International Symposium
"In Pursuit of Statistics for Sustainable Development in Asia"
FINANCIAL AND ECONOMIC STATISTICS
FOR A GLOBAL ECONOMY:
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN ASIA
Celine Sia
Senior Economist,Ecnomics Department
Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)
Singapore
written by
Dr.Soon Teck Wong
Director
Economic Accounts Division
Department of Statistics
Sibgapore
ABSTRACT
In today's increasingly globalised world, economic and financial activities of countries have become inextricably inter-linked. Monitoring of the domestic economy within the national boundary is no longer sufficient. As recent events in Asia have shown, a financial crisis in one country can result in ramifications across national borders with possibly adverse consequences for neighbouring countries.
The ability of policy-makers, analysts and market participants to understand financial and economic developments depends on the availability of timely and accurate data. This explains the efforts of the IMF to establish international standards of data dissemination. This paper reiterates the case for these and other initiatives. In addition, the paper also highlights the latest revisions to statistical frameworks by international agencies and draws attention to the challenges and burdens imposed on Asian countries by the need to implement these standards and frameworks.
The importance of these standards and frameworks in ensuring comparability of economic and financial statistics across countries is discussed. However, the paper explains that these standards notwithstanding, comparability is an elusive objective. The implementation of the international standards will vary in accordance with the unique circumstances and level of statistical development of each country. The paper then discusses some international and regional initiatives to provide almost comparable trade and investment statistics.
Singapore's perspective is discussed in the paper. As a major financial centre and trading economy, Singapore recognises the importance of timely and reliable information. This is reflected in Singapore's commitment and support for the international initiatives introduced in recent years to increase the accessibility and ensure the transparency of economic and financial statistics.
While the implementation of statistical Standards and frameworks is not an easy task under any circumstance, the recent events have confirmed its importance for sustainable development in a complex global economy. The paper concludes that Asian countries as a group should promote the development of their statistical systems to produce and disseminate timely economic and financial information to maintain a stable financial and economic order.
