110. From Norway, the Group received a detailed description of a,mllltary price indexing system which had been developed in 1977 through joint efforts by the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bureau of Statistic6 in order to give the Norwegian political authorities the necessary background information for their budget decisions. As mentioned above, the Norwegian Contact also supplied the Group with the statistical information (on an aggregate level) which the Norwegian authorities used for their construction of a military price index. 111. The United States submitted a large documentation concerning its system of military price indexing together with a great number of indexes on different levels of aggregation. It also supplied the actual index figures of 1980-1982 for total United States military expenditures, figures which are based on more than 4,000 detailed indexes for different types of military gOOdB and Bervlces. / . . . A/40/4 21 English Page 44 112. In Finland, there is no official military price index but the Ministry of Defence uses for its internal budgeting and accounting purposes a number Of predominantly civilian price indexes. The Group has been able to construct a separate Finnish military price index using index figures and expenditure weights submitted by its Finnish contact. 113. Comparing the military price indexes of Norway, the United States and Finland, as described above, with the indexes constructed by the Group, it is interesting to note that there is a striking similarity between the results obtained in these two different ways for both Norway and the United States. Concerning the results for Finland, the main part of the difference might be explained by the use of different rates of salary and wage increases. The rates used by the Finnish Ministry of Defence for its own calculations are considerably higher than the rates reflected 
**Analysis**
The text appears to be discussing the development and comparison of military price indexes in different countries, including Norway, the United States, and Finland. This suggests that the topic is related to the economic and financial aspects of military spending, rather than any of the other categories.

**Category**
Economic development, Industry