Database/Table Design for Global Country Statistics

Hi there,

I learned in another posting that my table design - in a polite way -
"could be improved".

So, before doing any additional design errors, I would like to get
feedback, if possible.

I am dealing with some 500 tables for worldwide national statistics
(GDP, population, environment etc.), covering approx. 30 years each.
For each of these variables, I usually have as well (pre-prepared)
subregional and regional aggregations too. These could - and should -
at the end be calculated on-the-fly, and not pre-calculated and
imported from Excel as it is for the moment.

My (national) table for a given variable is in the moment as follows
(id being the identifier for a specific country):

id | 1970 | 1971 | ... | 2004 | 2005
-------------------------------------------------------------------
1 | NULL | 36 | ... | 42 | 45
2 ......

The new design would be like this:

id | year | value
-------------------------------
1 | 1970 | NULL
1 | 1971 | 36
1 ....
1 | 2005 | 45
2 | 1970 | ....
2 .....

Would that be considered as "good table design" then?

Thanks for any advice!

Stef