Within the framework of the area for improving management of public finances being pursued in Ecuador with the support of the EUROsociAL Programme, financed by the European Union, the third phase of the technical assistance project on new methodologies for standardisation and harmonisation of fiscal accounts was carried out from 23rd to 27th November, 2015.

This activity is the continuation of the first phase, carried out in July 2014, in which a diagnosis was conducted to enable the preparation of tax statistics comparable at the international level, and a second phase, in April 2015, in which Ecuadoran civil servants were trained in the analysis of statistical data. In this third and final phase, the objective was to create a document reflecting the Ecuadoran public finance system according to the accounting methodology of the International Monetary Fund, which is providing the civil servants with the tools necessary to transfer the internationally accepted codes in order to translate the accounting “language” of the Republic of Ecuador to the “language” of international standards for national accounting.

The activity was held during the week of 23rd to 27th November 2015 and included the participation of 13 members of the different sub-secretariats of the Ministry of Finance of Ecuador and two analysts. The activity benefited from the advising of three Spanish experts: a representative of the Under Secretariat of State of Finance, a representative of the National Accounting Office, and a representative of the Institute for Tax Studies.

The ultimate objective of the activity was to analyse the conversion table created by the employees of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Ecuador. Once this analysis is completed, the civil servants will have the capacity to generate the Republic of Ecuador's main tables and charts for fiscal statistics according to international methodologies, analysing any discrepancies that may exist for the different aggregates and estimated variables. The Conversion Table for Ecuadoran Revenue and Expenditure was presented as the final deliverable.

This activity is part of the Budget-Plan Link line of work of the EUROsociAL Programme, financed by the European Union and coordinated by the FIIAPP, in which Spain's Institute for Tax Studies is acting as an operational partner.