Press Release No. 12/113

Press Release No. 12/113
March 30, 2012

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) today completed its first seminar on Sectoral Balance Sheets and Accumulation Accounts at its Regional Training Institute in Singapore. This one-week seminar aimed to provide participants with the necessary skills to compile sectoral balance sheets and accumulation accounts (capital accounts, financial accounts, other changes in volume of assets accounts, and revaluation accounts).

The seminar was a follow-up to the Conference on Strengthening Sectoral Position and Flow Data in the Macroeconomic Accounts jointly organized by the IMF and OECD during February 28–March 2, 2011 to initiate the implementation of sectoral accounts in the Group of 20 (G-20) economies. Finance ministers and central bank governors of the G-20 economies endorsed 20 recommendations to address information gaps arising from the financial crisis. One of these recommendations calls for developing a strategy to promote the compilation and dissemination of sectoral accounts data more generally, starting with the G‑20 economies.

“It is important that we try to close the information gaps revealed by the global financial crisis. This seminar is part of the IMF’s effort to promote robust statistical systems that are able to capture the nature and intensity of linkages among (within) subsectors, and among (within) various economic functions—production, income and accumulation. An integrated statistical framework with a focus on the systemically important subsectors, activities, and functions could prove very useful in assessing economic and financial conditions,” Mr. Sunil Sharma, Director of the IMF-Singapore Regional Training Institute said in his introductory remarks.

The seminar attracted countries that compile, or are close to compiling sectoral balance sheets and accumulation accounts. It was attended by 24 officials from central banks and national statistical agencies of eight Asian countries and Hong-Kong¹. Participants discussed challenges they face in compiling these accounts and exchanged views on to how to encourage the use of the data in policy formulation.

The Fund plans to offer this seminar in other regions as part of its regular statistics training curriculum for member countries. IMF training courses and seminars are held at IMF headquarters in Washington, D.C., regional IMF training centers, and other locations around the world. The IMF-Singapore Regional Training Institute is a joint venture of the IMF and the Government of Singapore; the IMF receives substantial funding from the Government of Japan toward its share of the Institute’s costs, with important additional support from the Government of Australia.

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¹ China, Hong Kong, SAR, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Singapore, and Thailand.