1. Economic and Financial Statistics and Indicators for Multilateral Surveillance PEEIs, PGIs and International Data Templates Werner Bier Deputy Director General Statistics European Central Bank Third International Seminar on Early Warning and Business Cyclical Indicators Moscow, 17 – 19 November 2010

2. 2 Overview Multilateral surveillance and policy coordination Status quo of official statistics – achievements and challenges Principal European Economic Indicators (PEEIs) Principal Global Indicators (PGIs) and their optimisation International data templates Conclusions

3. 3 Multilateral surveillance and policy coordination The recent financial and economic crisis illustrated the degree of interdependence among major economic areas in an economically globalised world Policy responses are still bound to be national and only in exceptional cases supranational (e.g. ECB) Uncoordinated national policy responses are insufficient and can be counterproductive for the world economy Group of 20 (G-20) Leaders' statement from Seoul summit on 11-12 November 2010. Enhancement of the Mutual Assessment Process (MAP) to promote external sustainability: “We will strengthen multilateral cooperation to promote external sustainability and pursue the full range of policies conducive to reducing excessive imbalances and maintaining current account imbalances at sustainable levels.”

4. 4 Multilateral surveillance and policy coordination Specific economic and financial statistics/indicators suitable for national policies are not sufficient Main requirements to official statistics: –Comparable statistics/indicators for countries/ economic areas (e.g. current account) –Global/G-20 statistical aggregates (e.g. G-20 GDP) –Easy accessibility of official statistics/indicators G-20 Leaders in Seoul: Persistently large imbalances, assessed against indicative guidelines to be agreed by our finance ministers and central bank governors, warrant an assessment of their nature and the root causes of impediments to adjustment as part of the MAP,... These indicative guidelines composed of a range of indicators would serve as a mechanism to facilitate timely identification of large imbalances that require preventive and corrective actions to be taken

5. 5 Status quo of official statistics - achievements Agreed and up-to-date international statistical standards/methodology (e.g. SNA 2008; BPM6) Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics and agreed Quality frameworks (e.g. IMF DQAF, European Statistical System Code of Practice, European System of Central Banks public commitment on European statistics) Statistical Data and Metadata eXchange (SDMX) sponsored by seven international and supranational organisations and supported by the UNSC Decades of experience in compiling national statistics International network and governance (e.g. UNSC, IMF BOPCOM, OECD CSTAT, IFC, CCSA) and partly supranational governance (e.g. legislation by Eurostat & European System of Central Banks)

6. 6 Status quo of official statistics - challenges Statistical requirements are only partly agreed among international and supranational organisations (ISOs) Flow of data from the various national authorities to the respective various ISOs is hardly discussed Compliance of national authorities with international statistical standards is uneven Compliance monitoring by ISOs of the quality of national statistics/indicators is uneven Almost no (timely) global/G-20 aggregates (exceptions e.g. UN population, UN external trade, OECD GDP, OECD CPI, OECD unemployment) Competition between commercial data providers and ISOs’ Economic/Research Departments (e.g. IMF World Economic Outlook)

7. 7 Principal European Economic Indicators (PEEIs) Allocation of responsibilities on European statistics between Eurostat and the European Central Bank, partly integrated compilation (e.g. BOP, SDMX) Statistical requirements (e.g. methodology and transmission programme (e.g. coverage, frequency, timeliness, seasonal adjustment, SDMX coding)) mostly legislated) European aggregates are published by pre-announced (Eurostat or ECB) statistical press releases; detailed European and national statistics are published on websites and Statistical Data Warehouses Continuous compliance monitoring of the national contributions to European statistics “European statistics first”: not necessarily complete country coverage or published national contributions

8. 8 Principal Global Indicators (PGIs) The PGIs http:www.principalglobalindicators.org/default.aspx http:www.principalglobalindicators.org/default.aspx Are developed by seven ISOs (BIS, ECB, Eurostat, IMF, OECD, World Bank and partly the UN) Focus on the G-20 economies (and 5 Financial Stability Board (FSB) countries) and on key economic and financial statistics/indicators Website is updated with statistics/indicators available in existing databases of the supporting ISOs Will become gradually SDMX compliant Are supported by visualisation tools (e.g. http:kosis.kr/http://kosis.kr/nsportal/bulletin/html/index_eng.html#) Will be complemented by selected global/G-20 aggregates (e.g. GDP growth rates) Are a supporting tool of the G-20 Mutual Assessment Process (MAP)

9. 9 Principal Global Indicators (PGIs) – Optimisation The Inter-Agency Group on Economic and Financial Statistics (IAG), comprising the seven ISOs, gradually enhances the PGIs by Harmonising the (detailed) statistical requirements among the seven ISOs and across different statistics (a pilot project focuses on government finance statistics and its integration with e.g. securities issues statistics) Agreeing on the PGI data sources/flow among the seven ISOs and thereby the responsibilities for compliance monitoring (e.g. euro area country > Eurostat/ECB > OECD, BIS > IMF, UN, World Bank) Developing SDMX data structure definitions for file transfers (push mode) or downloading of files from ISO or country websites (pull mode) Involving the G-20 economies where needed (e.g. explaining main divergences from the requirements)

10. 10 International data templates The international statistical standards/methodologies need complementary implementation programmes i.e. data templates specifying the covered statistics/ indicators, their timeliness, frequency, seasonal and working day adjustment, etc. The data templates may be designed modular with a “Tier 1 module” for main aggregates and a “Tier 2 module” for detailed breakdowns while a further Tier module may refer to specificities of the economy The data templates need to be complemented by SDMX compliant data structure definitions for comfortable access to and exchange of at least Tier 1 (and Tier 2) statistics/indicators Development and maintenance of international data templates require both technical expertise and governance

11. 11 Conclusions Official statistics is called upon to support multilateral surveillance in a world of increasing economic interdependencies among main economies The international and national statistical authorities have the technical and organisational means to master this challenge by close cooperation In addition to an agreed medium- to longer-term vision for official statistics, limited pilot exercises are needed in the short-term in order to exercise and prove effective international cooperation The coordinated implementation of the PGIs and the data template for a core set of high frequency indicators is such a short-term pilot exercise