This is a journal version of the report of the Chairman of the National Statistical Committee of the Republic of Belarus at the XII International Scientific and Practical Conference «The Economic Growth of the Republic of Belarus: Globalization, Innovation, Sustainability», held in Minsk (Republic of Belarus) on May 16, 2019.

The authors consider basic provisions of the Government Finance Statistics Manual (GFSM) published in 2014 by the IMF in the context of its harmonization with the 2008 SNA and taking into account the need to adapt it to Russian conditions. There is a uniformity of basic GFSM and 2008 SNA principles. The article, however, covers differences between these two systems that lie in the treatment of some important transactions. The authors consider issues of coordination between the mentioned above international statistical standards.

A special section is devoted to questions of applying the GFSM to national statistics, which is possible based on adjustments to some fundamental - from conceptual and methodological position - considerations that are implemented in the Russian practice. Thus, there are several shortcomings that, according to the authors, need to be addressed: a vague distinction between the classifications of income and financial transactions, the use of the valuation principle for transactions at the time of acquisition of goods, and not at its actual consumption in the production process. The authors point out specific flaws in the most recent version of the Russian budget classification («Classification of Transactions of Public Administration Sector» - KOSGU).
The final part of the article organizes the author’s proposals regarding the directions and priorities in improving Russian government finance statistics.

Environmental and ecological statistics in Russia is still under formation. Despite the widespread recognition of the importance of providing economic growth within the environmental constraints, there continues to be significant lack of data that could be used to identify trends in the sustainable development, especially at the regional level. The authors argue that genuine savings, a complex indicator of sustainable development, could become such a statistic tool.

The analysis shows that today Russia has gained extensive experience in assessing the sustainability of regional development using this indicator, but a comprehensive system for its assessment requires elaboration so that it could be established, as a regular practice in public administration.
The article describes fundamental methodological issues of calculating the individual components of genuine savings through the current statistical accounting system in Russia. The paper considers conditions necessary to correctly estimate this indicator and ensure inter-regional and cross-country comparability of the results of such calculations.
A version of the method for calculating genuine savings that is presented in this article requires an update of the system of statistical accounting in Russia. Practical application of this method along with the improvement of the system of statistical accounting shall allow for an adequate sustainability assessment of a particular region. This, in turn, shall provide a basis for establishing regional policies to compensate for resource depletion by investing in other types of capital.

In 2019, the BRICS Association celebrates its anniversary - it is ten years since the first BRICS summit, at which the BRICS group was created. Currently, the extractive industry in BRICS countries plays a strategic role. The purpose of the article is to characterize the economic growth in the extractive industry of the BRICS countries on the example of oil, gas, coal, iron ore, and gold mining. The article for the first time provides a comparative analysis of the BRICS countries of the dynamics, structure, and results of the development of the resource base since the beginning of the XXI century.
Based on statistical data, the author studied the balances of  production, export, import, consumption of fuel and energy resources and resources of the mining industry. The article highlights the main problems that Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa  faced at the beginning of the XXI century in the mining industry. It is concluded that the primary development goals of the BRICS mining industry are to increase labor productivity, reduce manual labor, increase labor security, improve the environmental situation in the areas of resource extraction. At the same time, the implementation of these goals is impossible without an innovative modernization of the extractive industry.

The article contains statistical analysis of the current state and major activities of the Russian metallurgical complex. The paper discusses the role of globalization in the formation of trends at the industry level. The analysis of key development trends in the global metallurgy market over the past decade has reflected the spasmodic dynamics of the industry, that, according to the authors, was caused primarily by the waves of the global financial crisis. Other key trends include the change in the regional distribution of both steel production and consumption. In the last decade Russian metallurgical industry also keenly reacted to changes in the global market situation in response to the crisis, but gradually began restoring its position and production volumes. The paper considers a financial performance of companies, which in general determine the current development level of the national metallurgical complex, using official statistics.