Statistics Explained

Glossary:Changes in inventories

Changes in inventories (or stocks) are defined as the difference between additions to and withdrawals from inventories. In national accounts they consist of changes in:

  • stocks of outputs that are still held by the units that produced them prior to their being further processed, sold, delivered to other units or used in other ways;
  • stocks of products acquired from other units that are intended to be used later for intermediate consumption or for resale without further processing;
  • work in progress, which are goods being processed but not yet delivered to the user at the end of the accounting period;
  • strategic stocks managed by government authorities (food, oil, stocks for market intervention).

In the national accounts changes in inventories are shown as a change in assets in the capital account.


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