1. Moving into the 21 st Century: The IMF’s Transition to Data Communication ESDS International Annual Conference London, December 3, 2007

2. The Current Environment “Traditional” products in print, online, & CD-ROM ♦ Balance of Payments Statistics ♦ Direction of Trade Statistics ♦ Government Finance Statistics ♦ International Financial Statistics Supporting statistical materials in print and the web ♦ Manuals and Guides ♦ Pamphlets ♦ Official Reports

3. The Current Environment Online products but different formats ♦ IFS ♦ Static online tables: ♦ International Reserves ♦ Coordinated Portfolio Investment Survey ♦ Currency Composition of Foreign Exchange Reserves ♦ FTP site for large downloads

4. The Challenge Striving for Communication Rather than Dissemination How to balance traditional print products in an increasingly electronic world? How to send important messages to clients? How to develop effective products for many different audiences? How to offer support to clients with shrinking budgets? How to balance commitment to the goal of a public good with the need to generate revenue?

5. 2007 Developments New and enhanced online products ♦ Release of BOP and DOT online (January) ♦ Enhanced web interface (September) ■ Cosmetic facelift ■ More FAQs ■ New online help facility ■ New online tutorials ■ Expanded database documentation ■ http://www.imfstatistics.org/imf/http://www.imfstatistics.org/imf/

6. 2007 Developments ♦ Statistics Newsletter (October)

7. 2007 Developments Data Visualization: IMF Data Mapper ■ World Economic Outlook (October) ■ Balance of Payments Statistics Yearbook (December) ■ Regional Economic Outlooks (January)

8. Next Steps... Where to begin? ♦ Commencement of a project to develop a statistics portal to present data in a coherent fashion. ♦ Implement a metadata-driven environment. ♦ Understand and strengthen communications with key user groups. ♦ Track and analyze the questions received via StatisticsQuery@imf.org. StatisticsQuery@imf.org

9. Next Steps... Best practices in communications: ♦ Design a statistics portal that focuses users’ needs. ♦ Develop complementary print and electronic products. ♦ Offer sufficient metadata in clear English (“the democratization of metadata”). ♦ Provide robust search capabilities based on everyday terms as well as expert taxonomies. ♦ Survey users regularly. ♦ Provide helpful customer service.

10. Next Steps... ♦ Design a user-centric web ♦ Review content to meet user needs ♦ Develop new options for access ♦ Strengthen client support ♦ Create a client board ♦ Balance public good vs. revenues ♦ Develop outreach and education programs.

11. IMF Economic Information Management Environment IMF.ORG Statistics Portal Online Databases Publications PubStat? Data Dissemination Data Warehousing Data Collection National Sources ICS (Excel/ SDMXML) Area Depts DMX/Other? Data Management Research TBD? CD ROM Statistics EDF/ DMX Int’l Organizations OECD, World Bank, etc. Commercial Bloomberg, Global Insight, Haver Analytical, etc. Publishable Data IFS, WEO, REOs, etc. Internally Shared Data Area & Functional Depts., National Sources, Intl’l Organizations, Commercial Sources Limited Sharing WEO-related, etc.? IMF.Stat SDMX Fund-wide Metadata Standards (MetaStore, DSBB, SchemaLogic) Key Driving Initiatives SDMX WEO Production Redesign Structural Metadata (SchemaLogic) Economic Data Dissemination Data Analysis/ Visualization Econometric Tools Fame, Eviews,Stata 8 Dynamic/Interactive Graphics IMF Data Mapper