Before, the performance of the Brazilian economy was measured by the Consolidated National Accounts System, elaborated by the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV), which calculated the GDP from 1947 to 1989. It was a simplified system, with a group of more aggregated accounts, which were revised in each Economic Census.

In 1997, IBGE adopted the third version of the United Nations manual on National Accounts, causing a considerable change in this System, regarding not only its database, as occurs in the current change, but also its own structure, which was enlarged. This change led to the publishing of a new series of National Accounts, from 1990 to 1997, and established the System of National Accounts of Brazil in the form it is in effect until today.

The present change does not change the System of National Accounts in the same proportion as in 1997, but it refines it, following recommendations of a series of international organizations such as International Monetary Fund (IMF), United Nations, European Community, World Bank and OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development).

At international level, periodically, changes also occurred in the methodology of the National Accounts.  The United Nations celebrated in 2007 the 60 years of the Statistical Commission, which, in 1947, joined for the first time to analyze the proposal of a handbook of methodological recommendations for the countries in order to elaborate comparable National Accounts.

In 1953, the United Nations published the first version of the manual on National Accounts, based in a document of the English economist Richard Stone (1913-1991) about the Accounts of the Institutional Sectors, which represent the origin of the current Integrated Economic Accounts (IEC).  Stone was laureated in 1984 with the Nobel Prize in Economics.  Later on, in 1968, the second version of the United Nations manual on National Accounts was published.  It incorporated the contributions of the Russian economist Wassily Leontief (1906-1999), living in the United States, about the study of the inter-sector relations of the economy, which originated the current Tables of Resources and Uses (TRU). Leontief received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1973.

In 1993, the United Nations published the third version of the manual on National Accounts. Many of the methodological recommendations of the manual of 1993 are being incorporated by the IBGE in this publication of the Base 2000 of the System of National Accounts of Brazil.  In 2008, the United Nations Statistical Commission shall approve the fourth version of the manual of National Accounts.

The updatings of the statistics of the IBGE are not limited to the calculation of the GDP.  The Institute already is preparing future surveys and new methods, and is analyzing new data sources, which, in the following ten years, will modernize even more the National Statistical System.  Among the innovations being analyzed by the Surveys Department of the IBGE, are the following:

a) Integrated System of Household Surveys – for the integration of the samples of the PNAD (Household National Sample Survey), POF (Consumer Expenditure Survey), ECINF (Informal Urban Economy) and PME (Monthly Employment Survey). The accomplishment of the annual Consumer Expenditure Surveys will provide more information for the National Accounts to calculate the consumption of families.  Also, employment indicators will be produced in all the national territory;

b) Expansion of the IPCA (Extended National Consumer Price Index) to all the national territory;

c) Study of different approaches regarding the Demographic Census, in order to update annually the estimates of population for all the Brazilian municipalities;

d) Continuous use of data provided by the Declaration of Economic and Fiscal Information of the Juridical Person (DIPJ) in the National Statistical System. This will reduce the load of the companies which take part in the sample surveys of the IBGE and will turn regularly the elaboration of the account of companies in the Integrated Economic Accounts (IEC) of the National Accounts.