Definition: Inventories

Category: SNA

Inventories are produced assets that consist of goods and services, which came into existence in the current period or in an earlier period, and that are held for sale, use in production or other use at a later date (SNA 2008, § 10.12).

Inventories consist of:

(a) 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; and

(b) Stocks of products acquired from other units that are intended to be used for intermediate consumption or for resale without further processing (SNA 1993, §10.7). http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/ramon/statmanuals/files/SNA2008.pdf United Nations, System of National Accounts (SNA) 1993, United Nations, New York, 1993