IMF releases comprehensive data on reserves and related information on Internet

• Author: Anne Y. Kester
• Position: IMF Statistics Department
• Pages: 222-223

Page 222

The IMF's Executive Board in March 2000 approved the establishment of a database on countries' international reserves and related information to be available on the IMF's website. The database, operational since October 2000, is accessible at http://www.imf.org/external/np/sta/ir/index.htm.

Countries' data on the IMF website are presented in a common format and in a common currency. The objectives are to facilitate comparisons of international reserves and related information among countries, provide market participants and other users easy access to the data, and promote transparency of information of important interest. Users of the IMF database include market analysts, financial institutions, researchers, country authorities, and the press.

Development of the IMF database was possible because many countries over the past year began to disseminate information using the data template on international reserves and foreign currency liquidity.

The IMF and a working group of the Committee on the Global Financial System of the Group of Ten central banks jointly developed the template. The template is designed to provide a comprehensive presentation of a country's official foreign currency assets and drains on such resources resulting from various foreign currency liabilities and commitments of the authorities. Such information can be used to assess the adequacy of countries' reserves, the authorities' exposure to foreign currency risks, and the official sector's short-term financing needs, among others.

Guidelines and technical support

Specifically, the template reports the amount and composition of official reserve assets, other foreign currency assets held by the monetary authorities and the central government, and the foreign currency obligations of the monetary authorities and the central government coming due in the short term, including those related to their financial derivative positions and guarantees extended for quasi-official and private sector borrowing. The international financial crises of the late 1990s have underscored the importance of the public disclosure of such information by countries on a timely and accurate basis. Such information is critical to assessing the external vulnerability of countries, especially for those under managed or pegged exchange rate regimes.

[ GRAPHICS ARE NOT INCLUDED ]

To assist countries in compiling the template data and to...