The Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics (MDPS) today released the eighth issue of the quarterly publication “Window on Economic Statistics of Qatar”. The reference quarter of this issue is the first quarter of 2014 (Q1 2014). The main objective of this report is to collate in one document all the latest key macroeconomic indicators, including  national accounts and Prices, public finance, and balance of payments.Part 1: contains a Dashboard that compares the economic performance of Qatar with other economies and regions in terms of three indicators, namely real GDP growth rate, inflation rate as measured by the CPI and current account balance as % of GDP. The economic performance of Qatar in terms of these three indicators compares Qatar favorably with that of the other countries and regions. It is worth mentioning that Qatar real GDP growth rate of 6.5% is among the highest performance in 2013, similar to that of Developing Asia which also grew at 6.5%, while the estimate for the “World” works out to 3.0%, and that for Advanced economies is 1.3%. As regards, the CPI inflation, Qatar inflation rate of 3.1% in 2013 is slightly lower than that of the World (3.8%) but much lower than the 10.5% posted in the Middle East and North Africa, and the 5.8% registered in the “Emerging markets and developing economies”. Qatar is among the few countries which post positive current account balance representing around 30% of GDP. Part 2 : presents an analysis of the latest economic statistics published by the Economic Statistics Department of MDPS relating to Quarterly GDP, CPI, PPI, Exports and Imports and compares the performance in the first quarter of 2014 with that of the corresponding quarter of 2013 and, with that of the previous quarter. Part 3 : contains articles on selected themes titled “Differences between the 2008 System of National Accounts (2008 SNA) and the 1993 System of National Accounts (1993 SNA)”. The main changes introduced in 2008 SNA can be grouped in 6 Sections as follows:• Further specifications of statistical units and revisions in institutional sectoring.• Further specifications of the scope of transactions including the production boundary.•  Extension and further specification of the concepts of assets, capital formation and consumption of fixed capital.• Further refinement of the treatment and definition of financial instruments and definition of financial instruments and assets.• Further specifications of the scope of transactions concerning government and public sector.• Harmonization between concepts and classifications of the SNA and BPM6.