ANNUAL REPORT 2008 - Polymer Bank Notes of the World

iii) payments statistics and iv) detailed dataon the HICP and GDP. The ECB’s StatisticalData Warehouse (SDW) is an increasinglypopular tool for accessing euro area statisticson the internet. In 2008 more financial marketstatistics were incorporated into the SDWand the number of SDW users doubled toaround 40,000 per month. The launch of a newinteractive visualisation tool for monitoringinflation on the ECB’s website is also part ofa better communication strategy with regardto euro area statistics. Finally, a wider rangeof statistics and indicators was presented invarious regular ECB publications, such asthe “Euro money market survey”, the reportentitled “Financial integration in Europe” andthe Financial Stability Review.Several documents published in 2008 served toraise awareness about ECB and ESCB statistics,their governance and their quality. The ECBStatistical Quality Framework and qualityassurance procedures, 19 the updated publication“ECB statistics – an overview” 20 and thepublication of the proceedings of the fourthECB conference on statistics 21 are examples ofthe ECB’s transparency in this field.The ECB continued to cooperate closely withEurostat and other international organisations(for example, in the preparation of the joint2008 “Status report on information requirementsin EMU” and in the revision of Eurostat’s“ESA95 manual on government deficit anddebt”) and played an important role in theupdate of global statistical standards (with thework on the System of National Accounts 93,the IMF’s Balance of Payments Manual and theOECD Benchmark Definition of Foreign DirectInvestment). The ECB supports Eurostat in therevision of the ESA 95. The ESA 95 guides aseries of policy decisions at the European level.The ECB also supports and implements globaltechnical standards for data exchange. Togetherwith the NCBs, the IMF and the BIS, it alsodeveloped a handbook on securities statistics.Finally, the ECB released an update of its“Government finance statistics guide”. 22Statistics for the euro area were adapted toaccount for the entry of Cyprus and Malta on1 January 2008. No problems were encounteredthanks to the long-term preparation undertakenby these countries, even before they joined theEU, in close cooperation with the ECB andother Member States. In addition, as in previousyears, statistics played an important role inmonitoring the convergence of EU MemberStates that do not yet belong to the euro area.The ECB, together with the central banks ofthese Member States, also assisted Eurostatwith the provision of long-term interest rateand exchange rate statistics, and collected andcompiled additional statistics supplementingthe four primary convergence indicators in theECB’s 2008 Convergence Report (see Section 1of Chapter 3).4.3 THE MEDIUM-TERM WORK PROGRAMME FORTHE ECB’S STATISTICAL FUNCTION (2009-12)The medium-term work programme for theECB’s statistical function (2009-12) waspublished on the ECB’s website in July 2008. 23It is the result of a detailed analysis and aims tofurther increase the efficiency and effectivenessof the collection and compilation of euro areastatistics, with a view to using the resultingefficiency gains to close some remaining gaps.Improvements are expected to be made in theform of, among other things: i) more detailedsecurities holdings statistics, ii) better data oncredit derivatives, iii) the compilation of timelyquarterly statistics on insurance corporationsand pension funds and iv) the enhanced re-useof available micro-data for statistical purposes.The latter include data derived from corporatefinancial statements held in national centralbalance sheet offices and information available19 http://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/html/sqf.en.html20 http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/ecbstatisticsanoverview2008en.pdf21 http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/strategicvisionstatistics2008en.pdf22 http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/governmentfinancestatisticsguide200812en.pdf23 http://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/html/workprogramme.en.htmlECBAnnual Report2008125