Speech

International Capital Data: Needs, Projects, and Prospects, Speech by Carol S. Carson, Director, IMF Statistics Department

July 11, 2002

1. This conference, which brings together data users and data compilers, is an important opportunity. My colleagues at the IMF and I are pleased to see one session of the conference devoted to international capital data. These data are a key to tracking and understanding developments that play a major role in international financial stability, sustainable economic growth, and poverty reduction. An international conference held at the IMF two and a half years ago brought out clearly the differing perspectives on capital flows and debt statistics, and participants concluded that it would be important to continue a dialogue. Our discussions today are well timed to be part of that dialogue.

2. With this idea in mind, I will use the proceedings of the 2000 Capital Flows Conference as a reference point. Box 1 presents a summary of the main views expressed at the Conference about needs and priorities. In this paper, I will highlight several projects that are moving, I hope, toward satisfying some of those needs. These projects include the new guide on external debt for data compilers and users, the consolidated portfolio investment survey coordinated worldwide by the IMF, assessments of data quality, and data dissemination. In our discussions, we can consider the progress made and ask whether developments in the last two and a half years shed any new light on priorities for statistics on capital flows and debt. I mention plans and prospects related to these projects and in other areas, most notably the research toward a new Balance of Payments Manual.