The year 1966 was the first for which Tunisia prepared an annual economic plan, as it has done every year since then. These plans are published, usually in April for the year concerned, the latest available at the time of writing being Rapport sur le budget économique de l'année 1970 (Tunis, 1970). Such documents are in the nature of forecasts, and experience has taught that plans are not automatically achieved. But the full report on implementation does not appear until two years later; for example, Rapport d'execution du plan pour l'année 1968 (Tunis, 1970). Meanwhile, in order to know whether in reality things are moving as foreseen in the annual plan, monthly data have been collected since 1968 concerning a number of important economic indicators, including government capital expenditure, drawings on foreign project loans, levels of domestic production, imports, exports, and the finance received by private enterprise from banks and government subsidies.