and the Caribbean (ECLAC) , the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and / . . . 1 A/40/421 English Page 11 Development (OECD), the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA), and the European Economic Community (EEC), have devoted special efforts to the construction of PPPs for the purpose of comparing large economic aggregates, such as gross domestic product, government expenditure, private consumption, among their respective member countries. Methods applied by and experiences gained in some of these projects have naturally been of great interest and value to the Group's own exercise. 19. Although there are precedents in the civilian field with regard to the construction of PPPs, the present exercise represents the first attempt to construct such parities for military expenditures. Furthermore, one is likely to find great differences between the civilian and military sectors, especially with regard to the availability of data. In that sense, this exercise may be regarded as a pioneering project. 20. In spite of these differences and in spite of the fact that this exercise concentrates only on one type of expenditure, its scope and nature is all the same very similar to those of the above-mentioned projects. In this context it might be worth noting that tasks of this kind are usually assigned to a permanent Staff devotinq itself entirely to the project in auestion in close and continuous co-operation with participating countries over the course of several years. In view of its mandate, the Group of Experts has had to carry out its exercise under cuite different conditions. 21. The purpose of the Group's exercise is, however, not primarily to provide a set of fully concrete military price indexes and PPPs for immediate use in comparing the military expenditures af the countries participating in this particular exercise. The purpose is rather to assess the feasibility of 
**Analysis**
The text appears to be discussing economic aggregates and the construction of purchasing power parities (PPPs) for military expenditures. The context is international, involving organizations such as the OECD, ECLAC, and CMEA. The language used is technical and focused on economic data and analysis. This suggests that the category is likely related to economics.

**Category**
Economic development, International trade