Background

• Pages: 1-2

Contenidos

• The 1997 SIMSDI Survey.
• The 2001 SIMSDI Update.

Page 1

1.1 This report examines the current practices regarding the statistical measurement of foreign direct investment (FDI) of the 30 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries ¹ and 31 of the other International Monetary Fund (IMF) member countries that participated in the 1997 Survey of Implementation of Methodological Standards for Direct Investment (SIMSDI). ² It is based on information obtained from the 2001 update of the SIMSDI. The report should provide useful information for FDI analysts and policymakers and indicates progress made in moving toward accordance with the agreed international standards for FDI data compilation that have been established by the IMF and OECD.

The 1997 SIMSDI Survey

1.2 At its October 1995 meeting, the IMF's Committee on Balance of Payments Statistics (the BOP Committee) decided to review the progress that countries had made in implementing the FDI standards set out in the fifth edition of the Balance of Payments Manual (BPM5 ³ ) , and the third edition of the OECD's Benchmark Definition of Foreign Direct Investment ⁴ (hereafter Benchmark ). The OECD was approached by the IMF about the possibility of conducting a joint IMF/OECD survey. This approach was timely because the OECD Council Recommendation, adopted in July 1995, had instructed the Committee on International Investment and Multinational Enterprises, in cooperation with the Working Party on Financial Statistics (the WPFS) to (1) continue coordinating within the OECD the collection of information on international direct investment and multinational enterprises, and (2) collect and publish at regular intervals transactions (flow) and position (stock) data on inward and outward FDI, accompanied by notes describing the areas where the methodology used by member countries differed from the Benchmark. At its October 1996 meeting, the BOP Committee supported a joint IMF/OECD survey of IMF and OECD member countries to determine the extent to which countries had adopted the international standards for compiling FDI statistics.

1.3 In May 1997, the IMF and the OECD launched the SIMSDI after consulting with the BOP Committee and the WPFS, which had endorsed the proposal in April 1997. The SIMSDI was a comprehensive survey of data sources, collection methods, and dissemination and methodological practices for FDI statistics. (Similar surveys had been conducted in 1983...