1. Briefing on the work of the Inter-agency Group on Economic and Financial Statistics Future organisation of the data flow among national and international agencies Werner Bier Deputy Director-General Statistics European Central Bank United Nations Statistical Commission 2012 Side Event New York, 29 February 2012

2. 22 Overview Multilateral surveillance and policy coordination Status quo of official statistics – achievements and challenges Harmonised statistical reporting templates Implementation of SDMX Coordinated databases among international agencies Reference websites incl. G-20/global aggregates

3. 33 Multilateral surveillance and policy coordination I The financial and economic crisis illustrates the degree of interdependence among major economic areas in a globalised world Multilateral policy responses are crucial for strong, sustainable and balanced growth Enhanced and globally-comparable economic and financial statistics/indicators are needed

4. 44 Multilateral surveillance and policy coordination II Main requirements for official statistics due to enhanced multilateral surveillance and policy coordination Comparable statistics/indicators for countries/ economic areas (e.g. public debt and fiscal deficits; private savings rate, private debt; external imbalance) Easy accessibility of official statistics/indicators G-20/global statistical aggregates (e.g. G-20 GDP)

5. 55 Status quo of official statistics - achievements International statistical standards/methodology, see “Global Inventory of Statistical Standards” Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics and agreed Quality frameworks (e.g. IMF DQAF, European Statistical System Code of Practice, ESCB public commitment on European statistics and detailed quality reports) Statistical Data and Metadata eXchange (SDMX) sponsored by international agencies and supported by the UN Statistical Commission

6. 66 Status quo of official statistics - challenges Core statistical reporting templates harmonised among international agencies (scope, frequency, timeliness, revisions/vintages, seasonal adjustment, …) World-wide and across statistical domains implementation of SDMX Coordinated databases among international agencies and reference websites Agreements on the agencies that sponsor and the agency that releases G-20/global aggregates

7. 7 Harmonised statistical reporting templates The scope needs to be based on international statistical standards and user demand (e.g. due to multilateral surveillance) The harmonisation commences with a core set within a statistical domain First domains selected: government finance statistics, sector accounts, securities statistics, international investment position Implementation timetable and commitments to be agreed with national and international agencies

8. 8 Implementation of SDMX IT standards and Content-oriented guidelines (see SDMX website) Missing link: Data Structure Definitions (DSDs) and domain specific Code Lists First priority for economic and financial statistics: coordinated DSDs for SNA 2008 and BPM6 Second priority: “derived” DSDs, e.g. for GFS DSD development and maintenance including governance structures

9. 9 Coordinated databases Core parts of the databases of international agencies should be updated timely (within seconds! after new releases) and consistently. Objective: automated (without manual intervention) interaction among websites applying SDMX (test : ECB – IMF) Transition period: structured data flow from national to and among international agencies Quality assurance: the quality of each time series is ensured by just one international agency

10. 10 Reference websites incl. G-20/global aggregates Reference websites sponsored by several international agencies for core indicators and harmonised reporting templates (e.g. the Principal Global Indicator (PGI) website) Comparable statistics among countries/ economies including metadata G-20/global aggregates and economy breakdowns (e.g. quarterly G-20 GDP growth rates at t+70) sponsored by several international agencies and released by one of them