Press Release No. 11/263

Press Release: IMF Helps Poland Improve Balance of Payments Data

June 29, 2011

At the request of the Polish authorities, a mission from the Statistics Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) visited Poland in June 2011 to provide technical assistance in improving the country’s balance of payments statistics. The principal objective of the staff mission was to review work that the National Bank of Poland (NBP) and Central Statistical Office recently completed that resulted in the revisions in the external sector accounts that were released on June 29, 2011. The mission also advised the NBP on areas of potential future investigations to improve the quality of its external sector statistics.

The mission welcomed the in-depth research undertaken by the authorities into the reasons behind a high and increasing level of errors and omissions in the Polish balance of payments accounts in recent years. It concluded that the revisions to the Polish data that were published on June 29, 2011 are based on appropriate compilation techniques. The mission also welcomed the continued commitment of the authorities to conduct investigations that could result in further improvements to the quality of their balance of payments data.

The mission appreciates the excellent support provided by the NBP and the high quality of discussions on a number of complex technical matters.

The IMF provides capacity-building technical assistance to its member countries in its key fields of expertise, including fiscal policy, monetary policy, financial markets, and economic and financial statistics.