NADABAS system and establish links to a database. The training equipped national statistical institutes from the participating EFTA partners with the skills needed to implement NADABAS in their own countries.

The EFTA Secretariat supported the participation of 13 experts from Botswana, Brunei Darussalam, Eswatini, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Lesotho, Malaysia, Namibia, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand and Vietnam. In addition, representatives from STATAFRIC and ASEANstats participated as members of the NADABAS network. The workshop formed part of the 2025 EFTA technical cooperation work programme in the field of statistics, as approved by the four EFTA States (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland) in the EFTA Council.

The EFTA Secretariat would like to thank Statistics Norway for hosting the workshop and the participants for their valuable contributions!